'Aristocrats, your Grace? We have no aristocrats here.'

'That I know, fool; but you know where they are hiding.'

'No, no, your Grace: I swear by the Madonna we have no aristocrats here.'

Inside the hut a woman alternately prayed and wept with long, dry sobs; but Ramage realized the man was denying only that anyone was hidden in the hut, apparently avoiding a direct denial that he knew where they were.

‘How many have you in your family?' he demanded.

'Seven, your Grace: my widowed mother, my wife, my four children and my brother.'

'Do you want them all to starve, ungrateful pig?'

'No - no, your Grace. Why should they?' he asked in surprise.

'Because in ten seconds, if you don't tell me where the aristocrats are, you'll join your dead father and the Madonna and all those saints your stupid priests tell you about!'

It would do no harm to give these peasants perhaps their first warning that Bonaparte's men, despite their Red Cap of Liberty and bold talk of freedom, were atheists.

But the effect on the peasant was extraordinary: he straightened himself up and faced Ramage squarely. As the woman continued sobbing inside the hut, he said with calm simplicity: 'Kill me, then: I tell you nothing.' He stood waiting for Ramage's cutlass to drive into his belly.

This fellow, thought Ramage, had a sense of honour: if some of those damned effete Italian aristocrati, mincing and dancing and gossiping their lives away in Siena and Florence - at least until Bonaparte arrived - could see the courage shown on their behalf by one of the contadini they might not despise them so much.

The man was simple, brave and honourable; but the last two virtues also revealed he knew where the refugees were. The Admiral's orders had mentioned the charcoal burner's hut', which implied there was only one; so surely this must be the charcoal burner in question ... Ramage decided to take the chance.

The peasant was still waiting for the cutlass to plunge into his stomach, so Ramage stepped back a pace, as if to gain more room to strike the fatal blow, then suddenly thrust the blade down vertically into the ground. Before the startled peasant realized what was happening Ramage seized him by the arm, leaving the cutlass in the ground, pushed him back into the hut - remembering to duck under the low doorway - and said gaily:

'Allora, Nino, siamo amici!’

'Dio! Perche? Chi siete voi?'

Why? We are friends because I am an English naval officer and I have come to help these people. Now, Nino, before we join them, what about some wine and bread; we have come a long way and we are hungry.'

‘”We”, signor?

It was working: the suddenly friendly voice, the request for wine...

'Jackson, come in here,' he called in English, 'and say something to me in English; anything man!'

Damn, it was dark in the hut: they could easily stick a knife in his ribs...

Jackson came in, stopping just inside the door, uncertain where Ramage was standing. 'Do you think this chap knows where they are, sir?'

'Yes, he does,' said Ramage, also speaking slowly. 'But I've got to convince him we are English.' He turned to the Italian. 'Nino, let us have some light with the wine, then you can look at me well.'

He heard the rustling of straw: it sounded as though a man - not Nino, whose arm he was still holding - was moving.

"Who is that?'

‘My brother.'

The woman stopped sobbing: that was a good sign: some reassurance was spreading through the hut, which stank of sweat, urine, cheese and sour, spilled wine.

The wine, only a few days old, would still be soaking into the casks and seeping out between the staves, so that it had to be topped up each day to expel the air which would otherwise turn it into vinegar.

The brother began striking a flint to light a candle, but Nino told him impatiently to use embers from the charcoal furnace outside. In a few moments he returned, one hand cupping the flame of a rush candle. The light was dim, but enough to illuminate the tiny hut. The wife, a black-eyed dumpling, was sitting up on a straw mattress in a corner, hands clasped across her breasts, as if she was naked, instead of being dressed in a flannel nightdress reaching up to her chin. An old woman, presumably the mother, with a face brown and wrinkled like a walnut, was crouching beside her, clearly terrified and plucking at the well-worn beads of a rosary with claw-like fingers. In another corner a goat munched contentedly and began to urinate with odorous unconcern.

Ramage saw that Nino was a stocky, black-haired man. Several days' growth of beard sprouted out from a smoke-grimed but open face, and his eyes were bloodshot. He wore black corduroy trousers and, despite the heat, a thick woollen vest - he 'turned in all standing’, as a seaman would say, except for his corduroy jacket, which was slung across the only chair in the room. Black corduroy - the uniform of the carbonaio, the charcoal burner.

‘Where are the children, Nino?'

'I sent them to stay with my sister in Orbetello.'

‘Yes, they would be safer there at a time like this.'

Nino fell into the trap. 'Yes, we thought so.'

'Some wine, Nino, eh?'

'I am sorry, Commandante, of course,' said Nino, 'we are not used to having visitors in the night.'

'But in the daytime?'

The Italian did not answer as he took his coat from the chair and flung it towards his wife.

'Will you be seated, Commandante? We are poor people. There is no chair for your attendant.'

Ramage sat down, and while Nino collected some bottles from the far corner of the room, his brother reached up into the rafters and brought down a round cheese and the remains of a long sausage. 'We have no bread,' he apologized.

The brother took a clasp knife from his pocket, opened out the curved blade, and wiped it on his trouser leg before cutting two segments of cheese and several slices of sausage. In the meantime Nino retrieved his jacket and used it to wipe the neck of two bottles.

'My uncle's wine, from near Port’ Ercole,' said Nino, proffering a bottle to each of them.

Suddenly there was a raucous bellow outside and Jackson sprang to the door, cutlass in hand, shouting, ‘What the hell's that?'

Nino roared with laughter and, guessing Jackson's question, said: 'At least I know you are not French soldiers: that's my donkey.'

Ramage laughed too: although for a moment alarmed, he recognized the noise almost at once. Presumably Jackson's seafaring life had prevented him recognizing the hoarse and agonized, starved-of-air bellowing of a peasant's most valued possession, his somaro.

'It's all right, Jackson, it's only a donkey.'

'My God, I thought someone was being strangled!'

'It's done the trick, though; he's realized a French soldier would recognize it immediately.'

Then Ramage remembered a remark Jackson had made earlier.

'If you were a woodsman, why didn't you recognize it?'

Jackson snorted indignantly, 'Sir! We used horses, not bloody mules!'

Ramage sipped the wine and Nino watched him carefully, for the moment more concerned about the stranger's verdict on the wine than the reason for the midnight visit.

'It's good, Nino: very good. It’s a long time since I tasted such as this. A very long time,' he repeated, hoping Nino would start questioning him.

'You speak Italian very well, Commandante.’

'Before I entered the Navy I lived for many years in Italy.'

'In Tuscany, no doubt'

'Yes - Siena, most of the time. And Volterra.'

‘With friends, perhaps?'

‘No, with my parents. But we had many friends there.'

‘Yes?' said Nino politely. Then as if satisfied with the information: 'The Commandante was asking about some nobles, I believe?'