Forty yards away, perhaps less. Ramage gripped his knife: one of them would die with him, he vowed viciously.

‘When I say "Go", duck and run round the horsemen, then up to the dunes.'

He'd go for the leading horse and hope she could dart past in the confusion, escaping before they could rein round and give chase. If he leapt low, knife at the horse's throat, perhaps he could escape the sabre; but anyway the hooves would get him. Jesus, what a way to die.

Suddenly from the top of the dunes above and just ahead of the horsemen a dark shape appeared: a strange figure uttering weird cries which made Ramage's blood run cold.

The leading horse promptly reared up on its hind legs, sending the rider crashing backwards to the ground: the second horse, unable to stop in time, cannoned into it, and the rider slid over its head. The third horse shied and then bolted back the way it had come, hitting the fourth horse a glancing blow and apparently unseating the rider, who fell off but, with one foot tangled in the stirrup, was dragged along the ground as all four horses galloped back along the beach, leaving three men lying on the sand.

It had taken perhaps ten seconds and it was Jackson again -waving branches he'd wrenched off the bushes. The American ran down to the three men, cutlass in hand. Ramage shuddered, but it had to be done.

'Quick!' Ramage grabbed the girl's arm, and ran towards the boat. A few moments later he could see the break in the line of the beach where the river met the sea: there was the gig.

'Not far now!'

But she was staggering from side to side, swaying as if about to faint. He hurriedly stuck the knife in his boot, picked her up, and ran to the boat where eager hands waited to lift her on board.

'We've got one Italian here already, sir,' called Smith. 'Another couple of chaps came and went away again.'

'Right - I'll be back in a moment.'

Jackson and one refugee to come. But what about Nino and his brother? He could not leave them here - they'd never escape.

He ran up the side of the dune. A few hours earlier he'd been lying there in the shade of a juniper, day-dreaming... 'Nino! Nino!'

‘Here, Commandante!’

The Italian was by the river bank, thirty yards away, towards the Tower.

Ramage ran towards him.

'Commandante- Count Pitti is lost!'

‘What happened?'

Shots rang out farther back along the dunes as Nino explained.

'He was with us as we ran to the boat. But when we got there he was missing. Count Pisano is on board.'

'So is the Marchesa. Nino - do you and your brother want to come with us?'

'No, thank you, Commandante: we can escape.'

'How?'

'Over there.' He gestured across the river.

'Go now, then, and hurry!'

He held out his hand and each man shook it.

'But Count Pitti, Commandante!’

'I'll find him - now go, quickly!'

More shots, closer now. 'You can do no more: now go, and God be with you.'

'And you, Commandante. Farewell then, and buon viaggio.'

With that they ran down the bank and plunged across the river.

Ramage could hear harness rattling to his left, the seaward side of the dunes. He ran along the ridge but a flash only twenty yards away made him fling himself sideways into the shelter of some bushes. The Frenchman must be a poor shot to miss at that range.

As Ramage broke through the other side of the bushes he heard more shots and suddenly five yards ahead of him saw a body sprawled face downwards in the sand. He ran over and found it was a man wearing a long cape. He knelt down, pulling the man over on to his back.

The shock made his head spin: in the moonlight he could see there was no face, just pulp: a shot through the back of the head...

So that was the remains of Count Pitti. Now there was only Jackson to account for.

He ran to the top of the ridge and yelled:

'Jackson - boat! Jackson - boat!'

'Aye aye, sir.'

The American was still back there among the dunes.

Ramage knew his responsibility was now with the boat and its precious passengers, and ran down the river bank. A few moments later Smith was hauling him on board.

'Just Jackson to come. Haul her off the bar - ship the tiller. Now, inboard you men,' he said to the seamen in the water as soon as he felt the boat floating free of the bottom.

When they had scrambled over the gunwale and reached their places on the thwarts he snapped, 'Oars ready! Oars out! When I say "Give way", give way smartly: our lives depend on it.'

Where the hell was Jackson? He spotted a group of men fifty yards away along the beach: they were kneeling - French soldiers taking aim! Choose, man: Jackson's life or the lives of six seamen and two Italian aristocrats highly valued by Admiral Jervis? What a bloody choice.

Wait, though: the soldiers had been galloping hard: they won't be able to take a steady aim.

He saw a man silhouetted for a moment against the top of the nearest dune, but the glimpse was enough for him to recognize Jackson's thin, loose-limbed figure.

‘Hurry, blast you!'

He unshipped the tiller again, put it on the thwart, and swivelled round, leaning over the transom ready to grab him. The American reached the water's edge and ran with the high step of a trotting horse as the water deepened.

Ramage was conscious of a stream of oaths babbled almost hysterically in Italian behind him just as he realized the French troops farther along the beach were firing. Someone was tugging his coat and pummelling him. Jackson had four yards to go.

The tugging and pummelling was more insistent: then he noticed a relationship between the Italian curses and the tugs. Now the man was pleading in high-pitched Italian. ‘For God's sake let us get away: hurry for the love of God.'

Three yards, two yards, one - he grabbed Jackson's wrists and yelled, 'Right men, give way together - handsomely now!' He gave an enormous heave which brought Jackson sprawling inboard over the transom, and from the grunt the American gave it was obvious the rudder head had caught him in the groin.

'Come on, out of the way!'

Ramage helped him with a shove and hurriedly shipped the tiller: the men had been rowing straight out to sea, which would keep them in range of the French that much longer. He put the tiller over, steering directly away from the soldiers, so the boat presented a smaller target. Just as he glanced back there were three flashes at the water's edge and one of the seamen groaned and fell forward, letting go of his oar.

Jackson leapt across just in time to grab the oar before it went over the side.

'Fix him up, Jackson, then take his place.'

By the time the French had reloaded, the boat would be almost out of sight, down-moon and against the darker western horizon.

The Italian was now squatting down on the floor boards, almost at his feet: Ramage realized he was there only after hearing a low, monotonous, gabbling of prayers in Latin and noticing some of the seamen muttering uneasily, not understanding what was going on. Prayers are all right in their place, he thought, but if gabbling them like a panic-stricken priest upsets the seamen, then the boat isn't the right place - fear spreads like fire.

He prodded the man with his foot and snapped in Italian,

'Basta! Enough of that: pray later, or in silence.'

The moaning stopped. The soldiers would have reloaded by now. Ramage looked back and could still distinguish the beach.

He sensed the men were jumpy and it was hardly surprising, since they'd been sitting in the boat, or standing beside it up to their waists in water, while a good deal of shooting was going on near by.

'Jackson,' he said conversationally, to reassure the men, 'that was a frightful noise you made on the beach. Where did you pick up the trick of charging cavalry single-handed?'