Captain Croucher glanced up. 'That is for us to decide. As it happens I have no questions. Have any of the members of the court anything to ask this witness?'

 'Where was Mr Ramage standing when he gave the order to wear ship?' asked Ferris.

 'On the nettings by the starboard mizen shrouds,' said Brown. 'He shouted at the Frenchies from there. I thought he was mad to stand up exposed like that, if you'll forgive me saying so, sir, 'cos apart from anything else if 'e got shot it meant I was in command again!'

 Ramage realized that Ferris would not be one of Captain Croucher's favourites by the time the trial ended: clearly Ferris wanted to underline the fact that Ramage had not been skulking somewhere out of the way of shot.

 'No more questions?' asked Croucher, in a voice that defied anyone to speak. 'Well, the prisoner may cross-examine the witness.'

 Anything Ramage said now could only be an anti-climax after Brown's bluff, honest and forthright narrative.

'I have no questions, sir,'

'Oh - oh well, read back the evidence, Mr Barrow.'

Only once did Brown interrupt, to make a correction, and  that was because Barrow had written that Ramage 'appeared dazed'.

 'I said "very dazed",' said Brown belligerently. 'Don't you go taking words out of my mouth!'

'Wait a moment, then,' said Barrow, picking up his pen.

 When he continued reading, Brown said, 'You read over that last bit again and make sure you've set it to rights!'

 The implication startled Barrow, but he slid his spectacles back up his nose and read it.

 'That's right: proceed, Mr Purser,' said Brown, making it clear that pursers should know they could not be trusted.

 When Barrow finished reading Brown was allowed to leave the court, and the next witness was called.

 Matthew Lloyd, the Carpenter's Mate, marched in and stood precisely where the Deputy Judge Advocate's pointing finger indicated. He was as thin as the planks he so often sawed, adzed and chiselled; his face was long and tanned, as if carefully carved from a narrow piece of close-grained mahogany.

 When Lloyd answered Barrow's routine questions about his name, rating and where he had been on the evening of the action, his voice was staccato, each word rapped out as if he was hammering in a row of flat-headed scupper nails. When he related what he knew about damage received during the action, he did it as precisely as if he had been marking out a piece of wood before starting to make some delicate cabinet work for the Captain. His answers were equally precise. No, he did not know exactly how many shot hit the hull because as soon as they plugged one hole another would appear. No, he wasn't sure which broadside it was that killed the captain but he thought it was the fifth; yes, he had been sounding the well up to then and at the time Captain Letts was killed there were three feet of water. Soon after that the ship seemed to be making nearly an inch of water a minute. No, he had not timed it with a watch, he told Captain Croucher, but it was a foot in less than fifteen minutes.

 There was no chance of keeping the ship afloat, he told Captain Blackman, because several shot had opened up the hull planking in way of the futtocks, and it was impossible  to fit shot plugs from inside the ship. No, he had not reported to Captain Letts that the pumps could not keep up with the leaks because by that time Captain Letts had been killed, but he had reported to the Master.

Yes, he told Captain Ferris, there had been a great deal of damage in addition to shot hitting the ship on the waterline; but he'd only mentioned those 'twixt wind and water because there were so many and they were his special concern.

 The first he knew of Mr Ramage being in command, he told Captain Blackman, was when Mr Ramage sent for him and asked the extent of the damage. What were Mr Ramage's exact questions? It was difficult to recall precisely but he remem­bered being very surprised that the Junior Lieutenant - if Mr Ramage would excuse him saying so - should be so thorough; and as soon as he was told the depth of water in the well Mr Ramage had worked out how many tons had flooded into the ship, roughly how much buoyancy remained, and how long - allowing for the fact that the lower the ship sank the faster the water would come in through the shotholes because the pres­sure increased with depth - the ship could stay afloat.

 'Yes, I know you know all about that, sir,' he said to Captain Blackman, 'but I'm giving my evidence and I'm describing what Mr Ramage said and did, and he was speaking out loud because - as far as I could see - he'd only just recovered from being knocked unconscious. Marvel to me,' he added, 'that he could work it out in his own head, anyway.'

 'Mr Ramage had worked out roughly how long it would be before the ship sank?' asked Ferris.

'Yes - between sixty and seventy-five minutes.'

 Ramage noticed Croucher was becoming increasingly rest­less: Ferris's questions were clearly annoying him, although Ramage knew that Ferris was only concerned with getting at the truth; while Blackman was, from Croucher's point of view, asking the wrong sort of questions: the Carpenter's mate was a steady man with a good memory, not at all intimidated by Blackman's hectoring manner. Blackman's blatant attempts to discredit Ramage were in fact only drawing attention tohis thoroughness.

 Finally Captain Croucher's restlessness became obvious even to the willing Blackman, who stopped questioning Lloyd.

'Has the court anything else to ask this witness?' asked Croucher. 'Very well, the prisoner may cross-examine.'

There were only two points to make - purely for the record.

‘You definitely remember my estimate of the length of time before the ship sank, with the damage there then was and the pumps out of action?'

 'Yes, sir, quite clearly: particularly as you said it in minutes, and not "between an hour and an hour and a quarter".'

 'How long, in your estimation, passed between my making that estimate and the French setting the ship on fire after we had left?'

'More than half an hour, sir.'

'Why do you think they set her on fire?'

 Captain Croucher interrupted: 'Opinion is not evidence, Mr Ramage.'

 'If you'll forgive me, sir, I am questioning the beliefs of a professional man about his own subject, not asking his opinion.'

'Don't argue with the court.'

 Ramage bowed and turned back to the Carpenter's Mate: the question was perfectly in order, but it was unnecessary to argue with Croucher since it could be asked in another way.

 'If I had ordered you to lay a fuse to blow up the ship at that time after I made the estimate, could you have obeyed?'

'No, sir.'

‘Why not?'

'The magazine and powder room would have been under water, sir.'

'But if instead I had given you orders to destroy the ship, what would you have done ?'

'I could only have set her on fire, sir, like the French did.'

‘Now, given that you had an unlimited number of men to help with repairs and that the pumps were working, could you, from the time I took over command, have saved the ship from sinking?'

'No, sir, most definitely not'

 'I have no more questions to put to this witness, sir,' he said to Croucher.

'Very welL The court has nothing else to ask, so call the next witness.'

'Call Count Pisano,' said the Deputy Judge Advocate.

 Ramage had been waiting for this moment: so far the trial seemed to be going his way: he'd bluffed Croucher into leaving Gianna's speech in the trial minutes; thwarted his attempt to drop the whole case once the interruption was made; and the Bosun and Carpenter's Mate had given favourable evidence. Now all he had to do was prevent Croucher bringing in Pisano as a witness.

 Ramage said to Captain Croucher: ‘Would you wait a moment, sir: this gentleman's name does not appear on the list of witnesses in support of the charge which the Deputy Judge Advocate sent to me.'