'Ease away downhauls and tack tricing lines ... Off main sail gaskets!'

 Swiftly some of the men slacked away ropes while others scrambled along the boom to untie the narrow strips of plaited rope holding the gaff and mainsail to the boom.

 'Up and down, sir!' called Southwick from the fo'c'sle. With the anchor cable now vertical, the anchor had no bite on the sea bed: blast, he'd left it a fraction late: the anchor wouldn't hold, yet he had no sail set to give him control.

'Anchor's aweigh!' yelled Southwick.

'Man the topping lift - haul taut and belay ... Overhaul mainsheet... Man throat and peak halyards.'

The men tailed on to the ropes that would hoist the heavy gaff and sail up the mast. As soon as he saw they were ready he shouted:

'Haul taut - hoist away! Handsomely, now!'

 Slowly the sail crawled up the mast, the canvas flogging in the wind.

 'Man and overhaul the mainsheet ... Look alive, there! Right, tally aft the mainsheet.'

 He turned to the quartermaster and seaman at the tiller. "Up with the helm - now, meet her ... That's it - steady as you go.'

 The topping lift was slackened away so that the mainsail took up the weight of the boom. Hmm - it was patched but sat well.

 It was good to be under way again, even if getting a cutter out of a crowded anchorage presented plenty of problems. He'd never commanded one before and didn't know how long she took to react to various combinations of rudder and sail. Some fore-and-aft-rigged ships preferred the headsails hardened in and the mainsail trimmed fairly free; others just the opposite.

 But he was damned if he was going to ask Southwick — it’d very soon be obvious which the Kathleen liked. The only gamble for the moment was how quickly she'd gather way and give the rudder a chance to get a bite on the water, so he could control the ship. If she was slow, making a lot of leeway before picking up speed, then there were enough ships anchored to leeward - including Commodore Nelson's - to make a collision inevitable.

The anchor and cable were still hanging vertically and dragging in the water under the bow like a brake, but judging from the increased speed with which the men were working the windlass, in a few moments the anchor itself would break the surface. He rattled out a series of orders as the ship's bow paid off to starboard, and first the foresail and then the jib crawled up their stays as men sweated at the halyards.

 Both were quickly sheeted home and at once the ship came alive: no longer was she inert in the water, pitching and rolling to her anchor cable like a lumbering ox at the end of a rope: the sea gurgled round her straight stem and swirled along the hull before tucking under her quarter and bubbling aft in the wake.

 On the foredeck men hooked the cat to the anchor and hauled it up the last few feet to the cat-head, the beam of wood sticking out on each side of the bow like a tusk of a wild boar, where another tackle clapped on one of the flukes hoisted the whole anchor parallel with the ship's side.

Because her bows had paid off to starboard he'd been able to hoist the headsails with the wind on the larboard side; and  it was the larboard tack that would take the Kathleen northward towards Macinaggio.

 Like a trotting horse breaking into a gallop, the Kathleen surged ahead: her stem sliced through the sea, flinging up a foaming white bow wave. He saw the shadowy outline of a big transport anchored ahead and promptly ordered the sheets to be hardened in and the helm put down to bring the Kathleen hard on the wind.

 As she heeled well over under the increased pressure on her sails, with the sea swilling in at the lee gun ports3 Ramage noticed a nervous glance from Southwick, who had just come aft: the Master wasn't used to passing close to windward of big ships, when the slightest miscalculation - or even an extra large wave - meant all the difference between clearing by a few feet and colliding. Southwick was, of course, quite right; it was safer to pass to leeward, but it wasted time because the sails of a tiny vessel like the Kathleen would be blanketed by the sheer bulk of a big ship and lose the wind for several valuable moments.

 Ramage told the quartermaster to bear away slightly, ordered the sheets to be eased, and gradually brought the cutter round on to the course which would take them up to the wreck of the Belette. There was a lot of weight on the tiller for just two men. If the wind increased he'd have to use relieving tackles. Should he set the jib topsail? No, nor the gaff topsail: the cutter was already making a good eight knots and clapping on more sail would only make her heel more without adding to her speed. It was a mistake many people made.

 Bastia was sliding astern. Gianna would not have seen him leave in the darkness, although the Kathleen must have passed within half a mile of the bottom of the Viceroy's garden. Ramage had been so absorbed in handling the ship he hadn't even glanced that way.

 'Mr Southwick, hand over the conn to the Master's Mate and come aft with the Bosun's Mate.'

'Aye aye, sir.'

 As the Kathleen thrashed her way northward Ramage felt a sudden exhilaration: a cutter might be one of the Navy’s smallest warships, but she was one of the handiest: her fore-and-aft sails allowed her to sail so much closer to the wind that she could outmanoeuvre a far bigger square-rigged opponent, her ability to dodge helping to make up for the enemy's overwhelmingly superior guns. It was the story of the terrier and the bull - the terrier was safe enough as long as he dodged the sweeping horns and the violent kicks.

 Ramage went over to the weather rail abreast the mainmast, where he could use one of the Kathleen's carronades to steady himself if the ship gave a particularly violent roll, and talk to the Master and Bosun's Mate without everyone overhearing.

 Hellfire, those shrouds and runners looked old: if appearances were anything to go by they should part any minute and let the mast go by the board. The mainsail, bellying upwards above him, had more patches than a Neapolitan beggar's cape; even the darkness couldn't hide that.

 'Oh yes,' he said, suddenly noticing Southwick and Evans waiting. 'Oh yes, there are a few things I want to go over.'

Swiftly, For Evans' benefit, he explained how the Belette was lying at the foot of the cliff.

 'It's no good making detailed plans until we get a good look at her. But if she scraped over the reef losing only her rudder, then with our draught the reef's no danger to us. We can go in on the same course as the Belette. All we want is deep water close along her larboard side.'

How shall we get the men off, sir?' asked Southwick.

'I want to luff up alongside and hold on long enough to get them all on board. Holding on is your responsibility, Evans.'

'Grapnels, sir?'

 'Yes, but first of all, protection for ourselves: I can't luff up suddenly and slap our bow alongside her because we'd lose the bowsprit: we've got to do it gently. On the other hand I don't want to scrape down her side - her chainplates and davits would tear our rigging to pieces. So make up three long sausage-shaped fenders: boarding nets stowed with hammocks, old rope - anything. When I give the word, sling one forward, one amidships to protect our own chainplates, and the other right aft, on our quarter.'

'Aye aye, sir.'

 'And I want half a dozen boarding grapnels ready, each with at least ten fathoms of line. Pick six of the best men and detail off one for the bowsprit and the rest along the starboard side - cat-head, main chains and so on. They've got to give a good heave when I give the word and hook on to the Belette.

 'Make up some heavier lines to hold ourselves alongside if necessary,' he added. 'The grapnel lines may not be stosng enough.'