The old chap's speech had been almost too clever; he presentedsuch a well-reasoned argument that the layman's suspicion of an expert - and the professional's jealousy - were soonaroused.

 How had Father described the Fighting Instructions? Oh yes, he'd likened them to instructions for a coachman when a highwayman standing in his path orders him to halt. Ramage could almost see the actual print in the leather-bound copy of theminutes of the trial, which was kept in the library at home. 'The Fighting Instructions in effect order the coachman,'; Father had said, 'to aim his blunderbuss directly over his horses' heads, and fire at the highwayman. But they do not tell him what to do if there are two or a dozen highwaymen standing to one side of the path or another. They assume it will never happen. But at the same time their orders contain a clause which ensures that, if it happens, whatever the coachmandoes is wrong: if he fires to the left, to the right, surrenders orruns away.'

The court could have sentenced him to death; but since the affair of Admiral Byng the Articles of War had been amended to allow a lesser penalty. The court had ordered him to be dismissed the Service. Ramage had often wondered whether this was, for his father, a lesser penalty than death.

 The man who had emerged from the trial as his father's enemy had been a member of the Court, a captain low down on the post list but high up in the King's esteem: Captain Goddard, now a rear-admiral, who was a man with little intelligence or ability but full of corrosive jealousy. Marriage into the outer fringe of the royal family had, so far as promotion was concerned, made up for his other deficiencies.

 Since Goddard had so much influence with the crazy King - indeed, it was said he was one of the few men who could get any sense at all out of His Majesty during his not infrequent bouts of insanity — he had attracted a large following in the Navy when he became a rear-admiral: many captains - and flag officers - were prepared to sink their pride in order to provide Goddard with the sycophantic circle of admirers his pride required, receiving preferment and promotion in return.

 Unfortunately, Goddard was serving in the Mediterranean at the moment, although apparently neither the Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Sir John Jervis, nor the third in command, Captain Horatio Nelson, had much time for him. Ramage was not sure, but suspected it was due only to Sir John Jervis's influence that he was himself employed. But the fourth in seniority, Captain Croucher, was a close friend of Goddard's. If he was president at the court martial trying him for the loss of the Sibella, Ramage thought, the verdict could be given even before the first witness was sworn in.

 Anyway, Ramage told himself, it's time we were under way: the seamen have had enough rest. Those in authority can always put a subordinate in the wrong: that's an indisputable fact and it's no good brooding over it.

 'LET ME HAVE the charts, Jackson.' The American handed over the canvas bag, and Ramage selected one from the roll which covered the area from the Vada Rocks, off Livorno - or Leghorn as the British insisted on calling it - to Civita Vecchia. Before looking at it he glanced at the Master's log and found it had been filled in up to six o'clock that evening, when the last entry gave a bearing and distance of the peak of Monte Argentario and the north end of the island of Giglio and added: 'Enemy sail in sight to north-west.'

 Ramage unrolled the chart, folded it on his knee, and pulled the throwing knife from its sheath inside the top of his boot, using the blade to measure the distance from Monte Argentario at 6 pm, taking it off the latitude scale at the side of the chart. He then twisted the knife round so he could use the blade to transfer the bearing from the compass rose.

 He then pricked a point on the chart. That was the 6 pm position of the Sibella. After estimating the course she'd steered and the distance covered until the French boarded, he pricked the chart once again. That was where she had sunk. Then he made a third mark - their present position, as accurately as guesswork based on experience could permit.

 Where did it put them? Roughly midway between the Argentario promontory and the island of Giglio. The channel between the two - he used the knife to measure it approximately - is twelve miles wide. So they were about six miles from Capo d'Uomo, the high cliff where one of Argentario's mountainous ridges meets the sea.

Ironic, he thought, that we've been rowing north-westward, away from Capalbio and the refugees, for the past half hour.

The chart showed that to reach the Tower at Capalbio they must first round the southern end of Argentario, which is almost an island joined to the mainland by two causeways. Odd how on the chart Argentario looked like a fat bat hanging upside down from a beam, with its two legs forming the causeways and the beam the mainland. The Tower is on the coast about five miles south of where the southern causeway meets the mainland, with the village of Capalbio on a hill five or six miles inland.

Well, it's more than fifteen miles, and without knowing the coast it will be impossible to find the Tower before daylight That means we must hide somewhere before daylight. But where? The south-eastern side of Argentario is too risky: Port' Ercole, just round the corner, would have plenty of fishing boats coming and going. No, we'll have to keep clear of Argentario and spend daylight on Friday hiding at Giannutri, another small island athwart the channel to the south-east. From there, on Friday night, we can reach the Formiche di Burano, a tiny reef only a few feet high and offshore of Capalbio. From our present position to Giannutri is ... about seven miles: we can hide near Punta Secca.

He saw they would have to cover twelve miles on Friday night to reach the Formiche, and another three to the Tower. But in the meantime he would have a chance to study the mainland through his glass.

 That meant he had Friday night to find the refugees; they would have to stay in hiding Saturday and sail from Capalbio on Saturday night...

'Bosun, Carpenter's Mate, Wilson - come on board!'

 A sandy beach at Capalbio - that would mean hauling the boat up. Only the gig would be light enough to be hauled on shore by its crew. Six men to row, plus Jackson and himself, for the trip to Capalbio. Then half a dozen refugees. Fourteen in the gig for the return journey... it would be overloaded only if they ran into bad weather, since it could carry sixteen when used for cutting out expeditions. But he had no choice: the boat would have to be hauled up and hidden: finding the Italians might take time - he dare not gamble on landing, finding them and getting to sea again the same night.

The Bosun hauled the cutter up to the launch's transom and scrambled on board, followed by the Carpenter's Mate and Wilson. As the three men sat waiting in the darkness, Ramage would have given a lot to know their thoughts....

 'I've opened the Captain's orders and propose carrying them out...'

 He tended to have difficulty in pronouncing the letter 'r' when he became excited: the faint hint of 'pwopose' warned him to keep calm.

 'I shall take Jackson and six men in the gig. Bosun, you'll transfer to the launch, and Wilson can take over your cutter.

 'Bosun, you'll be in command of the three boats.'

 Damned difficult giving orders to men in the dark when you couldn't see their faces.

 'You will take them to Bastia, in Corsica.'

 'But it's—'

 'A long way: over seventy miles, but it's the nearest place where you'll find any British ships, and as you know the Corsican coast, you won't get lost. Take the muster book and master's log. When you arrive, report to the senior British naval officer, giving him a full account of what has happened and — now listen carefully, this is most important - ask him to communicate to Sir John Jervis at once that Lieutenant Ramage is proceeding in execution of Sir John's orders concerning the Sibella. Also request him to send a ship to rendezvous with me five miles off the north end of Giglio at dawn on Sunday and, if I'm not there, again at dawn on Monday.