He's scared, Ramage thought to himself. A regular convoy would count itself lucky to have a couple of frigates to carry it to Kingston. He has three frigates, the Lion, a brig and a lugger. But scared of what? Losing a ship from a convoy meant trouble for the commander of the escort if he was a junior captain. Trouble with the Admiralty and a sheaf of protests from owners and underwriters. But a rear-admiral with Goddard's patronage coming out as the new second-in-command to Sir Pilcher Skinner at Jamaica could lose a quarter of the convoy without too many eyebrows being raised. A valuable cargo would probably be money to pay the troops and buy stores, and the Lion would be carrying it. What could be frightening him?

The probable answer was that Jebediah Arbuthnot Goddard, Rear-Admiral of the White, could handle a squadron of the King's ships, where every captain obeyed his signals instantly, or answered for the consequences under the Articles of War, but the prospect of trying to deal with forty-nine aggressive individualists, each of whom had probably thumbed his nose a dozen times at a frigate captain who'd ranged up close and fired a shot across his bow to try to force him to set more sail, daunted him.

"Very well," Goddard said heavily, "you can rely on Captain Croucher to do everything in his power on your behalf, and the same goes for the commanding officers now joining us" - he gestured to them in turn - "Captain Edwards of the Greyhound, Captain James of the Antelope, Captain Raymond of the Raisonnable and Lieutenant Jenks of the Lark lugger."

Several of the masters looked across at Ramage, wondering what he was doing at the conference, and Yorke raised an eyebrow. Ramage had half-expected a sarcastic or ambiguous reference but the deliberate omission took him unawares and he glanced down, his face expressionless, just as Yorke stood up, stooping slightly because of the low headroom.

"Admiral Godson - I am sure I speak also for all my fellow shipmates in thanking you, in hoping we have a successful voyage to Jamaica, and in expressing our confidence in yourself and Captain Cruncher."

The masters grunted their assent as they began to leave the cabin, and those who noticed Yorke's deliberate mistakes over the names did not trouble to hide their grins.

Goddard flushed, but recovered in time to squeeze out a smile. "Thank you, Mr Yorke."

As Ramage stood up to leave he saw Croucher motioning the three frigate captains and Jenks to stay behind. As no signal was made to him he followed the masters out of the cabin. Had there been some change of plan? Was he not to join the convoy after all? That would be almost too much to hope for...

Ramage stood on the gangway abreast the mainmast. After an hour in the dim cabin he was almost blinded by the bright sun as he watched the masters waiting impatiently for their boats. Every few moments one would spot his and dodge out from under the tautly stretched awning to bellow an order to hurry up.

Whether smooth of manner or rough, the masters had something in common: each was a good seaman. He might be truculent when ordered about by an escort captain; he might furl or reef at night to avoid risking his owner's money on new sails; but he was every inch a seaman, whether commanding a large ship with a crew of thirty or a small schooner.

In peacetime the smaller ships would have been hard pressed to find enough cargo to trade from one port in the English Channel to another, and would sail without insurance because no underwriter would risk his money without prohibitive premiums. War had given these small, old vessels a new lease of life. The shortage of ships had driven up the freight rates so the owners could afford the insurance, and the peacetime race to be first at the market-place with a cargo to get the highest prices, had been stopped by the convoy system. All the ships now arrived at the same time and the convoy's speed was that of its slowest vessel.

"Didn't you command the Triton brig?"

Ramage turned to find Yorke standing beside him.

"I still do."

"Where is she?"

Ramage pointed to where she was lying at anchor on the far side of the shallow bay.

"I've been hearing about you catching privateers off St Lucia and reading about you and Commodore Nelson at the battle off Cape St Vincent. I'd like to offer my congratulations."

"Thank you, Mr - should I adopt your style and say, 'Mr Yorkshire'?"

Yorke laughed. "I was rather pleased with that! Anyway," he said, putting out his hand, "Sidney Yorke, 'master under God' and owner of the Topaz."

"Owner?" Ramage exclaimed, as he shook hands, "Why, you're..." He hastily rephrased his remark, "You have a fine ship."

"And 'You're young to own and command her'?"

"Well, I didn't actually say it!"

"I inherited her. From what I hear, m'lud," Yorke said with a mock bow, "there are one or two senior officers not far from here who rated you young to catch privateers who'd escaped a couple of senior frigate captains - and would have rated you too young to trump the Spanish Fleet at St Vincent."

Ramage grinned as he returned the bow, and Yorke suddenly waved. "There's my boat."

Although neither man was conscious of it, each shared a common inheritance, the sea. For Yorke it had taken the form of a ship; for Ramage it was a family tradition of service in the Royal Navy. The Royal Kalendar, in the section headed "House of Peers. Earls", devoted three heavily abbreviated lines to Ramage's father:

"Hen.VIII. 1540. Oct. 9. John Uglow Ramage, E. of Blazey, V. Ramage, an admiral of the White. St Kew Hall, St Kew, Cornwall."

A glance at the preceding names, for the earldoms were listed in date order, showed the earldom was the third oldest in the country, having been created by Henry VIII more than two hundred and fifty years earlier, while the viscountcy - which the eldest son was allowed to use - was even older. The index several pages earlier gave the motto, family name and heir:

"Blazey, E.I540. Nec dextrorsum nec sinistrorsum. Neither to the right nor the left. Ramage, V. Ramage."

Although the facts were brief enough, a keen student of history could hazard a reasonably accurate guess at what else might have been said. The Ramages were a family that supported Henry VIII at the dissolution of the monasteries and, in return, received the title and grants of former church lands. They were staunch Royalists a century later and, along with many other Cornish landowners, had much of their property confiscated by Cromwell's Roundheads after bitter fighting. They lived to see the new King give it away to his favourites after the Restoration.

But no student or reference book could even hint at why the present heir to the earldom, Lieutenant Nicholas Ramage, did not use his title; nor how it was that he spoke fluent Italian (with an uncanny ability to mimic the colourful Neapolitan accent, Italy's equivalent of Cockney), Spanish and French. His skill in Italian came from a childhood spent in Tuscany, since his parents had close links with Italy. His knowledge of French and Spanish, he was always quick to admit, was entirely due to his mother, a very determined woman who chose strict tutors.

From the day he first went to sea Ramage, on his father's advice, had not used his title: the old Admiral knew only too well the problems that a young midshipman might face if some well-meaning hostess gave him precedence over his captain at the dinner table because of his title.

As Yorke's boat came alongside the Lion, the young shipowner said with sudden seriousness, "Well, good luck; might be wiser to keep a sharp lookout over your shoulder than over the bulwark. I wish you were coming to Jamaica with us."