'They've been telling us they 'aven't 'ad much luck this cruise, Nick.'

'Is that so?'

'Nah - bin chasin' Old Jarvie all rahn the Medingterraneang, and never did see 'im. They reckon he's too scared to show 'isself.'

'They're right, Will,' Jackson said, conscious two or three Spanish officers had apparently casually walked into earshot. 'Old Jarvie wouldn't want to meet this Fleet.'

'Nah - well, anyway, the admiral's goin' to Carthygeeny for water and vittels, so I reckon 'e'll put us on shore there.'

'Don't care much where it is,' Ramage said, 'as long as we can get a ship home.'

'Aye,' echoed Jackson, 'as long as we can get home.'

Four days later the smell of scorching rope as the anchor cable raced out through the hawse hole drifted back to where Ramage stood on the starboard gangway looking at Cartagena. He could see, even though it was almost dark, that Spain was lucky to have an almost landlocked naval base where Nature provided such high cliffs and mountains as powerful defences against its own onslaught and the attack of enemy fleets.

As usual Ramage dreaded going below. He had no illusions about conditions below decks in a British man o' war in port: the regulation space allocated to every seaman was six feet by fourteen inches: in that space he slung his hammock. A man every fourteen inches. At sea, of course, each man had double that space because most of the ship's company was divided into two watches, arbitrarily called larboard and starboard. Usually a man in the larboard watch slung his hammock next to one in the starboard watch, and since one was always on watch the other had an empty hammock on either side of him. In harbour though, with both watches sleeping, it was a different story, and with the low head-room (usually five feet four inches or less) the whole deck would be packed solid with sleeping, snoring and sweating men (and, all too often, women). The air was frequently so foul the candles guttered in the sentries' lanterns and men woke with a taste in their mouth as if they'd been sucking a copper coin and a headache which affected their sight. But for all that, in a British ship the decks were clean, spotlessly clean, and the bilges were kept fairly sweet by frequent pumping.

But as far as Ramage was concerned, the lower decks of all Spanish men 'o war were worse than the manger of a British ship when it was full of pigs and cattle: they were, as far as he could see, scrubbed but rarely, and pieces of vegetables and particularly tough meat the seamen could not chew were tossed over their shoulders and left rotting in odd corners. And always the reek of garlic - bad enough if you stood too near a Spaniard - grasping you with invisible tentacles if you went below.

Ramage had, therefore, been relieved to hear the outraged complaints of his men the first night on board: Jackson swore he'd never ever had a nightmare in which a ship was so filthy, and Will Stafford swore in his broad Cockney that by comparison the Fleet Ditch smelled like a young maiden's boudoir, even if it did carry most of London's muck and ordure into the Thames. From then on he had always referred to going below as 'visiting the Fleet'.

Jackson came up and said, 'Guess what's for supper.'

'Bean soup.'

'How did you know?'

'Well, we've had it for every meal so far.'

The admiral's secretary called them over and with him was the flagship's first lieutenant, who did not speak English.

'The captain has given orders that you are free to go on shore as soon as a boat is available - as soon as the admiral's suite and certain officers have left the ship,' he said.

'Please thank the captain - and the admiral.'

'Of course. You will all stay at a particular inn for the time being.' He paused. 'It is a condition of your release that you stay at this inn until you leave Spain.'

'Certainly, sir,' said Ramage, 'but how can we pay an inn-keeper's bill? We've no money - the English haven't paid us for months.'

'I know that: I read the ship's books. The admiral has generously given orders that you'll be given the equivalent of the pay owing to you. The lieutenant has the money and I have a copy of the amount due to each of you. I shall give you the copy and you will issue it to the men. This,' he said to Jackson, 'will be agreeable to you and the others?'

'Oh yes, sir,' Jackson said respectfully, 'we all trust Nick.'

'Very well.' He gave Ramage a slip of paper, and spoke to the lieutenant, who handed Ramage a small canvas bag which, from its weight, obviously contained the money, and held out a piece of paper.

'The receipt for the money. You will sign it,' said the translator. 'Come to my cabin. I have a pen there.'

Ramage would have liked to have counted the money to see how much less there was in the bag than stated on the receipt, but decided not to in case it delayed them getting on shore.

An hour later the eight former Kathleens stepped out of a boat on to the quay and followed a Spanish seaman to the inn - a typical crimp's establishment. If it had been at Portsmouth, Plymouth or in the Medway towns, a seaman using it would have been on his guard against the innkeeper seeing him and his mates to bed drunk and calling a crimp (if he wasn't a crimp on his own account) who would then sell the drunken bodies to the skipper of a merchantman short of crew, or if times were hard, to a naval press gang.

The eight of them were given two rooms, and Ramage gathered them all in one of them to issue the pay.

'I signed a receipt for the Spanish dollar equivalent of the pay owing,' he said. 'But there won't be that many dollars in this bag.'

'No,' said Stafford. 'The purser, the officer who gave you the money, and that translator ... That makes at least three of 'em who've already took a reef in it.'

Ramage counted out the coins. Exactly a third of the amount had been abstracted.

'They're as bad as our chaps,' Stafford said bitterly. 'Every - oh, beggin' yer pardon, Nick...'

'Don't worry,' said Ramage, 'I wasn't born yesterday. But everyone has to take a third less than is due to him.'

With that he shared out the money then said, pointing to the door, 'Jackson, just check....'

Jackson whipped the door open, but no one was eavesdropping.

'Right,' said Ramage. 'For a moment I am your captain again and I must tell you that although the Spanish have freed you, you are still subject to the Articles of War: you are still under my command. Now, any one of you can sneak off to the Spanish authorities and reveal who I am. No one can stop you. The Articles of War can hardly be enforced here, so only your personal loyalty can make you obey my orders. Yet we all have a duty to perform, and I for one propose doing it. But I'm not forcing any of you to follow me: all I ask is that those who don't want to come with me - those who wish to stay in Spain or go elsewhere - I want those men to say so now, and do nothing to give me away. As soon as it's safe to do so, I'll free them from their obligations. Now - who wants to go?'

The Portuguese seaman locked shamefaced.

'I haven't seen my family for three years, sir, and the frontier...'

'Very well, you can go.'

'You understand, sir?'

Ramage held out his hand as an indication of his sincerity and the Portuguese gripped it eagerly. 'I promise you, sir, I shall never say anything.'

'I know,' Ramage said.

'Will you have to—'

'Put you down as "Run"? Officially I have to, but I've a bad memory for names, Ferraro. When the time comes it'll be hard to remember who were prisoners and who were taken to the flagship.'

He looked round. 'Anyone else?'

No one moved. It was hard to be sure. Among the remaining six men was there just one crafty enough to realize that by feigning loyalty and discovering Ramage's plan, he'd have useful information to sell to the Spanish for a high price? It was hard to be sure; very hard.