"Easy enough to do as you go into Gibraltar if you lose the wind with a strong eastgoing current, or a white squall hits you."

"A court of inquiry will have heard it all before!"

"True," Southwick admitted. "I wonder how many of our own ships over the years have ended up on those rocks, let alone Spanish and Moorish. But who named them? 'The Teeth' would be fitter!"

La Perla was in fact a group of rocks usually covered and lying half a mile offshore, just where an unwary ship from the Atlantic and bound for Gibraltar might be tempted to take a short cut. Or, as Southwick had noted, where a ship losing the wind and caught in the currents and eddies (which often ran at three knots) would end up.

The Rock: one of the most impressive places in the world, Ramage thought: perhaps the most. One can compare it with an enormous block of wood attacked by a madman with an axe. The north and east sides are almost vertical, like the end of a box; the western side, now on the larboard bow, is a steep slope, while the side facing the Strait is a series of steps, or terraces, which end at the aptly named Europa Point.

Ramage felt hungry and thirsty, and irritated by the slack current which was slowing the Calypso:Nature was determined to make him wait and wait before opening those damned orders. "Come down and report when Europa Point bears due north," Ramage said, "and bring Aitken with you."

Captains hated sealed orders which were to be opened at a certain position, or on a certain date. There was always the chance that one might subsequently be accused of opening them earlier. The best method was the one just adopted by Ramage: telling the first lieutenant and master to report to his cabin at the time appointed for opening the orders. Then there were witnesses and (if it could be allowed) they could read the orders and discuss the ways and means of carrying them out.

He went down to his cabin, unlocked a drawer in his desk, and took out a canvas bag. It had brass grommets round the opening and a sturdy drawstring passed through the rings. The bag was heavy because inside there was a small pig of lead to make it sink quickly if thrown over the side in an emergency to avoid capture.

Ramage took out the packet, secured the bag again and returned it to the drawer. Sealed orders. Well, they looked just like any other letter from the Admiralty - an outer cover of thick paper folded once from each side and the overlapping flaps joined by a large seal, the red wax covered with thin white paper before the Admiralty seal was impressed. Ramage wondered for the thousandth time how the Admiralty acquired that seal. Presumably it belonged originally to their predecessor, the Lord High Admiral, who would have used it until his office was "put into commission" - handed over to several individuals who became the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. But a fouled anchor - one with the cable twisted round the shank - was hardly suitable; in fact it would be hard to think of a more lubberly symbol.

The Mediterranean - well, it was a change from the West Indies (and that brief foray south of the Equator). "Being blackstrapped" the sailors called it, a catch-all phrase that meant not only serving in the Mediterranean but being issued with red wine instead of rum. The word probably came from Blackstrap Bay (locally known as Mala Bahia), and referred to the fact that a ship bound for Gibraltar and losing the wind would be carried eastward past Europa Point and might then spend several days waiting for a fair wind, anchored off the bay and below an ancient watch tower, nearly one thousand feet up on a long ridge known as the Queen of Spain's Chair.

Names - one thing about cruising in the Mediterranean was that you quickly become aware of the sweep of history: the successive sweep of civilizations, rather. Gibraltar, for instance. Its first name (first to be recorded, anyway) was Calpe, given by the Phoenicians, and when the Romans arrived in their galleys they kept the name. Then, as the Roman Empire crumbled (after holding all the land that mattered round the Mediterranean), the Moors came and gave The Rock the name of Jebel Tarik. "Jebel" meant a hill or mountain. What about Tarik? Ramage remembered he was a Moorish leader - perhaps the man who first captured The Rock and had the mountain named after him. Then the Spaniards drove out the Moors seven hundred years later and named it Monte deGibraltar. Presumably this was a Spanish corruption of Jebel Tarik, particularly as the Dons rendered "Jebel" as "Hebel". He rolledthe words round with his tongue. Yes, "Hebel Tarik" could eventually emerge as "Hebeltara".

He heard the clatter of shoes coming down the companion ladder and then the Marine sentry at the door announced the first lieutenant and the master.

As soon as they came in he gestured to them to sit down. Southwick sat in a creaky armchair to one side of the desk while the first lieutenant, Aitken, sat on the sofa. This was an arrangement which respected Southwick's spasms of rheumatism rather than his seniority, since as master he was only a warrant officer (holding his rank by virtue of an Admiralty warrant), while Aitken held the King's commission.

"Europa Point bears due north, sir," Aitken reported formally.

Both men looked expectantly at Ramage, who held up the packet so that they could both see that the seal was unbroken. "My new orders from the Admiralty, to be opened as we pass Gibraltar."

Southwick sniffed. He had a repertoire of a dozen or more different sniffs, and anyone knowing him well could translate each into a word or a phrase, even an attitude. This particular sniff, Ramage recognized, had two meanings: first, it's time Their Lordships stopped play-acting with sealed orders, and second, a return to the Mediterranean at this time can only mean trouble.

In this Ramage had to admit that Southwick was probably right: for a long time now the Mediterranean had been Bonaparte's private sea: he had captured bases used by the Royal Navy, and defeated Britain's allies.

Ramage slid a paperknife under the seal, then opened and flattened the sheets of paper. Only two sheets. The thickness of paper had led him to think the orders were bulky, but he saw at a glance that in fact they were commendably brief - although brief orders tended to be the toughest. . .

There was all the usual preamble used by Evan Nepean, the Board Secretary, wording which had probably been in use long before the Board was first created. Then came the second paragraph . . .

Since the resumption of war following France's abrogation of the Treaty of Amiens, His Majesty's Government has been attempting to discover the whereabouts of many British subjects, and subjects of countries which are our allies, who were visiting and found themselves trapped by hostilities in France or its occupied territories. Among them, of course, is the Marchesa di Volterra.

Among the British subjects particularly concerned are five admirals, seven generals and eleven peers of the realm, who were in France or Italy.

Our agents have traced certain of these persons to prison camps in France, although the French Government has not included their names among those usually submitted through their Agent resident in London in order that exchanges may be arranged, nor have they answered specific enquiries made by His Majesty's Government through their Agent. The situation is exacerbated at the present time because in any case we have no French prisoners of suitable rank to make any exchange. My Lords have instructed me to give you the foregoing information by way of introduction to the following.

It has now been reported to His Majesty's Secretary of State for the Foreign Department that a few of these naval and army officers, along with certain peers of the realm, are imprisoned in conditions of great secrecy by the French Government at a town in the Kingdom of Tuscany called Pitigliano and it is further believed that it is the First Consul's intention to use these persons as hostages in an attempt to strike some bargain with His Majesty's Government, the details of which cannot at present be determined.