He gestured towards the grey mountains of Africa, less than a dozen miles across the Strait. 'If they pass through there before we can get out, find Sir John and warn him, then only the Spanish and French know what the consequences will be. If a Spanish Fleet that size picks up troops at Cadiz and sails north to raise the blockade of Brest and let the French Fleet join them, then there's very little to stop them invading England: they'd total more than fifty sail of the line. To stop Cordoba's twenty-seven sail of the line getting to Cadiz Sir John has only eleven, as far as we know.' There you are, men: our job is to warn Sir John, but since we don't even know where he is, we haven't a moment to waste ... Mr. Southwick! Let's get under way!'

With that he jumped down from the bulwark feeling as melodramatic as an actor who'd just recited Henry V's speech on the eve of St. Crispin's Day - though omitting the beginning, 'He which hath no stomach to this fight, let him depart...'

As he walked to the companionway, the men still cheering, he thought wryly of an earlier phrase in the play, 'I would give all my fame for a pot of ale, and safety.' His fame was such that he'd need only a small pot of very poor ale.

Ramage took off his sword in the tiny cabin and when Jackson brought down a large leather pouch, he unlocked it and transferred the books and documents it contained to his desk. The key was still in the lock of the drawer - only the little lead-lined box usually kept beneath the desk and now sunk in about a thousand fathoms was missing. He'd have to get another made.

He sat down heavily. It was not just physical weariness: his brain was tired. He longed for a week's rest with no decisions to be made, no need to be constantly goading himself, and free from the constant fear that a moment's relaxation would let the enemy - either Spaniards or weather - get one move ahead. To go to sleep without the fear that he'd be wakened only to deal with yet another emergency.

The Commissioner's words still rang in his ears. 'Yours is the only vessel we can send after Sir John ... If I had three frigates, I'd use 'em all: but there's only your cutter. Make no mistake, Ramage, find Sir John you must. You know what's at stake. Drive the ship and drive the men as you've never driven 'em before, even if you get a gale a day. If you see a frigate, give her captain one of the sets of orders I'm having drawn up. Go from one rendezvous to the next. If you find a neutral ship, wring the master's neck if that's the only way to make him say whether or not he's seen Sir John's squadron. And,' he'd added grimly, 'if you fail, don't offer any excuses.'

Find Sir John's squadron ... Ramage reached out for the chart. Precious little he had to go on. Sir John had sailed from Lisbon, leaving the Tagus on 18th January with eleven sail of the line to escort some Portuguese men o' war and a Brazil convoy southwards to a safe latitude. (How far south was 'safe'?)

Having done that, Sir John intended to work his way back to the rendezvous off Cape St. Vincent to meet any reinforcements the Admiralty had been able to send from England. He certainly needed them. The Commissioner - who was in a difficult position since officially he had no executive authority over Ramage - did not expect Sir John to be back at the rendezvous before about 12th February.

Once through the Strait and out into the Atlantic, the rendezvous off Cape St. Vincent (the south-western tip of Portugal and one of the most forbidding headlands on the Atlantic coast) was 170 miles away to the north-west. With an easterly wind, the Kathleen could be there in about thirty-four hours, assuming an average of five knots.

If Sir John, the reinforcements or a frigate were not there, Ramage decided he would head down towards the Canaries - that would be the route Sir John would take with the Brazil ships - for three days, and then return to the rendezvous. That increased the chances of finding Sir John farther to the south, so the Fleet would have less distance to cover to intercept the Spaniards before they reached Cadiz.

Jackson appeared at the companionway. 'Mr. Southwick's respects, sir: the cable's up and down.'

The Master was waiting by the taffrail. 'Very well, Mr. Southwick, let's get under way. And remember,' he added quietly, 'with no other ship here, every telescope on shore is going to be trained on us ... Jackson, I want you at the helm.'

Southwick nodded, picked up his speaking trumpet and began bellowing orders. Soon the two headsails and the great mainsail were hoisted, the gaff and boom swinging lazily from one side to the other and the canvas of the headsails rippling as the wind blew down both sides of them, finding nothing to exert its force on.

Once again the windlass creaked as men heaved down on the bars (Why, Ramage thought idly, don't they fit cutters with capstans?) and slowly the heavy cable came home, water squeezing out of the strands and streaming back down the deck. A seaman watching over the bow signalled to Southwick - the anchor stock was in sight.

'I'll take the conn, Mr. Southwick.'

The Kathleen had a little sternway which Ramage used to pay off the bow to starboard. He gave an order to the men at the helm, another to the men at the sheets, and the wind filled the great mainsail with a bang. Slowly she began forging ahead.

Ramage was just going to tell Southwick to set the gafftopsail when he saw a dark shadow moving fast across the water between the cutter and shore, a shadow rapidly becoming dappled with white-capped wavelets: one of the sudden white squalls for which Gibraltar was notorious.

'Ease sheets, Mr. Southwick: smartly now!'

Turning to Jackson and the man with him, he yelled, 'Meet this squall! Here - you two men: stand by the helm!'

Then it was on them: although invisible it seemed solid, snatching their breath and screaming shrill in the rigging, slashing off the wave tops and driving them to leeward like heavy rain. Under the wind's enormous pressure the Kathleen heeled over until the water swirled in at the gunports. Ramage saw that although the helm was hard over in an attempt to keep the cutter on course, she was being forced to round up into the wind and head for the shore. The headsails were beginning to flog: in a few moments they'd probably explode into a dozen strips of torn canvas.

'Let the mainsheet run, Mr. Southwick!'

The waves slicing up solid over the weather bow were blowing into spray, sparkling briefly in a few moments of weak sun. Then, after what seemed like hours, with Ramage waiting for the sails to blow out or the mast to go by the board, the big boom moved over to leeward as the men slacked the sheet, easing the pressure on the mainsail, which had been forcing the cutter's bow up into the wind. Almost immediately her angle of heel lessened and as the men eased the helm to bring the Kathleen back on course the headsails stopped their insensate flogging.

Algeçiras, on the Spanish mainland, was five miles away across Gibraltar Bay on the starboard beam; Europa Point was almost on the larboard beam and he could see past it into the Mediterranean beyond. Ahead on the African coast, eleven miles across the Strait, low cloud streaming in fast from the east now hid the great peaks of Renegado and Sid Musa which ranged parallel with the coast like teeth in a petrified jawbone. For a brief moment he glimpsed the isolated summit of Haffe del Benatz, climbing almost sheer to fifteen hundred feet, and then Marsa farther west.

Soon the cutter turned to head out towards the Atlantic and with the wind aft she rolled violently, the end of the main boom occasionally dipping in the water. Ramage could see the tiny island of Tarifa ahead, with the Moorish town of Tarifa on the mainland, high-walled with several towers sticking up like enormous tree stumps.