That was point three. No reaction—nor did he expect any.

'Oh yes,' he added, as if it was an afterthought, 'hands up those of you who can swim.'

Hands were raised and Ramage counted them aloud.

'Nineteen out of sixty-one. Hmm... forty-two of you can't swim. Very well. Harris!'

He snapped out the name, and years of prompt response to discipline could not stop Harris taking an involuntary step forward 'Harris—I want to speak with you alone. Go below and wait in the cabin. Take a lantern with you.'

It took Harris a couple of minutes to collect the lantern and go down the companionway, every man on deck watching him and wondering.

Ramage guessed—was gambling, rather—that Harris, by himself, was no threat: he was almost certain—but not quite —that Harris had become the men's spokesman simply because he was better educated and more articulate: he was not a trouble-maker nor a revolutionary.

He'd learned a lot in the few moments he'd watched the man in his hammock, and Harris was probably sensible enough to realize by now that Ramage unofficially acknowledged him as a spokesmen, and sending him below at this moment indicated there was something to talk about Suddenly Ramage said sharply to the group:

'Right: every man to his station for weighing and making sail.'

This was the crucial moment: he stood poised above the men, trying to will them to move, the words of Lord Spencer, Southwick and Jackson echoing and, as he watched, mocking.

Eight or nine men—all former Kathleens—turned and walked forward. But everyone else stood firm, many of them muttering to each other, a muttering which increased to excited talk. A dozen or so—again, they seemed to be Kathlens—remained silent.

'Very well,' Ramage snapped, a harsh note in his voice.

'Just remember this: forty-two of you can't swim, the ode's falling, and over there, dead to leeward, you can see the sea breaking over the end of Spit Sand...'

The muttering stopped abruptly, the men puzzled by his words, unsure what he meant, unsure whether or not they'd just heard some fearful threat whose significance they did not understand.

Ramage knew he had the initiative again and promptly jumped down to walk forward through the group, forcing men to step aside.

Then, stopping abreast the mainmast, he turned and said:

'Mr Southwick, the axe please!'

Southwick, who had been waiting unnoticed to one side of the men, walked over with a large axe in his hand: an axe used on wooding expeditions, when a boatload of men were sent off to some deserted beach to cut wood for the ship's galley.

Slipping his sword belt over his head, Ramage gave it to the Master in exchange for the axe, moving so he could look at the group of men as he turned. They might have been carved from stone—an impression increased by the grey morning light. But Ramage felt as if he was made of wet bread.

Axe in hand, Ramage walked forward, suddenly feeling almost sick with disappointment, apprehension and too much weak, oversweet tea. Talk had failed, but he knew talk was always dangerous—seamen interpreted soft words as weakness; hard words as a challenge. They judged a man by what he did, not what he said. As he'd half expected, his speech had proved a compromise and suffered the fate of all compromises, simply delaying the moment for action. Parliament and bureaucrats please note, he thought sourly, and wished he hadn't drunk the tea, which was slopping around inside him.

And then he was standing beside the anchor cable which, taut with the strain on it and three feet above me deck, was made fast round the solid H-shaped wooden bins before being led below to the cable tier. The largest cable in the ship, it was a massive piece of cordage, thirteen inches in circumference. (More important, there were four others of the same size, each 720 feet long and weighing more than two tons, stowed below.) Ramage took a firm grip of the axe, noting the wind hadn't changed direction and, if anything, was blowing stronger, so the Spit Sand shoal was still dead to leeward. He changed his stance, placing his feet wider apart. Had the men guessed? Hard to believe they hadn't, but like some wretched actor he had to make sure he was building up to an effective climax.

Turning to look over his shoulder he called:

'All well aft there, Mr Southwick?'

'All well, sir.'

The Master would shout a warning if they tried to rush him. Surprising how quickly the time was passing: it was light enough to recognize the men's faces. And, more important, light enough for them to see every move he made, and to see the waves breaking white on the shoal.

He raised the axe over his head and swung down hard on the cable where the first turn went over the broad and solid top of the bitts.

The thud almost numbed his hands, but the bitts made a solid chopping block. The blade cut perhaps a quarter of the way through the rope, but there was such a strain on it that already the severed strands began unravelling. A second stroke, then a third and fourth. The cable hummed as the whole strain of holding the ship against the wind came on the remaining strands. Stepping back a pace, clear of danger for the final blow, he swung the blade down again.

As if some giant plucked an enormous harp string, the severed end of the cable twanged and shot away from him, whiplashing the width of the deck before snaking out through the hawse like an escaping boa-constrictor.

A moment later a splash told him the cable, with one of the Triton's bower anchors at the end of it, was now sinking into the murky water of Spithead.

The Triton was adrift: already, even as he turned aft, the wind began swinging her bow round to leeward. Since it was high water, with no tidal stream, the Triton had been wind-rode, lying with her bow heading to me north-west. Now she was swinging broadside on to the wind and in a minute or so the wind would be driving her down on to the eastern end of the shoal. Few if any of the men would know mere was a channel, the Swatchway, cutting diagonally across, the shoal just to the west of where the sea was breaking.

Ramage flung down the axe and began walking aft, his face cold with a perspiration brought on by fear, not physical exertion. It was done now: the challenge had been flung at the mutineers' feet: obey the order to make sail or drown when the Triton hit the shoal and either heeled over and then filled on the rising tide or was lifted up and down by the waves until she pounded to pieces. There was only one flaw and he hoped they'd be too excited to spot it: boats from other ships in the Fleet might rescue them in time.

The men began shouting at one another and gesticulating —not at Ramage but at the two boats stowed on deck between the two masts. Three or four men began hurrying towards the boats but Southwick was beside him holding out a musketoon, a musket with a very large bore and the muzzle belled out like a trumpet, Ramage took it and shouted: 'Still!'

The sudden shout combined with the equally unexpected single word 'still'—which normally brought everyone on deck to attention—stopped every man and every tongue for five seconds, during which Ramage promptly cocked the musketoon, the click in the silence sounding as loud as a blacksmith's hammer hitting an anvil.

'If anyone moves towards those boats I'll fire through the bottoms so they won't float anyway. Now, you've three minutes to make sail before we hit the shoal.'

Touch and go: would they have the wit to rush him instead? There'd be plenty of confusion anyway because it'd been impossible to prepare a general quarter, watch and station bill which would have described every man's post for manoeuvre, including weighing anchor and making sail.

But no one was moving. Frightened or still defiant? Hard to tell, but he must assume the former. Plenty of confusion gave anyone with definite ideas or orders an opportunity to get control.