'Carry on, Southwick, this is our chance!' he said quietly. 'Walk aft—detail the first dozen you meet as foretopmen, second dozen maintopmen, then half a dozen afterguard and fo'c'slemen, and we'll sort the rest out as we go. Jackson and Stafford at the helm.'

Southwick gave him back his sword and walked through the group, gesticulating as he went. Still holding the musketoon Ramage watched, his body rigid with tension.

Yes! A dozen men were walking forward now, six of them going to the larboard side and six to the starboard— the foretopmen. A dozen more split up to go to the main shrouds as maintopmen. A small group headed aft and another turned to the fo'c'sle.

Keep the initiative, he muttered to himself; but there's not much time. A glance over the larboard side at the wide area of waves breaking grey and white showed that even if he got through a crisis with the crew, another of his own making was looming close to leeward in the shape of the shoal.

'Away aloft!' he shouted.

At once two dozen men began scrambling up the ratlines of both masts.

With that he began walking aft to the quarterdeck, the traditional centre of all orders and discipline where South-wick was waiting anxiously.

'Going to be touch and go whether we can get into the Swatchway!' the Master muttered.

'It'd better go—if we touch we'll never get off!'

Southwick's laughter, louder because of the strain he was under, boomed across the deck. Men stopped for a moment and looked aft nervously. Ramage, realizing it might ease the tension, also began bellowing with laughter at his own joke. Then the men carried on, obviously puzzled but probably reassured. The shoal was a couple of hundred yards away: six ship-lengths. He'd just weather the western end if no one made a mistake.

'Jackson, Stafford! Take the helm. Speaking trumpet, South wick.'

Handing Southwick the musketoon, he put the black japanned trumpet to his lips and methodically began shouting the string of familiar orders which would get the Triton under way. Quickly the triangular-shaped jib snaked up as men hauled at the halyard, and the sheets were trimmed.

Almost at the same moment the foretopsail was let fall from the yard, hanging down like an enormous curtain, followed by the maintopsail.

He could see the men were working swiftly now: the instinct for self-preservation was swamping any mutinous ideas...

Swiftly the yards were hoisted and braced round and the sheets hauled home so the sails caught every scrap of wind, but for many long moments the brig was dead in the water, the wind on her hull simply pushing her sideways down towards the end of the shoal.

Then, at first almost imperceptibly, the Triton gathered way and Ramage began passing orders to Jackson and Stafford at the helm. Once she was making a couple of knots or more the rudder would get a bite on the water; until then she'd continue moving crabwise to leeward.

Ramage watched the buildings on the shore at Gilkicker Point and saw the Triton's bowsprit gradually stop swinging towards them, then begin to head up to starboard. Steerage-way at last!

A glance over the larboard side showed the end of the shoal was less than forty yards to leeward; but even as he watched the flurry of waves breaking over it began to draw aft. Another glance round to get his bearings and see where the Swatchway Channel began.

Now the brig was beginning to heel in stronger gusts of wind and slowly Ramage managed to work her up until, with the entrance of the channel broad on the larboard bow, it was safe to ease sheets and braces and bear away to pass through it.

Leaving Southwick to give the final orders to trim each sail to perfection, Ramage watched the bulky line of battle ships anchored to the south at Spithead, beyond the Spit Sand. The Port Admiral had been sure they'd open fire as the Triton passed, but Ramage hoped he'd taken them by surprise, unexpectedly cutting through the Swatchway instead of using the main channel and then, by hugging the shore under Gilkicker Point, keep out of the arcs of fire even if they could get the guns loaded and run out in time.

There was no sign of the alarm being raised; no flags being hoisted or a gun fired to draw attention to them.

'There's a little cutter flying our pennant numbers and trying to catch up, sir,' called Southwick.

Fresh orders? Or the surgeon, midshipman, bo'sun and sergeant of Marines me Triton lacked and the Port Admiral had been trying to find for him? Well, they'd have to chase for a few more minutes, until he could wait out of range of the Fleet's guns. Finally he said:

'Heave-to and wait for 'em, Mr Southwick; 'I'll be in the cabin.'

As he went down the companionway to his cabin it was broad daylight but the thick, grey rolling cloud coming over the Porchester hills would hide the sunrise in a few minutes.

Well, he'd won every trick so far—although, he told himself bitterly, he'd had to do it by force: he'd failed to persuade the men to obey his orders from the beginning. Still, the effect was the same.

But winning the final trick depended on the cards held by the seaman Harris, waiting in his cabin. That one man might have it in his power during the next few hours to stop the Triton delivering the despatches to Admirals Curtis and St Vincent and then crossing the Western Ocean to warn Admiral Robinson in the Caribbean.

It was a crazy situation, he reflected, that the success of the First Lord's orders, the intentions of the Board of Admiralty, the desperate need to warn these admirals at sea without a moment's delay that the Fleet at Spithead had mutinied, probably depended at this particular moment not on storms in the Western Ocean, good navigation or Lieutenant Ramage, but on a man called Harris, rated able seaman in the Triton's muster book.

He was standing by the table as Ramage entered the cabin and he stood to attention. Ramage nodded and hung his sword on a hook beside the desk. Pulling the chair round he then sat down and took the muster book out of the drawer.

The daylight shining down through the skylight was cold and grew, stronger now than the yellow, warm light of the lantern whose wick gave the cabin a stuffy, sooty smell.

Turning to Harris, Ramage asked quietly:

'When did you join the ship?'

'July last year, sir.'

Ramage turned back a few pages and found the entry.

Alfred Harris, age thirty-one, born at Basingstoke, Hampshire, volunteer, three years in me Navy.

Ramage chose his words carefully, Harris had been down here in the cabin for some time: he knew only that the Triton was under way, and that the whole ship's company had apparently obeyed Ramage's orders. Any reference to mutiny must, therefore, be in the past tense.

'Harris—were you the ringleader of the mutiny in this ship, or Just the men's spokesman?'

'Spokesman, sir.'

'Who was the ringleader?'

He knew Harris would never reveal a name; but he might reveal something much more important There wasn't a ringleader, sir. You see, after the sail o' the line refused to obey the Admiral's signal for the Fleet to get under way, the delegates came on board and told us the Fleet had mutinied. We could see that anyway—men cheering, the bloody flag flying, an' all that.'

'Yet you were the spokesman for the mutineers in the Triton: 'Not quite like that, sir.'

'Like what, men? The men had mutinied and they regarded you as their leader.'

'Well, sir, we hadn't really mutinied. We'd been—well, doing nothing, like the rest of the small ships of the Fleet, for several days. The delegates were all from the sail of me line: they told us in the small ships to leave it to them. Then when Mr Southwick suddenly came on board the men just left it to me to explain how—well, how things stood.'