"Well, the passengers are always embarked by now, of course, and the agent has had the mails brought on board. Then he musters the ship's company, gives the commander any last-minute instructions, and bids them a safe voyage. Oh yes, he also checks the trim of the packet, to make sure the mails have been properly stowed, so the ship isn't down by the bow or stern - that sort of thing."

"And then the packet sails for Barbados - whatever the weather?"

"She sails at once, as long as she can carry a reefed topsail. You can get out of Falmouth in anything but a south-easterly gale - but you know that well enough."

Ramage nodded: obviously that was why the Post Office had chosen Falmouth in the first place. "And then what happens to that letter?"

"Well, it gets carried to Barbados first. The packet then calls at two or three of the Windward and Leeward Islands delivering and collecting mail - Antigua would probably be the last - and then comes across the Caribbean direct to Jamaica."

"Where that letter comes under your care."

"Yes, indeed," Smith said grimly. "I meet the packet with the Customs Officers and the doctor, take off the bags of inward mail, and bring them here, where they are sorted again and delivered."

"What happens to the packet and the crew?"

"The commander provisions the ship, the men are allowed a few hours on shore - they all have Protections, of course, so they don't have to worry about press gangs - and then the packet is ready to sail again, when the fresh mails are loaded."

"Now," Ramage said slowly, "imagine the brother here is replying to the merchant in London."

"Well, it's much the same story in reverse, really, except that when the packet sails from here, she doesn't go back across the Caribbean: she goes out to the north-east, touching only at Cape Nicolas Mole on her way through the Windward Passage into the Atlantic and then direct to England."

"Why the different route?"

"Well, she has already delivered all the inward and picked up the outward mail at the other islands on her way to Jamaica."

"So apart from touching at the western end of Hispaniola, Jamaica is the last port of call before England?"

Smith nodded.

"And your searcher," Ramage asked. "Is he as diligent as the one at Falmouth?"

"No more and no less."

Ramage nodded in turn. "These ventures - do the officers...?"

"I hope you're not asking me officially. As Deputy Postmaster-General, I have no knowledge of any ventures in any packet. Between you and me, I think the officers also regard themselves as badly paid, and the little profit they might make - well, it balances the books without costing Lombard Street anything."

"I'd like to ask a question addressed to you, not the Deputy Postmaster-General," Ramage said. "Do you have any suspicion at all of what might be going on?"

"None," Smith said emphatically. "If I had, I'd tell you. I've thought of every possibility - from spies in the Department to passengers seizing the ships..."

"Treason?"

"Out of the question. The commanders and crews are eventually exchanged, and Lombard Street would soon hear. Anyway, the commanders own the ships. They have everything to lose."

"And when they are exchanged and get back to England, nothing they report has given Lombard Street any hint?"

"Nothing. The story is always the same: my last communication from Lord Auckland" - he patted the pile of papers -"makes the point again: each packet was overtaken by a privateer and attacked and forced to surrender after sinking the mails."

Ah, thought Ramage, so we do know for certain that it is privateers...

"Casualties must be quite heavy."

"No, I'm thankful to say they aren't. The commanders have orders to run, not linger and fight: that's a long-standing policy established by Lombard Street: the packets rely on their superior speed."

"Hardly superior, surely, if so many are captured?"

Again Smith shrugged his shoulders. "I am merely telling you the Post Office's policy, Lieutenant. The West India merchants, for example, think otherwise: they want the packets more heavily armed, so they can fight back."

"But Lombard Street doesn't agree."

"No. They prefer the policy of a speedy escape."

I wonder, Ramage thought, how many packets have to be lost before Lombard Street admits its policy is wrong? He asked, "Who specifies the size and type of ship? I've noticed most of them are similar."

"They were of different designs before the war: whatever the contractors - which usually meant the commanders - wanted. Then Lombard Street specified that they should be the same design - 179 tons burthen, with a ship's company of twenty-eight men and boys, and armed with four 4-pounders and two 9-pounder stern chasers. And small arms, of course."

"Not much against a privateer."

"No, but remember that the instructions to the commanders are, in effect, 'Run when you can; fight when you can no longer run; and when you can fight no longer, sink the mails before you strike.'"

"Tell me, Mr Smith, since the 'run when you can' policy has obviously failed, why hasn't the Post Office tried larger and more heavily armed ships?"

"The Post Office doesn't want to be a party to privateering!" Smith said, smiling. "Early in the war there was some trouble because a few of the packet commanders were not above going after a prize themselves - and Lombard Street couldn't allow such risks with the mails."

"One last question," Ramage said. "When is the next packet due?"

"Using the forty-five-day passage rule, she was due here yesterday. If she hasn't been taken I'd expect to see her at the latest within the next seven days. But I'm not hopeful; in fact I'm refusing to accept mail or passengers for her."

Ramage stood up and thanked Smith. He had the curious feeling that there was a clue in all the information he'd been given, but discerning it was like trying to recall details of a half-remembered dream.

Chapter Four

That evening Ramage sat out on the terrace of the Royal Albion Hotel with Yorke, comfortably sleepy after a good dinner and, like most people in Kingston at that time, waiting for the offshore breeze to set in for the night and give the first relief from the sweltering heat they had endured all day. The palm trees were alive with the buzz of tiny frogs and mosquitoes whined; moths of all colours and sizes battered themselves against the glass of the lamps.

"You don't feel like changing your mind about the Governor's Ball?" Yorke asked. "There's still time..."

"It's too hot," Ramage said drowsily. "If it's anything like last night, the offshore breeze won't set in at all. That damned ballroom turns into an oven even with half a gale blowing through it. Anyway, I've had my share of trying to make conversation with planters' dumpy daughters."

"Come now, don't blame the poor girls; the moment their mothers heard that Lieutenant Lord Ramage had arrived in Jamaica they knew the season's most eligible bachelor was within their grasp: tall, dark and handsome, two romantic scars won in battle, wealthy and the heir to an earldom ... what more could a mother - let alone a daughter - want from life?"

"My friend," Ramage said, "unless you use all your energy in spreading a story that I'm a notorious rapist and the family estate is mortgaged to the butler whose daughter my grandfather recently deflowered, I'll drop the hint that not only is that young shipowner Sidney Yorke so rich that he lends small fortunes to nabobs at one per cent, but that his main reason for coming to Jamaica is to find himself a wife."

"Your ruthlessness appals me," Yorke said cheerfully, and glanced round to see if anyone was within earshot. "Well, you've been suitably mysterious all through dinner, so now you can tell me what's happening."