Steady, Ramage told himself, bundling up the letters, and realizing that Jackson would have recognized her, this way lies madness: this was how young captains, isolated by the routine and tradition of command, became eccentric, even mad: they sat alone and in their cabins, brooded, thinking this and fearing that, playing the eternal game of 'if. 'If this had happened, that would have been avoided ... if I had done this ...' The worst of the 'if game was, of course, that it was very easy for a captain to lose confidence in himself: as he read his orders he could, without much difficulty, consider them far more difficult to carry out than they were, and then he would find himself wondering what would happen 'if he failed.

The next stage after that was wondering 'if he would succeed, and once he stepped into that quicksand he was lost; he would fail no matter what happened. That was the one lesson that Ramage had learned about command, dating back to the time when Commodore Nelson - as he then was - first gave him command of the little Kathleen cutter and put Southwick in as master.

Those first orders from the Commodore had been desperate enough, but looking back on them Ramage realized that, young and inexperienced as he was, he had not really thought of failure. There hadn't been time enough to consider it. The important thing was to avoid brooding. Keep your mind occupied - it could be a thick head from drinking too much wine at a reception the night before, or perhaps you were too preoccupied because the ship's company was badly trained - it could be any one of a hundred things, but you were too busy to think of failure, and often because of that you succeeded. Or perhaps you failed, but failed because success was impossible, not because you had gone into battle defeated by your own dark thoughts and lack of confidence.

At that moment Ramage acknowledged yet again how much he owed to Southwick. The old man had served with him for years, always the same, always cheerful, yet always grumbling. Cheerfully grumbling about the ship's company, whichever the ship and however well trained the men, but treating them all like unruly but much loved sons. And, of course, it was not just Southwick: there were those scoundrels Jackson, Stafford and Rossi.

Defeat, failure, even difficulties were hard to consider for long with those men around. Jackson, for example, an American who had an American Protection in his pocket and need only get word to an American consul to secure his discharge from the Royal Navy - but instead he was the captain's coxswain, a man who had saved Gianna's life once and Ramage's many times. Rossi, the plump and cheerful man from Genoa whose English was good and whose past in Genoa was a matter of conjecture. Rossi was a volunteer, and with Genoa under Napoleon's occupation Rossi was happy enough in the Royal Navy, where be was paid for killing the Frenchmen he hated. And Stafford, the third of the men always mentioned by Gianna in her letters. Stafford had, like Jackson and Rossi, helped rescue Gianna. He made no secret that before the press gang swept him into the Navy, when he had lived in Bridewell Lane in the city of London, and after having been apprenticed to a locksmith, he rarely went to work on the lock of a door with the owner's knowledge.

The three men argued interminably, although they never quarrelled; they had - Ramage thought for a moment - yes, they had been in the frigate that sank in battle as they went to fetch Gianna, and had helped row the boat used to rescue her. They had been in the Kathleen when she was smashed to driftwood by the Spanish three - decker at the Battle of Cape St Vincent. They had been with him in the Triton brig when he had taken command to find most of the original crew had mutinied, and they had been in her through the hurricane which tore out her masts and tossed her up on a reef near Puerto Rico. They had been with him in the Post Office packet brig when they were trying to discover why the mails were vanishing. They had been .. . and so it went on, and probably would go on.

Now, to their delight, they had on board the Marchesa's nephew (or, as Stafford had proudly announced to the rest of the ship's company when he first heard about it, 'the Marcheezer's nevvy') and it had been tacitly accepted that they kept an eye on him. Jackson had already saved the boy's life once when they' boarded an enemy ship a few weeks ago with Paolo wielding a cutlass in one hand and a midshipman's dirk in the other.

Supposing the boy was killed - how would he ever tell Gianna? Then he checked himself: these thoughts were merely a variation on the game of 'if - 'If Paolo was killed ...' Paolo was lively, energetic, eager to learn, scared of nothing, and appalling at mathematics. As Gianna had said, in the argument which had finally persuaded Ramage, if the boy survived a few years as a midshipman and later a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, he would have learned lessons which would stand him in good stead if he should ever have to rule Volterra when the French had been driven out: he would understand men, and how to govern them, and that was all (whether midshipman in a frigate or ruler of Volterra) he needed to know to survive.

Ramage called to the Marine sentry to pass the word for his clerk, and as soon as the report and the list of names and addresses were handed over to the man for fair copies to be made, Ramage sent for Aitken. The first lieutenant was second in command of the ship; it was very easy to forget (or, more honestly, it was a thought that few captains cared to dwell upon) that Aitken would be in command if anything happened to the captain, and captains were as likely to perish from yellow fever or roundshot as any man on board . . .

The captain was brooding, there was no doubt about that. Aitken sensed it the moment he stepped into the cabin and sat on the settee in response to the captain's gesture. The deep - set eyes seemed positively sunken, yet one didn't need the second sight to guess why the captain was in this mood. There were plenty of men in the Highlands who still brooded over the rapine and pillaging of their villages half a century earlier, when they were still bairns, so it was hardly surprising to find a man like Mr Ramage brooding over that bloody murder in the Tranquil only an hour or so ago.

Now Mr Ramage was staring at him, as though he was a stranger.

'Do the ship's company know what happened in the Tranquil?' It was a puzzling question; there was no way it could have been kept secret, even if it was necessary. 'Yes, sir, they all know.'

'And what are their feelings?'

'Violent, sir, particularly because of the women. We might . . .'

'Might what, Aitken?'

"We might have difficulty controlling them if we find a privateer, sir. If we board one, I mean.'

But instead of getting angry and saying the officers should be able to control their men, Mr Ramage was just nodding; not in agreement but in the way old men nodded their heads when told interesting news.

Aitken was thankful for this opportunity to discuss it 'I was going to mention it to you, sir: perhaps you'd care to talk to the ship's company, to warn them against running amok when we start finding these privateers.'

The young Scot sensed the captain's interest was flagging, and was then not sure whether to be shocked or relieved when Ramage said: 'I propose giving no particular orders if we board a privateer called the Nuestra Senora de Antigua, Mr Aitken. We board other privateers in the normal way and I shall expect that strict attention will be paid to discipline.'

'Aye aye, sir. But no mercy for the Nuestra Senora de Antigua. Is she the one that. . .'

'Yes, she's named in a letter. The last line or two was written as she came close.'

Aitken reached for his hat and was about to leave the cabin, but the captain waved him to remain seated, and said quietly: 'I think you too sense there's something unusual in ill this.'