With that he began examining the coastline of Curacao with his telescope. 'It's even more desolate than I remember it twenty years ago,' he said.

Ramage raised his telescope. He could just see along the south coast of the island as the Calypso rounded the eastern tip and then bore away to keep about two miles offshore. Thirty - eight miles long, and varying between two and a half and seven miles wide, the land was grey and arid in the glass, the sun - now almost overhead - harsh and mottling the landscape with shadows from bushes and cacti, as though each stood on a black base. Here and there the sparse divi-divi trees, each little more than a thin trunk with a wedge of thin boughs and leaves, were pointing to the west, away from the wind, like gaunt hands. Aloes - the people credited the leaves and bitter sap with magic properties, taking the pain or irritation from insect stings, burns, cuts . . . Ah, there were some of those huge cacti that grew like organ pipes. 'Datu', a book had called them. And there, beside that apology for a hill, a dump of kadushi, another cactus that looked like the same organ pipes but with joints in them. And round the cacti and moving over the ground, looking in the distance like swarms of insects, the flocks of goats, nibbling, ripping, finding food where most animals would starve. There a tamarind tree making arches; nearby the dark green bulk of a manchineel, and he could picture the little apples on the ground below it; apples which burned a man's mouth if he bit one, and killed him if he swallowed it. A strange tree, the manchineel; slaves always made a fuss when ordered to cut one down; they claimed the sap burned their skin, like drops of acid.

'And what of the privateers? No sign of a sail, apart from some wisps of white doth dose in to the shore, little fishing boats tending pots . . .'

CHAPTER FIVE

The study of the Governor of Curacao at his residence in Amsterdam was hot The ceiling of toe white - painted room was high, the tall open windows facing west were shaded by jalousies, and the only one on the north wall was open, yet Governor van Someren's clothes were sticking to him, a thick and uncomfortable extra skin. He leaned forward in his chair to let the faint breeze in the room cool his bade, but his feet felt swollen in his boots - and they probably were, although the damned doctor said there was nothing wrong - and his breeches were suddenly tight. Was he putting on weight? More weight, rather; the tailor had only just let out the waist and knee bands of all his breeches, and had several coats to work on.

He was not fat; rather a stocky man of medium height who, now past fifty, was getting plump. He had the high cheek bones and widely spaced blue eyes that would have betrayed him as a Dutchman anywhere, and his eyebrows were white and so thin that his face had an Oriental look about it.

He put down his long - stemmed clay pipe. It was too hot to smoke or, rather, the room was too airless. And the tobacco, a sample of the first of the Main's new crop from some plantation near Riohacha, tasted earthy. Some merchant was going to lose money, judging from the sample sent along to the Governor's palace.

There was a discreet knock on the door and a young Army officer, the cut of his uniform and aiguillettes showing that he was the Governor's chief of staff, came into the room carrying a letter. The British frigate and the other ship, sir. She has sailed through the channel and is coming westward along the coast, about two miles out A messenger has just ridden in. The troop of cavalry keeping abreast the ship will send off a man every fifteen minutes to keep us informed.'

Governor van Someren nodded wearily. His pale blue eyes were bloodshot; the strain was emphasized by his lack of eyebrows, which made the eyes seem unduly swollen. Trouble from the west, Lausser,' he said gloomily, 'and now trouble from the east'

Major Lausser, who not only liked the Governor but respected him, said: This British frigate, sir: she's probably just patrolling.'

'You said two ships.'

The second is small - a schooner, I think the first message called it. We have little to fear from a single frigate, Your Excellency.'

'It's not a single British frigate that concerns me, Lausser, although one should never underestimate a frigate. A frigate is like a cavalry patrol: it can warn you that an army, or a fleet, is approaching.'

Lausser's eyes dropped to the Governor's desk because van Someren was tapping a sheet of paper. 'Our recent history on land - I ignore the sea for now - since we have been the "allies" of the French Directory has hardly been glorious. I was noting down some of it'

He picked up the paper and began reading. 'In the East Indies - we surrendered Malacca to the British in August 1795 and Amboyna and Banda in the spring of '96. In Ceylon we lost Trincomalee in August '95 and Colombo the following spring. The Cape of Good Hope went in September '95 - although the garrison surrendered on the advice of the Stadtholder. And out here . . . what a sorry business: Demerara and Essequibo surrendered in April 1796, Berbice in May, and Surinam in August '99. Not a very inspiring history for the first few years of the Batavian Republic . . . The French have our home country, the British most of our colonies.'

He saw Lausser looking nervously at the door and added bitterly: 'You can open the door wide and let everyone listen: with five hundred revolutionaries and French privateersmen looting the western half of this island in the name of friendship, it is not I who lacks loyalty.'

'But help is coming, Your Excellency. Our frigate is due any day.'

'Any day, any day! That's all I hear. The French could have delayed her. She could have been captured by these damned British; she could still be at anchor in the Scheldt, blockaded. She could be sunk. Who knows, eh? And even when she arrives - then, Lausser? What good are a couple of hundred seamen? They'll only reinforce the brothels. I need a thousand well - trained Dutch soldiers; men who are used to this damned heat and whose loyalty I can rely on.'

There was a tapping at the door, and a smiling young woman came in. 'It's the ship, Papal' she said cheerfully, but a moment later she stopped as both men looked away. 'Is something wrong? Papa! What's the matter?'

'Nothing - apart from these French revolutionaries, my dear. But she is not the Delft, she's a British frigate.'

The girl sat down, carefully arranging the skirt of her blue dress, and keeping her head turned from the two men. She had long, fine golden hair, braided and held up by large tortoiseshell combs which had obviously been fashioned by a Spanish craftsman. After a minute or two she looked up at her father, dry - eyed and obviously in control of herself.

'Why are the British paying us a visit? Who invited them?'

The Governor shrugged his shoulders. 'Not a visit; just a patrolling ship looking into the harbour. She'll pass by, like they always do.'

'And shell see the only ships in it are French privateers!' the girl said bitterly. 'Oh, I am sick of the French; they treat us as the Spanish did. And we lose all our ships to the British - nine over there at Saldanha Bay; another nine ships of the line and two frigates surrendered under Admiral de Winter - '

'But six escaped,' her father interrupted, 'and four frigates!'

'Oh, I know that well enough: you forget Jules was serving in one of them.'

She was now on the verge of crying and her father said soothingly: 'Now, now, Maria, don't upset yourself: Jules will be here any day!'

With that the girl burst into tears and ran from the room. Her father was puzzled. 'What did I say wrong that time, Lausser?'