Even Ramage could see without a telescope as La Perle answered. They had the flag already bent,' Southwick commented.

'Now, Orsini, hoist the signal for north - east, and make sure it is acknowledged.'

Aitken and Southwick walked over to join Ramage, who had remained by the binnacle, which for the moment was shaded by the furled mizentopsail.

'I'm glad I'm not that French first lieutenant,' Aitken said to no one in particular.

'Why not?' Ramage was surprised at the Scotsman's gloomy tone.

'Well, sir, he's been ordered to take us in tow, but how is he to get the cable from La Creole! By the time he gets up here the schooner will be nearly on this coral reef running parallel with the beach. There'll be hardly any room for him to manoeuvre. If he stays too far off he could hit the reef; if he gets too close to the Calypso he runs the risk of hitting La Creole. But somehow he has to get that cable secured on board!'

'You've forgotten two other things.'

'What, sir?' Now Aitken was surprised.

'First, he thinks his own captain is watching every move from this quarterdeck, with another senior officer beside him. Second, he's sure his whole future depends on what he does.'

'Aye,' Southwick said with a prodigious sniff, 'and he knows how easily he could get all three ships caught up in such a mass of tangled yards that we all end up on that reef like three battered tankards in an alehouse brawl.'

Two and a half pints,' Ramage said dryly. 'Yes, I'm glad I'm not that Frenchman. In fact I can't see how he can do it.'

Aitken and Southwick both swung round to stare at him. The skin of Aitken's face had suddenly gone taut, and South - wick ran a hand through his flowing white hair, and licked his lips uneasily. 'But you - you've just given him the order, sir,' Southwick said nervously.

'Yes, though I'd sooner give it than receive it.'

'I ... well, sir, should I get an anchor cleared away for letting go, sir?'

'Won't help much, Mr Southwick. It's deep right up to the reef, so by the time the anchor's beginning to get a bite we'd be on the coral. Staghorn, isn't it? Dreadful stuff. . .'

'Could we hoist out the boats ready to tow if necessary, sir?' Aitken ventured, still watching Ramage closely.

'No,' Ramage said lugubriously, 'we shouldn't envy that poor French first lieutenant.' He turned to Jackson, who was holding up a cutlass: 'Ah yes, slide it in.' He settled the leather belt more comfortably across his shoulder. 'And the pistols, thank you.' He took the pair from the American and clipped them on to the waistbelt of his trousers.

Orsini called excitedly: 'La Perle's acknowledged the signal giving the course, sir. She took long enough.'

'Hoping we'd made a mistake, no doubt, and would annul it,' Aitken commented as he turned to look at the frigate. 'But she's slipping along now. But that fellow hasn't made up his mind whether to approach us on the windward or leeward side.' He looked at Ramage, who nodded as though the subject of La Perle no longer interested him.

'I wonder what the devil all that smoke and musketry was yesterday,' Ramage said. 'And the captain of La Perle was so anxious to get to Amsterdam.'

'Was he, sir?' Aitken said in surprise.

'Oh yes, no bridegroom was more anxious to get to the church on time than Captain Duroc.'

Ramage felt hot and he felt a fraud. Standing under this scorching sun, which was now directly overhead so that you had to lean forward slightly to see your own shadow, the deck was so hot that the wood could be a stove top curling the leather of the soles of your shoes. Nor was the wind doing very much to cool anything: the Calypso was making only two knots and the wind barely had the energy to lift itself over the rolls of hammocks piled in the bulwark nettings to blow across the deck. The glare from the sea, from the sails, and from the near - white sand of the beach, gave the impression of heat, even though its only real effect was to make you screw up your eyes so that you peered out on this tropical oven through slits, like a short - sighted Oriental.

And the fraud: that was a different thing altogether. Aitken and Southwick had suddenly looked at each other and then they had laughed: the captain, they thought, was playing a neat joke on them, pretending he did not know what would happen when La Perle arrived to carry out her orders. They were sure the captain had a trick hidden away, a trick which would solve everything and leave them with La Perle as a prize.

The fraud arose because he had no trick ready, and if Aitken and Southwick gave the matter any thought, they would know it was impossible to have one waiting. He had explained yesterday the only plan he had was the one which would get La Perle's captain on board, leaving the ship - he hoped - in the hands of less experienced officers. Well, that plan had been executed; Captain Duroc, no doubt sadder and wiser, was now sitting below in irons, with Marines guarding him.

What happened next depended entirely on what La Perle's first lieutenant did. Given that he tried to carry out the order to take over the tow of the Calypso, how would he approach? How would he get that heavy cable from La Creole and secure it on board and take up the tow? Would be come up to starboard, on the windward side, or on the larboard side, which had the advantage of being to leeward but the disadvantage of being the land side, reducing the available room to the stretch between the long reef and the Calypso! Ironically the anonymous French lieutenant now had the advantage; that much Ramage admitted. The Frenchman knew what he was going to do, but Ramage knew nothing. It was a game of chess - mat's what neither Southwick nor Aitken realized. At this stage of this particular game, your move depended on your opponent's move; it was a response. You hoped that your opponent moved a piece which allowed you to checkmate in one move, but there was always the danger that you would be the one who was checkmated.

La Perle was beating up fast in the Calypso's wake and Ramage stared at her. The three masts were in line. She could pass one side or the other at the very last moment. Suddenly he realized why she looked a little strange: all her guns had just been run in and the gun ports closed. The French lieutenant had - wisely from his point of view and fortunately from Ramage's - done it presumably because he wanted his men ready to handle sails and secure that cable; as far as he was concerned there was no fighting to be done; simply a problem of salvage.

CHAPTER NINE

Lieutenant de vaisseau Jean - Pierre Bazin bitterly regretted the day he had ever gone to sea. As a boy growing up in Lyon, where the placid River Saone joined the turbulent Rhone after its race through the mountains, he had watched the Saone passing within a hundred yards of his home in one of the narrow streets in the shadow of the cathedral. He had also walked the other way, to the Fort de Lovasse. He had walked up to the Fort scores of times, hundreds in fact, to watch the soldiers drilling, the bands playing, men marching and countermarching to the beat of a drum. But soldiering had never excited him; the pressed uniforms, the polished buttons, the pipeclayed belts (for this was before the Revolution) had seemed a lot of unnecessary work every day, especially to a boy who was for ever accounting to his mother for the latest holes in breeches and boots.

In contrast the rivers had captured his imagination. Along the Saone men sat on the banks or stood among the rushes, fishing from dawn to dusk, with a sleep in the middle of the day when the sun was high (as it was now, but never reaching such an altitude or heat, of course). Horses had plodded along the banks of the Saone, towing barges and disturbing the pecheurs. The barges were usually painted in gay colours and carried cargoes from places which seemed as distant to a young boy as China: from Tournus and Chalon, and towns on the Saone's tributaries, like Dijon and Dole.