Rennick and his sergeant, each with a long coil of slow match slung round his neck, were at work round the mainmast where ten half - casks of powder, each three and a half feet long, were securely lashed in place, each with its bung uppermost. From a point fifteen feet away several lengths of slow match stretched along the deck, like a thin octopus, the ends disappearing in the bungholes, where they went down into the powder and were held lightly in position by wooden bungs.

'Burns at the rate of two feet a minute, sir,' Rennick explained. There's fifteen feet from this point to the casks. We don't need a slow match to each cask, of course,' he added hurriedly. 'One would be enough, because when one cask goes up they'll all go, but we have plenty of insurance. When the time comes we light as many as possible, but there's no need to do them all.'

The guns?' Ramage asked.

'I finally triple - shotted them on the starboard side - those which will point at the Delft. Those on the larboard side facing us are triple - charged without shot, and the breechings are cut, so when they go off they'll recoil right across the ship.'

'You still have the port fires to arrange?'

'Yes, sir, I thought I'd set them on deck near the wheel. It'll help us see what we're doing for the last minute or two.'

'And that brandy?'

'Southwick has stowed the casks on deck along the starboard side, forward. I have a Marine sentry guarding it. We were lucky to get it on board without a cask being "accidentally" stove in.'

Ramage nodded. The purser's glad to see the back of it He's been worried ever since he found it.'

On deck Ramage shivered as he considered the Nuestra Senora de Antigua as a furnace: pitch and tar with frayed rope, old sails and smashed - up gratings to start a fire, brandy to increase it and finally powder to scatter it - and the schooner - over the Delft. The grapnels should catch in the Delft's rigging and hold the Nuestra Senora to her long enough for a fatal and fiery embrace.

The men who sailed the schooner, setting fire to her at the last moment as she crashed alongside the Delft, would have to take their chance in the water, leaping over the side and swimming, and hoping that the baulks of timber hurled into the air by the explosions did not land on their heads. The Calypso's boats should approach from the side away from the Delft and pick them up, providing that flying wreckage and sharks had left anything to save.

Southwick bustled up and said conversationally: 'It's going to take some good timing to shoot up into the wind so that she carries her way and gets alongside the Delft, sir.'

'I've been thinking about that'

'Not above half a mile to get the canvas drawing well and plenty of way on her.'

'A little over half a mile.'

'Doesn't give you much time to get the feel of the ship, and you'll have to start lighting her up below before you're actually alongside, or else there's a chance the Dutchmen will get on board or cut away the grapnels - or if the chain beats 'em, the rigging from which they're hanging.'

True,' Ramage said patiently.

'And an unlucky shot through that brandy wont help either. They'll be firing at you, of course.'

'I hadn't anticipated them pelting me with flowers, but their broadside guns won't bear until almost the last moment'

'Musketry, though,' Southwick said gloomily. There'll be plenty of that; musket balls falling like rain. You'll need spare men ready to take over at the tiller, because the Dutch will be aiming at them.'

'Look,' Ramage said finally, 'I've made up my mind. I am taking the Nuestra Senora alongside, and you are staying on board the Calypso. And I don't want to hear that sad story again of how you missed the chase across the island. If you could have run a mile you'd have been welcome. If you can swim a mile you can come with the Nuestra Senora.' 'Don't need to swim a mile, begging your pardon.'

'You couldn't swim a hundred yards, so let's have no more arguing.'

'But you are taking Jackson, aren't you, sir?'

'Jackson, Stafford, Rossi, Baker - hell take over command if anything happens to me - Rennick and fourteen more men. Twenty to handle a fireship - quite apart from those helping to hoist sails who will leave before we get under way. That's quite enough. Half a dozen would be sufficient.'

'I wish you'd tow a boat, sir, so you can be sure of escaping.'

'We've gone over that,' Ramage said impatiently. The painter will get foul of the rudder or some such thing: and a boat rowing away would make a fine target for Dutch muskets in the light of the flames. They'll never see swimmers and even if they did they'd never hit them.'

'Well, you know what you're doing, sir,' Southwick said in a voice which implied just the opposite.

Thank you,' Ramage said stiffly. 'If you'll learn to swim and lose two stone in weight, you can command all the fire - ships you want'

By half past two the Nuestra Senora de Antigua was ready, Jackson and Stafford stood at the big curved tiller and Ramage waited close by with Baker. Down below Rennick had several lanthorns ready, the new candles inside burning steadily but their light hidden by screens of sacking. When the word came from the quarterdeck the candles would be taken out and used to light the fuses to the powder casks and the piles of combustibles which would start the pitch and tar burning and eventually ignite the brandy in the casks. The powder exploding should in turn send off first the Nuestra Senora's own magazine and then the Delft's. Ramage could feel the wind steady on his face. It had backed to the east - north - east, so that it was blowing across the channel from the Punda side to Otrabanda not quite at right - angles. The privateers, the Calypso and the Delft were all lying head to wind, their bows pointing to Punda. The moon had not yet risen - Ramage had planned his attack for an hour earlier - but the stars were bright, the banks of the channel and the quays grey ribbons with the bulky ships black between them.

There had been no sign of Dutch guard boats; they were obviously relying on lookouts on board. What was that captain expecting? Did he anticipate an attack by 'English'? He would expect a battle of broadsides, and perhaps an attempt to board. He knew there was little chance of the Calypso weighing and trying to get alongside because the channel was too narrow (particularly without a pilot to warn of shoals) for frigates to manoeuvre drawing more than sixteen feet. By now then, the Dutch might have decided the Calypso would do nothing until daylight - or even that Ramage might realize he really was trapped and negotiate the surrender of his ship. Or - the thought had only just struck him - perhaps van Someren intended to have the big guns from the two forts hauled round to the town at daylight so that from the quays on each side they could if necessary help the Delft's guns pound the Calypso to pieces. Each fort had twenty - five or so 24 - pounders, which meant that the Calypso would be receiving the fire equivalent to a ship of the line, and unable to reply to most of it... It was curious how neither he nor any of his lieutenants had thought of the Dutch doing it Underestimating the enemy was a bad mistake, but the fireship idea had occupied all their thoughts.

There were groups of men at both the Nuestra Senora's masts, ready to haul on halyards to hoist the great mainsail, foresail, forestaysail and jib. There were a couple more head - sails that could be hoisted, but they would take time and meant only more sheets to be trimmed, more ropes to get snagged; trying to free a headsail because of a jammed sheet was a distraction he was anxious to avoid. As it was, the sheets had been led round so that the headsails would be hoisted backed, so that the schooner's bow began to pay off to starboard as the anchor cable was cut, ensuring she was on the right tack and would not have to go about Two men waited at the bitts with axes, ready to cut the anchor cable. Rennick and his men were below - Satan and his firemen, Southwick had called them - and Rossi was here on deck with the port fires, sacking, some old sails and blocks of pitch that should cause a fine blaze, helped by the folds of the mainsail as soon as the halyards were let run.