At all times ... and so it went on: Ramage reflected that the minds and limited vocabularies of the ministry clerks who drafted such books ran in the same narrow and rutted tracks whatever their nationality.

And then, on page eight, was the key to the code. At first glance the diagrams seemed to be very simple. The big wooden frame had five opening windows or shutters. Four were at the corners of a square with the fifth above in the centre. Each letter of the alphabet was formed by opening shutters to form patterns so that there were twenty letters. J was missing, and single signals represented P and Q, U V W and X Y and Z, so one had to guess which was the correct letter. Numbers were simple - the X Y Z signal, all five shutters open, was repeated twice, and then the numbers 1 to 9 were represented by the same signals as the first nine letters of the alphabet, with the letter O also acting as zero. To change back to letters from numbers, the signalmen again sent X Y Z twice.

Ramage saw that it was a laborious, slow but secure way of passing messages. Every letter of every word had to be spelled out, but there would be no mistakes. Nor could there be many situations where there was any urgency, and the garrison of a semaphore station had nothing else to do ...

Now for the signal log. Yesterday's signals: the last one, addressed simply to Station Eighteen, said: 'Powder will be sent.' Before that, Station Twenty was told: 'Tell ship grain not available here.' Where was 'here'? Presumably Toulon.

Ramage read back through four pages until he found Station Thirty-four reporting briefly: 'First ship of convoy only just arrived.' That answered the previous signal, presumably from Toulon, which asked the station when the convoy was due to sail.

In the lower right-hand drawer of his desk Ramage found the signal book he had taken from the captured frigate and looked at the list of names which included Foix and Aspet. He saw that the number thirty-four was printed against Barcelona, while Toulon had number one. Here, Foix, was twelve and Aspet across the bay was thirteen. The last station, at the opposite end to Toulon, was Cartagena, the great Spanish naval base. The advantage of having such swift communication was obvious and the system was ingenious.

He put the signal log book aside. The wind had dropped completely and there was not the slightest cooling draught through the cabin. He glanced up to make sure the skylight was open. Now for the pile of correspondence. Only four or five had the Ministry of Marine's seal, and they were routine: the lieutenant commanding the station had been overpaid for several months and the Ministry were involved in an attempt, so far unsuccessful, to get the money back. The letters showed that the lieutenant was a naval officer, anyway, not a soldier. The remaining letters were from a colonel in Toulon who appeared to head the department responsible for provisioning the semaphore stations.

Ramage collected up the letters and put them in the pouch; he would read them individually when he had some spare time, but it was obvious that if a similar semaphore station could be set up at, say, Newhaven and be responsible to the Admiralty and garrisoned by the Horseguards, its capture by an enemy would produce a similar haul of dreary and routine correspondence.

The Marine brought in the lieutenant, a mournful-looking man who, unused to appearing in public in a grubby nightshirt, did not know what to do with his bony hands, which stuck out of the sleeves like the crossbar of a scarecrow. His eyes were still bleary; his thin, long face looked furtive because he had not shaved for two or three days and the shadows thrown by the lantern gave him the appearance of a seedy village grocer caught stealing a gigot de mouton while the butcher was at mass.

When the sentry, holding the man's arm, jolted him to a stop in front of Ramage's desk, the lieutenant finally stood to attention, head bent sideways because of the low headroom, his eyes lowered, his mouth so tightly shut that his lips looked like a small wrinkle.

Ramage waved away the sentry and said sharply to the Frenchman: 'Jean-Paul Louis?'

The man almost flinched and finally looked at Ramage.

'Yes, sir: how did you know my name?'

Then he saw the signal log and added: 'Ah, you've been reading the log.'

'I knew your name long before I set foot in Foix', Ramage said. 'Now, sit down in that armchair; your neck will ache if you stand much longer.'

The man was tall and with the headroom under the beams only five feet four inches, he could stand only with his head cocked. Cautiously, as though fearing the arms of the chair would clutch him in a deadly grip, the man sat down, showing boots beneath his nightshirt: French Army boots and presumably all he had been able to grab before capture. Or, more likely, Rennick let him get them.

'How long have you commanded at Foix?'

'More than a year, sir, ever since the station was opened.'

'And they keep you busy?'

The man shrugged his shoulders and pointed to the log. 'Foix is a link in a chain ...'

'How long does it take to get a message from Toulon to Barcelona?'

Again Louis shrugged his shoulders.

'From Foix to Toulon, then?'

'I don't know, captain. The messages are occasionally dated but never timed.'

'You must have some idea, surely?'

But obviously, from the worried look on the man's face as he contemplated the consequences of not knowing the answer to Ramage's question, he neither knew nor, until this moment, cared.

'Provisions', Ramage said. 'How are they delivered to your garrison, and from where?'

'Oh, dry provisions come from Sète once a month. Vegetables we grow ourselves - you did not have time to see our garden, but we have a good well and plenty of water, and the men enjoy gardening. We have some cows, so we have fresh milk, butter and cheese. Anything else we need we get from the village.'

'You steal it.'

'Oh no, sir; we requisition it in the normal way.'

'You do not pay cash, I mean.'

'We give them tickets which they can cash at the pay offices in Sète.'

Ramage then reached the more important question: 'Do people from the village visit the garrison frequently?'

'Oh no!' The idea seemed to shock Louis. 'No, we have the guardhouse. The whole camp is forbidden to civilians; in fact, only a month ago -'

The man broke off as if realizing he had said too much.

'Only a month ago what?' Ramage asked sharply.

'I cannot say.'

'You had better. You can be forced. And I am sure any of your men would be only too pleased to tell us.'

'Well, it was a sad business, but a villager was caught in the camp at night, and according to the regulations - you must realize I had no choice; the regulations are there for me to obey - well, I ..."

'Had him shot', Ramage finished the sentence for him.

The Frenchman looked at Ramage in surprise. 'How did you know - have you read the regulations?'

'No', Ramage said quietly, 'but I have fought your country for several years.'

The Frenchman nodded sympathetically. 'I have been lucky. My uncle is mayor of a large town in Normandy, and he was able to arrange for me to have this station. I have no knowledge of the sea, you understand?'

'Yes, I understand', Ramage said dryly. 'Now, about your job. Describe what you and the garrison did yesterday.'

Ramage opened the signal log as he asked the question.

'Well, about eight o'clock -'

'No', said Ramage, 'I want all the details. You had sentries..."

'Oh yes, there is the guard. One sentry watching the road, to prevent villagers coming in - and, of course, to prevent any of the garrison leaving: they like to go to the village and get drunk and molest the young women. It is dangerous, you understand; the local men try to catch a drunken soldier late at night - then they murder him and steal his musket. Every man must carry a musket if he leaves the camp.'