'Grapnels, sir', he said at once. 'As we go alongside we try and toss extra grapnels on board. Extra to the ones rigged from the yards.'

'Are your grapnels ready?'

'Yes, sir, we've got two each; a fathom of chain and then rope on each one. The bitter end of the rope is made fast to something solid.'

'And where have you got them?'

'Well, two on the fo'c'sle, sir. They're my two, on account of me being reckoned a good thrower. Longish ropes on my grapnels so we don't snub in the Merle's bow too sharp. Two more by the forechains: Hurst here will be standing on the chains -'

'No', Ramage interrupted. 'Hurst, you stay inside the ship: if we run alongside the Frenchman, you'd be crushed standing in the chains. And you, Gough', he said to the third man, 'were you going to be standing in the mainchains? Well, don't. I appreciate both of you are picking the best places, but you'll get killed. I can't lose two men -1 want to be rowed back to the Calypso in time for a good breakfast!'

The three men laughed and two of them excused themselves, so that they could change the positions of their grapnels. Ramage, with a call to the topmen not to wait about once they heard 'Abandon ship!', walked back to the wheel, pausing by the lantern to look at his watch. More than an hour had passed and he looked forward in alarm.

The cliffs of the headland north of Cala Piombo showed up well, and he could just make out the Torre di Cala Piombo like a thin tree stump on the top of a round hill. A dark blobthis side of it showed where the French 74 was swinging to her anchor. Waiting for a convoy? Ramage speculated. Or perhaps expecting more 74s and attendant frigates to joinher. Ramage wished he had not started wondering, in case any of them began to arrive.

The Muscade had slowly passed across the Merle's stern so that as planned she was now on her seaward side. The French 74 would be windrode and heading westward, out of the gulf. Southwick would go alongside so that his larboard side would be against the Frenchman's larboard, his bow towards the 74's stern, while Ramage and the Merle would go starboard side on to her starboard. It was an elementary manoeuvre though, in battle, ships normally fought bow to bow and stern to stern.

Ramage could now see the 74, or rather her black blur, as a more definite shape against the jagged cliffs anchored perhaps a mile from the shore and well placed in the bay so that the headlands protected her from winds and swells.

What sort of an anchor watch would the French be keeping? With the wind light from the west and the moon still rising in the east, the Merle and Muscade had two great advantages: first, coming from the dark half of the horizon they were approaching an enemy who loomed up stark against the moon, and second they had a following wind with no worry about how the brigs would beat out again.

The gap between the Merle and the Muscade was slowly narrowing: each ship was sailing up the side of a long, invisible triangle lying flat on the sea which had the 74 at its apex. Now they were a mile apart; soon they would be separated by only the width of the French ship.

Stafford had both lanterns hidden abaft the mainmast so their light could not be seen from ahead, and from the sound of it was lecturing Arry and the Marine about the finer points of picking locks. Having served an apprenticeship as a locksmith and been taken up by the pressgang while he was making a living at it - by working at night, Ramage understood, and without the owners of the locks knowing about it - Stafford was undoubtedly an expert.

The Marine, Albert Coke, was naturally berthed aft with the rest of the Marines in the Calypso, between the seamen and the officers, and his duties meant he did not mix so much with the seamen. This night's work with Stafford and Arry was, Ramage could tell, quite an experience. Hearing first-hand accounts of burgling expeditions against 'some o' the best 'ouses in London' - a phrase Ramage had often heard Stafford use in the past when being teased by Jackson and Rossi - was obviously a new experience for Albert Coke.

Looking ahead, Ramage could see why they were now fast approaching the coast - or, rather, at night one always seemed to be going faster, although the speed remained the same. It was one of the tricks played by shadow, and with a moon this bright the shadow made the cliffs look like jagged pieces of coal held close to the face.

This time - indeed, for the first time ever that he could remember - he was approaching an enemy ship without sending the men to quarters. They were already as prepared for action as ever they could be, and their weapons were simply grapnels and lanterns, and some lengths of fuse ... None of the Merle's 6-pounders would be fired; no muskets were even loaded. There was far too much danger, with all that powder about, for there to be any guns discharged in the Merle, although a few men had pistols in case of trouble later.

He thought for a moment what would happen if the French were suspicious and opened fire. A French roundshot through the side of the Merle and into those barrels of powder would - well, they would know nothing about it although people would see the flash for fifty miles or more. The rumble might well wake up the mayor of Cagliari, who would assume there had been yet another earthquake.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Once again Ramage took out his watch - the hands were easy to see in the moonlight. He was not really interested in the time; he wanted to clear his mind of depressing thoughts, like approaching a French 74 in a brig laden with 150 tons of powder. Time was of no consequence now; only distances mattered. The French ship - it was irritating not to know her name - was perhaps a mile away: the distance was difficult to judge because she was bow-on and against the black cliffs. A mile, say, and the Merle was making about four knots. In fifteen minutes it should be all over, one way or another.

He joined Jackson and bent over the compass, taking a rough bearing of the Muscade and then of the French 74. He could imagine Southwick doing the same on board the Muscade.

The enemy a mile away to leeward: soon he would not be able to shout, except for the final orders in the last mad moments, in case the French heard the English words. So now was the time for his little speech; the one the men always seemed to expect, even though the words could only be banal.

'Calypsos', he called, 'we have slightly less than a quarter of an hour to go.' Surprising how being rather precise about the time gave the impression of carefully measured sextant angles of the Frenchman's mainmasthead and calculations using tables.

'I'm sure you can all see our target, and you can see the Muscade over on our starboard beam. The Merle and the Muscade are the two jaws of a pair of nutcrackers. You can see the nut dead ahead, almost in the shadow of the cliff. The only nut ever cracked with more than two hundred tons of powder!

'But our nutcrackers will probably only work if we get the nut squarely between us. We can rely on Mr Southwick and the Muscade. As far as the Merle is concerned, we have very little to do, but it has to be done correctly.

'First, I have to get this ship alongside that 74. If I gowrong, I expect Jackson will put me right.' That drew a laugh from all the men, who knew that the pair of them had been in action together several dozen times.

'As I'm doing that, topmen will be clewing up the maintopsail and then the foretopsail. Before that - in five minutes' time - you'll have furled the fore and maincourses.

'You grapnel men will hook us on with at least six grapnels.' He had to pause as the other men jeered and thegrapnel men protested their skill. 'As soon as the topsails are clewed up and the grapnels hooked on, Stafford and Arry will - when I give the order - light the fuses.