'Where's Orsini?' Ramage asked impatiently, for no reason other than to relieve an impatience which was born of frustration. The Calypsos are going to have to pay for what should be charged to the Lynx, he thought sourly.

'He took his quadrant below to wipe off the salt spray and clean the shades and mirrors, sir. There was plenty of spray about. Er, there seems to be about thirty men on board the privateer.'

' "About"?'

Martin, suddenly remembering how the captain hated vagueness, said hurriedly: 'We counted thirty-six during the morning. I recognized the men who came on board yesterday. The tall man and the Negro were walking together for five minutes, watching our survey parties landing. They did not seem very interested and didn't bother to look with a glass.'

Twenty-four guards in the prizes, thirty-six men in the Lynx. He still reckoned she would carry a round hundred. So forty men must be on shore guarding the officers and seamen taken from the prizes. Forty to guard a hundred? Anyway, how and where were the Lynx men keeping their prisoners?

Wagstaffe was walking towards him. He saluted and said: 'I waited because I saw one of the surveyors was describing his work.'

'Yes, I've heard about the potato patch. Tell me about the prisoners.'

'Well, you can't see from here, sir, but just southeast from where we landed that line of hills goes round in a tight circle to make a sort of amphitheatre. All the prisoners are camped in the bottom with the guards round the top looking down on them. Both guards and prisoners have rigged up scraps of canvas to make awnings. The prisoners cook over a fireplace made up of rocks.'

'What are the chances of escaping?'

'None, sir: the only way out is over the rim, which means climbing up the side of the hills. There are only a few bushes and rocks. We counted about forty guards.'

Ramage nodded, thankful that the details he had so far did not rule out the sketchy plan beginning to take shape in his mind. 'By the way,' he told Wagstaffe, 'you'll have to make do tomorrow without Stafford and Rossi, and any other good swimmers.'

Soon after dawn next morning the sentry called that Aitken was at the door of Ramage's cabin and a moment later the first lieutenant arrived holding a sheet of paper.

'The list of swimmers you asked for, sir. I started with the twenty men you gave prizes to in Gibraltar. I didn't expect the five-times-round-the-Calypso race to have results a year later! If you remember, sir, Renwick won, Martin was second, Rossi third, Orsini and Jackson tied for fourth position and the gunner nearly drowned!'

'And five guineas cost me six,' Ramage said.

Aitken grinned at the memory. 'Ah yes, the judge's interpretation of "the first five positions", and nothing being laid down about ties.'

'Yes, Judge Aitken and his interpretation of Scottish law! Well, what sort of list do we have?'

'The totals are quite good, sir. Twenty-three are powerful swimmers, fourteen more are good for a steady mile, another eight are fine for a fast half-mile but no good over a long distance, while sixty-eight are weak but can swim. In fact all but fifteen of the ship's company can swim. Of the supernumeraries, one draughtsman, Garret, and the four masons can't swim at all. Wilkins is a powerful swimmer - I've seen him, and when I spoke to him this morning he asked if you'd consider him for - well, whatever you have in mind.'

'Oh, just another swimming competition,' Ramage said innocently. 'I thought we could practise on the larboard side.'

'Yes, we'll be out of sight of the privateersmen and the prizes, so the women hostages won't be offended at the sight of dozens of naked seamen splashing about.'

'Exactly,' Ramage said, 'I want a boarding net slung over the side, so the men can hold on to it when they want a rest. And three or four Marines with muskets, in case of sharks.'

'Aye aye, sir,' Aitken said, thankful that the first moves were being taken against the privateersmen.

'And Aitken,' Ramage said quietly, 'don't look so cheerful. I'd just as soon have everyone looking miserable. It shows with a good telescope, you know, and we'd better assume those scoundrels Tomás and Hart are keeping an eye on us. A cheerful man has a jaunty walk. Those scoundrels think that none of the Calypsos have anything to be jaunty about - the officers, anyway.'

'I understand, sir,' Aitken said. 'I can get very miserable at the mere thought of our problems, let alone solving them.'

'That's the spirit,' Ramage said, 'looking sad may keep us alive - and those passengers too.'

He folded Aitken's list of swimmers and put it in his pocket, after taking out another folded sheet of paper which he smoothed out on top of his desk and gestured to Aitken to come across and look at.

The first lieutenant was puzzled by what he saw. 'A raft, sir, or one of those South Sea things? A proa, isn't that the word?'

'A cross between the two. Two stout pieces of wood form the floats, and light planks join them and make a sort of deck. And an eyebolt at each end - one for towing, the other for steering.'

'Ah, yes sir,' Aitken said, obviously puzzled not by the raft but by its purpose. 'About -' he looked at the dimensions which Ramage had scribbled in '- five feet long and two and a half feet wide.'

'I want two, each with eyebolts,' Ramage said.

'Indeed, with eyebolts,' the Scotsman echoed and then looked up. He smiled and said: 'Maybe I could better explain to the carpenter what's needed if I understood its purpose, sir.'

'I'm sure you would,' Ramage said and explained it.

As the rising sun neared the horizon in the east, Ramage went up to the quarterdeck and watched the island turn from a vague grey blur into a heavily-shadowed shape that Wilkins would no doubt call an exercise in the use of black. A sudden movement by the taffrail made Ramage swing round, to be startled by the sight of Wilkins himself perched on the breech of a carronade, legs astride the barrel, a pad in one hand and a stick of charcoal in the other.

'Good morning to you. Captain,' the artist said breezily. 'Sorry I made you jump. I hope you don't mind me making free with your quarterdeck, but these fat carronades are more comfortable than the 12-pounders.'

'Go wherever you wish. What are you doing now?'

'A study for a dawn painting of the island, with the prizes in the foreground. Curious how you can really only see the shape of hilly or mountainous land when the sun is low, rising or setting.'

'Yes, a high sun washes out the shapes,' Ramage said.

'Ah, "washes out" - the exact phrase. You've noticed it, then?'

Ramage gave a short laugh. 'Not living in a house means I've seen nearly every dawn and sunset for the past few years, most of them in the Mediterranean, or the West Indies, so I've watched shadows spreading across flat islands and mountainous islands, across the Pyrenees and the Atlas mountains, the Sierras of Spain and the Spanish Main. And at the end of it, Wilkins, I've a confession to make.'

'A confession?' The startled artist swung round, lifting a leg so that both feet were on the top of the carriage.

'Yes, they total more than a thousand wasted dawns, because I am no artist and I haven't been able to record even the dullest of them.'

'Except in your memory,' Wilkins said. 'Don't envy me,' he added, almost a bitter note in his voice.

'But I do. Not just landscapes, but your portraits as well.'

'Well, perhaps a dozen portraits, but no landscapes. With portraits rarely does the sitter, and never his relatives or friends (but particularly his wife) see him through the artist's eyes, or brush. The more worthwhile the landscape, the less popular it is. How many "patrons of the arts" have ever seen dawn breaking from seaward of a West Indian island, or a Tuscan hill town as the first sun of the day washes it with pink? Or the sun setting through the Strait, with your Atlas mountains on the African side and Gibraltar or the High Sierras on the other? Wonderful sights, beautiful enough to make an artist weep for sheer joy - and weep, too, because no visitor to an exhibition of his work, no patron with the money to buy it, is going to believe what he sees on the canvas. "Very imaginative," the patron will say, keeping a firm hand on the strings of his purse. And he will move along the line and buy some miserable daub showing a wet sun setting over the damp Norfolk Broads - a sun looking as though it had been drowned a few times before setting through all that cloud.'