He turned his head. 'Mr Southwick . . .' As soon as the master was standing beside him he gave him his instructions and the old man grinned. A relieved grin? It seemed so to Ramage, as though Southwick had expected him to do something else. Anyway, the master took the speaking-trumpet from its rack on the forward side of the binnacle box and walked over to Wagstaffe, telling him to report to the captain.

The second lieutenant looked cheerful: his hat was at a rakish angle, his silk stockings were obviously new (and worn because Bowen had told Ramage, who made it a standing order, that silk, not woollen, stockings should be worn in action: wool dragged into a wound made the surgeon's work ten times more difficult).

Ramage told him the orders just given to Southwick. 'Now, we'll be firing our starboard broadside first, unless something unforeseen happens, so get the extra men over on that side. After that, a certain amount depends on what the Lynx does, but seconds are going to matter. This is what I want to do.'

The lieutenant listened, nodding a couple of times. 'Aye aye, sir,' he said, and walked back to his position at the foreward side of the quarterdeck. He borrowed the speaking-trumpet from Southwick and shouted orders to the guns' crews.

No ship in the Royal Navy ever had enough men to 'fight both sides'. Usually there were enough to load and fire all the guns on one side, with only one or two men for each gun on the other side. If both broadsides had to be fired, then one was fired first and several men from each gun ran across to the corresponding gun on the other side to fire that while the men left behind began to sponge and reload.

The Heliotrope was now on the starboard beam (no wonder that had seemed a long swim from the Earl of Dodsworth) and the Commerce to larboard. Ahead, only her transom visible and her two masts in line, the Lynx. Once again he raised the telescope. Her gunports were still closed and beyond her, on the beach, he could see the Calypsos and the two surveying parties running towards their boats. The artist Wilkins would have to be left behind if he wanted to sketch the action from the shore.

He eased the sling slightly: his arm was beginning to throb, but at last he was coming to life; the chill which had seemed reluctant to go since they dragged him from the sea on board the East Indiaman was now being replaced by a warm glow; the sky was deep blue again, the hills of Trinidade fresh green, the sand of the small beach almost white, and the sea in the bay a patchwork of dark blue, pale green and brownish-green, warning of the depths.

The dark, mangrove green of the Lynx's hull, the buff of her masts and white of her topmasts, the black of her rigging - they showed up in the telescope as though she was fifty yards away instead of five hundred.

He hated sitting down: usually at this point before battle he would be free to pace along the deck beside the quarterdeck rail, but now he had to be in an armchair like some ancient dribbling admiral, hard of hearing and even harder of comprehension, bald of pate and watery of eye. He laughed at the picture and noticed Wagstaffe glance round and grin. Paolo began laughing and Ramage glanced up at him questioningly.

'You look very commodo, sir.'

'I'm comfortable enough, although I'd sooner be walking, my lad, but at least I'm not missing anything!'

He gave Paolo the telescope to replace in the binnacle box drawer: there was no need for it now. Four hundred yards - and he could see five or six men looking over the Lynx's taffrail. 'Can you see any men on her fo'c'sle?'

'No, sir, but it's partly hidden from here by the masts.'

The chances were that they had not begun cutting their cable. No men were casting off the gaskets of her sails. Had they all panicked? Frozen with fear as they saw the frigate beating up to them, guns run out on both sides? He pictured Tomás and Hart and knew they were not men likely to panic. Then he glanced at his watch. He tried to guess how long had passed since those two or three privateersmen had pointed and raised the alarm. Two or three minutes, he saw; not enough time for Tomás and Hart to do anything - yet.

Three hundred yards and the privateer was dead ahead: they must be wondering which side the Calypso was going to grapple. The colours of the Lynx were bright now and he could distinguish a thin man from a fat one. Judging distance was the hardest job of all.

'Wagstaffe, warn your men to be ready as the target bears. Southwick -' he paused. Two hundred yards. His eyes followed an imaginary curve round to larboard which would be the Calypso's course as she tacked. It had to be done slowly to give the gunners a good chance, but not so slowly that she got into irons and drifted helplessly. One hundred yards. That popping was from the muskets of a few privateersmen at the taffrail. In the moment before he shouted the order to Southwick he realized that the privateersmen were still trying to guess which side to defend against the Calypso!

'- put her about, Mr Southwick, slowly now!'

The master bellowed a few words at the quartermaster, Jackson, who snapped at the men on each side of the wheel. Slowly, it seemed so slowly that for a few moments he thought he had left it too late, the Calypso began to turn. For a long time it looked as though her bowsprit and jibboom would ride up over the Lynx's stern as she rammed the schooner, then the speed of her turn increased as the rudder started to get grip on the water. Southwick held the foretopsail backed just as the frigate swung north, with the Lynx's stern appearing to move slowly along her starboard side.

Ramage heard a thud from forward and saw a puff of smoke beginning to drift down the Calypso's side. Then another as the second gun fired in the frigate's raking broadside. More popping - loud from the muskets of Renwick's Marines, soft from the privateersmen; then the thumping of the frigate's remaining guns formed a deep background to the descant of flapping sails, squealing ropes and Southwick's shouted orders as slowly the Calypso went about on the other tack, swinging past northeast and heading west-north-west before she picked up enough way for the rudder to act.

The wind was so light that the smoke of the Calypso's guns did not disperse and in a few moments the quarterdeck was covered in a thin, acrid fog which set Ramage coughing and clutching his wounded arm as the spasms shot pain through his whole body. In a moment Paolo was bent over him, holding a handkerchief over his nose and mouth to filter out the smoke, but almost as suddenly as it appeared the smoke vanished and the sun was glaring down again on the quarterdeck.

Still coughing, Ramage twisted round in the chair. The Lynx was on the starboard quarter, dust hanging over her stern, and beginning to slide under the Calypso's taffrail as the frigate continued her turn.

It was working! 'Mr Wagstaffe - are your men ready at the larboard side guns?'

The second lieutenant waved, a confident gesture to reassure the captain.

Still the Calypso continued turning: having fired all her starboard guns into the Lynx while tacking northwards across her stern she was turning to pass southward across the Lynx's stern again and fire all her larboard guns, loaded with grapeshot, into the unprotected stern, yet another raking broadside which every ship feared.

'Mamma mia!'Paolo exclaimed. 'We've smashed half her transom with the first broadside!'

'Only half? All those 12-pounders loaded with grapeshot should have done more than that!'

Grapeshot: they sounded innocent enough to a landman, but even for a 12-pounder they were formidable. Nine small iron balls, each weighing a pound (and the size of a duck's egg) comprised a single round. Each of the Calypso's guns on the starboard side had blasted nine one-pound shot into the Lynx; one after another, like a funeral bell tolling, until eighteen rounds had been fired - a total of 162 grapeshot.