He pictured the men at the bitts struggling to loop over bights of heavy, stiff cable to slow it up and finally stop it running out. No, it was hopeless, the Calypso was sailing too fast: trying to stop six hundred tons of frigate like that - either the cable would break under the strain or the men would never hold it on the bitts.

But - yes! Yes, the rock was sliding to starboard - an illusion caused by the Calypso beginning to turn to larboard. And the blasted French frigate? There she was, topsails and courses in straining curves, and now on the Calypso's starboard quarter. And not changing course.

Aitken was shouting, sails slatting, the yards were being braced round: then suddenly the Calypso's stern seemed to slew to larboard, as though skidding on ice.

"The cable held, sir!" Aitken shouted jubilantly. He pointed down on the maindeck. "Sent the men at the sheets and braces sprawling. No ship ever tacked so fast! And look at the Frenchman!"

Within moments Ramage heard heavier thuds from forward and then, after a whiplash noise like a pistol shot in a valley, the Calypso leapt forward as Southwick's men chopped through the cable which had done its task of bringing round the Calypso's bow in - a minute? Perhaps two. "North-east by east," Ramage called to Jackson. That would put the wind on the starboard beam - and mean she was sailing back almost along her own wake.

Suddenly Aitken was banging him on the shoulder and screaming: "Look! Look for the love of God look!"

Ramage stared into the darkness in the direction Aitken was pointing. There, almost astern, was the rock and, just north of it, a bulky black shape. Shape? No, it was almost shapeless! Ramage strained his eyes, then grabbed a proffered nightglass.

Yes, as he had guessed, the French frigate had turned to starboard after suddenly sighting the rock revealed by the Calypso's unexpected turn to larboard. She had swung to starboard to miss ramming the rock but, as Ramage had intended, had run on to the hidden shoal stretching north-westward for a couple of hundred yards. Two hundred yards of innocent-looking sea - but only a few feet below the surface and like a monstrous lower jaw was the layer of jagged rocks of a shoal waiting to rip the bottom out of an unwary ship.

Then an excited Southwick was standing beside him, pumping his hand and bellowing: "It worked, by God! Snatched us round as though we were a bull with a ring in its nose. But," he added, his voice admonishing, "you ran it damned close, sir! By the time we had the cable snubbed and the ship began to swing, I could dam' near touch that rock with my hand. Did you hear the leadsman?"

"Don't tell me about it," Ramage said firmly. "We're still sailing and our pursuer isn't, and that's enough!"

The sudden impact, stopping the French ship as she was sailing at about nine knots, had sent all three masts by the board. And seldom, Ramage thought, had "by the board" been such an accurate description: the masts snapped at deck level ("by the board") as cleanly as trampled bluebell stalks and collapsed forward. The foremast went over the bow, tumbling down on the bowsprit and jibboom; the mainmast crashed down on to the stump of the foremast, and the mizen had followed. Spread over the wreckage, like a great fishing net tossed aside carelessly, the standing and running rigging softened the harsh line of broken masts and slewed yards. And beneath all that wreckage men must be trapped. Many would be dead. He turned away to face Sir Henry.

"You're a lucky gambler!" Sir Henry said, still almost shapeless in borrowed oilskins, and shook him by the hand. "How you judged when to let go the anchor so that it bit in time for us to swing and miss the rock, I don't know -"

"Better not ask, sir," Ramage said.

"Well, you did it, and in my letter to the Board I shall say it was fine judgement. And you, Mr Southwick. You must have been running about on the fo'c'sle, but you didn't even lose your hat!"

"It's well anchored down, sir," Southwick said, tugging locks of his flowing white hair.

"What now, Mr Ramage?" Sir Henry asked, and Ramage recognized the tone. That was the trouble with being lucky: everyone then started expecting miracles . ..

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Time and time again the Calypso pitched and snubbed sharply like an angry tethered bull as the cable groaned. Nevertheless, considering they had anchored the ship in the dark using only the lead to keep them from running up on to the shoal, and were determined to be within gunshot of the stranded Frenchmen at daylight, Ramage was quite content.

The Calypso was headed south-east, into the wind with the middle rock of the Formiche di Grosseto, for which they had been steering last night, now on the starboard bow, a jagged black tooth growing from a smother of spray. The French frigate was on the starboard beam, a cable distant.

"She's so much like us to look at... and all I can think is that's how we'd look if we'd run on to the bank!" Southwick said.

"I've been thinking that ever since I had a good look at dawn," Aitken said.

Ramage laughed drily. "I hope you've both learned a lesson: that's what happens if you have a poor navigator, or keep a poor lookout."

"That wasn't what put him up there," Southwick protested.

"No, and that's the third lesson: never assume the ship you're following knows where she is or is keeping a sharp lookout," Ramage said, "and if she's an enemy, assume she's going to play a trick."

"Don't keep on, sir," Aitken pleaded, "or you'll have me shedding tears of remorse over the way we led that poor Frenchman astray."

Ramage examined the "poor Frenchman" once again with his telescope. Yes, from the moment the Frenchman began his turn to starboard he was doomed. If he'd turned to larboard immediately, following the Calypso, he would still have hit the rock because he had no time to let go an anchor to stop and then turn him quickly. By turning to starboard he had just missed the rock, passing it close to larboard, only - as Ramage had intended - to drive up on the rocky shoal stretching north-west from the rock.

The frigate would bounce from rock to rock for a few yards with an impact that must have ripped her bottom as it sent her masts by the board, before heeling to starboard and coming to rest, still looking as though any moment she might topple off the edge of the shoal into deep water and sink.

Although the sea had eased down a little since last night, the waves still made a foaming white collar round the rock and swept on to hit the Frenchman's stern, frequently driving green seas unbroken over her quarterdeck. Already the sternlights of the captain's cabin had been stove in and seas swept through, to pour down into the gunroom. She must be holed badly: in fact, staring at her in the circle shown by the glass, it was clear that despite the largest of the swell waves swirling round her, she was not lifting to any of them: she was inert, resting (impaled rather) on the hidden rocks of the shoal.

The stricken ship was heeled so far that the men in the Calypso had the same view as a gull flying high over her starboard side.

As Ramage had seen fleetingly in the night before, her masts had gone at deck level, each falling forward. The foremast had crashed down on the fo'c'sle and launched the topmast on to the bowsprit, while the topgallant mast had gone like a giant javelin into the jibboom, carrying it away so that it was crumpled over the bow like a giant's broken fishing rod.

All the standing and running rigging - shrouds which should keep the masts braced athwartships, stays holding them fore and aft, the halyards for hoisting the yards, and the braces for trimming them - all this cordage looked like a carelessly thrown gladiator's net. The yards themselves were slewed across the deck; some, broken, hung over the side. Sails, what was left of them, fluttered like shredded bedsheets, dark patches showing where the sea sluiced over the canvas and occasionally, like a dog shaking itself, throwing up fine spray.