Ramage snapped out another order to the quartermaster and then asked South wick: "What about that damage forward?"

"They'll have the wreckage lowered in a few minutes, sir; there's no chance of damage to the topsail now."

"I hope it won't take too long; I want those men back at the guns."

"Mr Aitken has it under control, sir," Southwick said soothingly. "I say, are we going to rake that fellow again?"

"We're getting into the habit," Ramage said lightly. "Not that it seems to be doing him much harm."

"We've smashed in his sternlights!" Southwick said.

"Yes, but it's his jibboom and bowsprit we want to smash. Right at the moment we're doing as much damage as a crowd of mice."

By now Le Jason was plunging her way seaward, the waves from the shallower water slapping into her bow and sending up small sheets of spray which darkened the foot of her forecourse. She was beginning to pitch slightly and her Tricolour streamed out aft like a board.

As the Calypso sailed northwards to pass across Le Jason's bow with fifty yards to spare, she too began to knock up the spray, her starboard bow shouldering into the waves, sending the sea drifting aft over the deck like heavy rain. Ramage could taste the saltiness on his lips and noted that the wind was increasing, though the sky apart from a few scurrying clouds was clear and the usual bright blue that was special to this corner of the Tuscan coast.

Raking broadsides: he doubted if he had fired as many in his whole life as he had fired against Le Tigre and Le Jason. But as far as Le Jason's fighting ability was concerned - apart from the dismounted sternchase gun - he might as well be bombarding her with snowballs.

Well, in a couple of minutes he would have his next chance: with a bit of luck this broadside would really damage her bow. Even bring the foremast toppling down? He shrugged: one could only hope.

A gust of wind caught the Calypso and she surged forward, her bow wave hissing down her sides. The masts and yards creaked, acknowledging the gust rather than protesting at it.

"Orsini - whip round and tell the gunners they've two minutes!"

Ramage was sure that giving the gunners a warning when he could was increasing their accuracy: he had noticed that the broadsides had been fired with a comforting regularity, rather than three guns going off at once. The regular fire meant that the gun captains were firing when the enemy was precisely in their sights, rather than jerking the lanyards hopefully.

He looked across the larboard bow at the French frigate. One minute to go - and Orsini should have got to all the gunners by now. Half a minute - and he could begin to make out details of the Frenchman's rigging and patched sails. She had a figurehead but they had not bothered to paint it; the old paint was faded and peeling. Was that as a result of the Revolution, that seamen no longer bothered about things like figureheads? In the King's ships they were prized and regularly painted, and many of them were covered with canvas in rough weather to protect them.

Then the Calypso's first gun fired with a satisfying cough. The smoke would bother Aitken's working party, but they would have to cough and bear it: the faster they cleared away the wreckage the sooner they would be out of the smoke. They would not, of course, because most of them belonged to the guns, and as soon as they finished they would return to the guns - and the smoke.

The guns settled down to firing regularly and once again the smoke streamed aft up to the quarterdeck. Ramage watched the French frigate's bow with the telescope but could not spot any hits. Two shots fell short, sending up tall spouts of water, but there seemed to be no damage to the jibboom or bowsprit.

Southwick, also watching with a glass, gave a disgusted sniff. "Don't know what's happened to our gunners," he said disgustedly. "If they can knock us about with a sternchaser, we ought to do better with a raking broadside."

By now the Calypso had passed across Le Jason's bow and Ramage gave orders for her to go about, so that on the starboard tack she would range up alongside the French ship, exchanging broadside for broadside.

As the Calypso swung round on to a parallel course and while the gun crews prepared the starboard broadside, Ramage wondered whether to let fall the maintopgallant.

As if the French captain read his thoughts, he saw Le Jason begin to clew up her courses and, a minute or two later, start furling her topgallants, so that - now she was afloat again - she was back in a fighting trim of topsails only, matching the Calypso. Once again Orsini was sent round the gundeck with the orders that they should fire as soon as their guns bore, and Orsini had not returned to the quarterdeck before the first gun fired.

The range was about a hundred yards and Ramage decided to halve it, giving an order to the quartermaster to ease over to starboard half a point. The last few guns of the broadside had just finished firing when Le Jason opened fire, the usual red winking eyes passing down her side. Ramage heard an occasional thud as one of the French ship's roundshot landed but there were no screams of wounded men and no reports of damage.

Aitken came up to the quarterdeck to report that the wreckage of the foretopgallant mast had been cleared away, along with the remains of the yard.

"We have a spare mast, and a topgallant yard, and the carpenter says that anyway he can fish the damaged yard, sir," he said. "The sail/has only one tear in it, about eight feet long, so it won't take long to patch that."

Ramage nodded. They had been lucky: if the shot had landed a few feet lower, it might have been the foretopmast, bringing down the topsail.

For the next ten minutes the two frigates sailed almost alongside each other, exchanging broadsides, but without either ship showing much damage. Five more of the Calypso's men were killed by roundshot or cut down by splinters and number nine gun was dismounted by a random shot which came through the port and smashed into the carriage without hurting any of the men.

With the glass Ramage could see that the Calypso's gunners were firing reasonably accurately: the French frigate's side was now pockmarked with rusty marks showing where roundshot had punched their way through the hull. But she still kept up a regular rate of fire, replying broadside for broadside, aiming for the Calypso's hull, instead of following the usual French habit of firing at the rigging in the hope of dismasting the enemy.

They had been sailing alongside each other at a range of forty or fifty yards when Ramage commented to Aitken: "We seem to be drawing ahead of her."

"I had that impression, too, sir. Yet she has the same sails set and they are properly trimmed."

Ramage examined the frigate through the glass. Yes, there were a few more shot holes but she was still firing as fast, with smoke streaming out of her ports. Then he noticed a thin stream of water pouring over her side.

"She's got her pump going," he commented. "An odd time to be pumping the bilges."

Then he could see with the naked eye that the stream of water was getting larger: the pump must be working harder.

The water was clear, not stained, so it was not just a question of pumping the bilges to get the last few tons of water out of the ship to increase her speed. Had a lucky shot stove in some butts of fresh water? No, there was more water being pumped out than could be accounted for by that.

Again and again the Calypso's broadsides coughed out. Ramage thought of crashing alongside the ship and boarding her, an idea he later dismissed when he thought of the casualties.

Then Paolo Orsini said respectfully: "Sir, she seems to be a little deeper in the water."

And she was: as soon as Ramage inspected the French ship carefully, he could distinguish that she was throwing up a bigger bow wave and the pump dale was emptying as much water over the side as the pump could handle.