"I don't see any problem," Aitken said. "We just tow them back alongside."

"Yes, our boats with grapnels. Let them get close enough to heave grapnels on board and then tow them to the quay."

"Musketry," Aitken said doubtfully. "The men in the boats will be vulnerable for a long time."

Again Ramage shook his head. "The Saracens don't seem to have many muskets: they didn't use them when they attacked us, and I doubt if they'd have many in the galleys."

"Very well, sir, I'll go and give the boats their orders if you'll get your men ready."

"You'll be using just about all your men," Ramage commented.

"Yes, sir, but we've managed so far - thanks to Southwick!"

"What's he been doing?"

"Well, I had him dancing all over the quarterdeck, cursing and foaming when we guessed what was happening here. Then I suggested he went and helped at the guns, because we were so short of men, and he went off like a pistol shot. Enjoyed himself enormously. The last I saw of him just before I got into the cutter he no longer had white hair: it was grey from smoke and powder!"

With that Aitken jumped down into the cutter which was quickly rowed back to the frigate. It took fifteen minutes to get all the boats ready and surrounding the galleys, and by then Ramage had all his surviving seamen and Marines lining the quay two deep where the galleys would be towed alongside.

The grapnels were flung up from Aitken's boats and before the screaming Saracens realized what was happening all the Calypso's boats were hauling the galleys back alongside the quay.

They had only ten yards to go, and while the Saracens lined the landward side of the nearest galley shouting what Ramage assumed were threats intended to curdle the blood, the seamen and Marines waited patiently to fight their way on board.

It was while watching the prancing Saracens that Ramage suddenly realized that these were the only survivors of the four hundred or so that had landed: the rest had either been killed in the fighting on shore or drowned as the boats had been sunk by the Calypso's relentless fire. How many were there in the galleys? Thirty in each; not more. Sixty left out of more than four hundred. There were going to be many widows in whatever town they called home. More widows than one would at first suppose, Ramage thought, because most men probably had more than one wife. . .

Ramage saw that the galleys were sufficiently small for his men to line up four and five deep, and he shouted orders to Rennick, Kenton, Martin and Hill. Had Aitken brought over the blacksmith to free the slaves from their chains?

And then the galleys were alongside and the British seamen and Marines were pouring over the bulwarks, shouting and slashing with their cutlasses. It was such a violent and concerted attack, with Ramage and Orsini in the front row, that the Saracens quickly retreated into the second galley.

Ramage, noticing that Jackson, Rossi, Stafford and the Frenchmen had appeared from somewhere and were surrounding him like a bodyguard, was appalled by the stench: the galleys smelled like middens, and as he found his way from one galley to the next, Ramage just glimpsed the slaves hunched down, seated on benches.

As he slashed and parried, Ramage had to watch his footing: the galley, with its double row of oarsmen each side, had no deck in the accepted sense; the ship seemed to comprise catwalks, a central one down which the men in charge of the slaves presumably walked with their whips.

He scrambled across to the second galley, noting in the red haze of fighting that they had taken the first, and then he saw that several of the Saracens - in fact many of them, those trapped against the bulwarks - were jumping into the sea, a flurry of long robes, turbans and long hair. And then suddenly the fighting was all over; the sudden silence was almost unnerving.

Ramage scrambled back on to the quay again, found Kenton and Martin and said: "Take a couple of dozen seamen and go back towards the guns and bring back our wounded here: the sooner we get them out to the ship so that Bowen can have a go at them, the better."

"What about the Saracens, sir?" Hill asked.

"Our men first," Ramage said abruptly.

As the first of the wounded were brought along the quay and made ready to be lowered into the Calypso's boats, Kenton gave Ramage the butcher's bill: seventeen Calypsos had been killed and thirteen wounded. There were fifty-seven dead Saracens - many of them killed by the carronades, boat guns and musketry -and forty-four wounded, most of the men so seriously that they would not last out the night.

Just as Kenton finished his report - after adding that many of the men and women from the town were out helping the wounded - the mayor came up to Ramage, his face serious. He took Ramage's hand and said emotionally: "You saved us - but at what a cost to your men!"

"It was inevitable," Ramage said. "We were heavily outnumbered."

The mayor looked across at the galleys, startled by the banging of metal as the blacksmith got to work.

"Go on board and look," Ramage said. "We're freeing the men who had been taken as slaves. Once we find out where they come from we'll take them back home again."

The mayor clambered on board the first galley but was soon back, white-faced and clearly shaken by what he had seen.

"What our men have escaped!" he said apologetically. "It turns the stomach ..." and before he could say any more he was violently sick. "The stench," he said apologetically. "But, Commandante," he added, "I was going to tell you that our people are doing what they can for your wounded over there. Unfortunately, we do not have medical supplies. But the dead, we will give them a great funeral - it is the least we can do," he said when he saw Ramage about to protest. "The Saraceni we put in a pit, all of them."

It took a moment for Ramage to realize the significance of what the mayor had said.

"Not all of them," he said. "Just the dead."

"They'll all be dead," the mayor said grimly. "They would have killed us- but for you. And if we let them escape alive, who knows, they might come back one day, looking for revenge. And you won't be here to protect us. No, Commandante, we do it our way; it is safer for us."

Ramage shrugged his shoulders. Much as the idea of slaughtering wounded men repulsed him, there was no arguing with the mayor's logic: there would not always be a British frigate to protect Licata; the little port would be defenceless in two or three days' time, once the Calypso left.

The mayor shook hands again and left just as Kenton and Hill led the second group of wounded. Hill said: "The Italians are taking away our dead, sir: carrying them up to the church."

"Yes, I know, the mayor has just told me. They want to arrange the funeral - a sort of thanks offering."

"But the Saracen wounded," Hill began lamely. "What I mean is, those that were wounded . . ."

Ramage guessed what Hill was trying to say. "You couldn't stop them?"

"No, sir, they were too quick. We didn't expect anything like that and we were busy attending to our own men first. When we turned round it was all over. Throats cut."

"It wasn't your fault," Ramage said. "These people are frightened that if any Saracens escape they'll be back seeking revenge as soon as we've gone."

"Can't say I blame "em," Hill said. "A couple of dozen Saracens could cut everyone's throat in this town - judging from the way we saw them fight. No wonder the Italians dread the Saracens."

"It's a tradition," Ramage said. "The Saracens have been raiding Italian coastal towns and villages for centuries. It's something that we who were brought up in England will never understand."

At that moment Aitken came up and reported: "All the slaves have been freed, sir. Some of them are in a bad shape: a few of them have gangrene where the chains chafed them."