'Very well: let's join the fight!'

He heard more shots as he and Aitken hurried below, and he found the lowerdeck in chaos: men crouching because of the low headroom, crowded by all the hammocks slung from the deckhead, were slashing and parrying with cutlasses and by now shouting at the tops of their voices in English and French.

There was hardly any light: here and there a lantern glowed dimly on the deck, casting weird shadows. The heat made the air seem almost solid and the lanterns were smoking.

A man appearing apparently from nowhere suddenly hurled himself at Ramage, slashing with a cutlass. Ramage parried the first blow, having stuffed the pistols back in his belt and drawn his sword when he left the gunroom. Ramage was hard put to see the next slash because of the heavy shadows and parried instinctively. Then he caught sight of the assailant's face, which was partly hidden as he crouched down to avoid the deck beams, and slashed at the throat. The man gurgled and collapsed.

The problem was distinguishing Dido from Alerte, and Ramage cursed himself for not telling his men to wear white headbands. Still, most of the Alertes were either naked or just wearing trousers, as they had tumbled from their hammocks, while the Didos were wearing shirts and trousers, and many of them did have bands round their foreheads to keep their hair and perspiration out of their eyes. But the bands were not white, Ramage noted; they were grubby strips of cloth often obscured by hair.

There was only one way of sorting out the Didos from the Alertes and he took a deep breath and then bellowed out: 'To me, Didos! To me!'

The crowd of men gave a convulsive heave and Ramage found himself surrounded by men wielding cutlasses and chattering with excitement. He waited a minute or two and then shouted: 'Right, follow me - charge them!'

He was conscious of Jackson on one side and Rossi on the other, with Aitken very close, as he ran crouching towards the waiting Frenchmen, who were obviously bewildered at suddenly finding themselves standing alone. As Ramage lunged at the nearest Frenchman he heard a solid thudding above him: he recognized the noise of axes slamming away at the anchor cable. That meant the topsails had been let fall, which in turn meant that any moment now the Alerte would be gathering way.

And that meant his place was up on deck, starting to sail the frigate out of the anchorage, not fighting hand to hand below decks.

'Come on!' he shouted at Jackson and, careful not to turn his back on the French, he made his way up on deck.

'Take the wheel,' he told Jackson, and in the darkness he could make out the topsails hanging down from the yards. Even as he watched they began taking up their shapes as men obeyed their orders and sheeted home the sails and braced up the yards.

Now was the time to let Southwick know that the frigate was under way, so that he would light a couple of lanterns to guide them. 'Where's the rocket?' he asked Jackson and the American said apologetically: 'Still in the boat, sir.'

'Hurry up and get it - I'll take the wheel,' Ramage said crossly, and seized the spokes as he looked aloft again at the sails.

The wooden spokes felt smooth with wear as he turned the wheel slightly and thought to himself ironically: here is a captain of a ship of the line trying to steer a frigate on a straight course. He could feel a faint breeze on the back of his neck and was thankful because he could not see the sails very clearly and there was no light in the binnacle.

He could just make out the two Marines guarding the French captain and he called to them: 'One of you come and light the candle in the binnacle from your lantern.'

That was something else he had forgotten: to detail a man to see to the binnacle light. Well, he was learning; if he ever cut out a frigate again things would be different.

Still, some things had gone right: the topsails were set, men had cut the anchor cable at the right time, and the sails had been trimmed and the yards braced round. Soon the rocket would be sent off and then he would have to look out for the two lights, one above the other, which the Dido would hoist.

Then Jackson was back with the rocket and launcher tube just as the Marine shut the binnacle door having lit the candle. Ramage quickly looked at the compass card, squinting as he focused his eyes. He was steering west-north-west. As far as he could estimate, the Dido would be a couple of points over on the larboard hand. Anyway, west-north-west kept them clear of any obstacles and for the moment he was more worried about coral reefs and shoals of sand than he was about the French.

Just as he was thinking that, Hill suddenly appeared. 'Mr Aitken sent me, sir: the French have surrendered! At first just a few of them cried for quarter, and the next moment all of them did. Many of them were unarmed and realized they didn't stand a chance.'

'What's Aitken doing now?'

'Sorting out the prisoners with Rennick, sir: we've taken twenty as hostages - I told the rest of them that the hostages would be run through if they didn't behave.'

'Very well. Go back and tell Mr Aitken to come up here and leave the prisoners to Rennick and Kenton. You had better stay down there where your French will be useful.'

By now Jackson had set up the rocket and Ramage said: 'Right, fire it. Use the candle in the sentry's lantern.'

The rocket went soaring up into the sky and burst into white stars. 'Take the wheel,' Ramage told Jackson, 'she seems quite happy on west-north-west, so steer that until we sight the Dido's lights.'

With that he went to the larboard side and stared into the darkness. Sailing the Alerte was just like sailing the Calypso - except that the gunroom was full of French officers being guarded by Marines, and below there was a whole French ship's company being held prisoner by the boarders, while just behind him the French captain stood miserably between two Marine guards, his only movement that Ramage had seen being desultory slaps at mosquitoes.

And not a shot from Fort St Louis: the sentries there had heard nothing of the shots - the Alerte was well to leeward - and either had not seen or had taken no notice of the lanterns moving around on the deck of the frigate.

Then he saw two pinpoints of light: Southwick had hoisted the two lanterns in the Dido, and they seemed closer than he expected. He suspected Southwick had been working his way into the bay, ready to come to their help if the rocket had burst in a red star.

Now he had to decide what to do with all the prisoners. He did not fancy losing any more of his men in a prize crew, and he was sure that Admiral Cameron would not welcome more than two hundred Frenchmen as prisoners. Why not send them back to their comrades under a white flag and an agreement that they would not serve until they had been regularly exchanged?

And an exchange would take ages: the French would need months to capture more than two hundred Britons as a counterweight. But Ramage found he did not care; as far as he was concerned, the important task was to get rid of the prisoners and then send the Alerte to Barbados with the minimum prize crew that could handle her.