'No, she doesn't know we're out here and is probably wondering why the Scourge keeps on burning false fires. She could understand the rockets, thinking we are somewhere off Cap Salomon,' Ramage said, 'but her captain must be wondering why there are no more rockets.'

Just then another false fire started burning, and Ramage could see that the Achille was still on the same course and less than half a mile away. In the blue light he could see the curve of her sails and the black blur which was her hull. What could they see from the Achille? Would they be able to spot the Dido against the blacker northern horizon?

Suddenly Southwick exclaimed: 'I can see her very well with the nightglass. All plain sail set. She'll pass about a quarter of a mile ahead of us. She's probably making five knots: no more, I can just make out the phosphorescence at the bow.'

'Warn them to stand by at the guns,' Ramage told Aitken. 'It won't be long now.'

A night action against another seventy-four: the fact was he did not know what to expect. Apart from the thunder of the guns, there would be a mass of flashes which would make it hard to see anything. But at least the flashes would give the gunners an aiming point: they would not be hampered by darkness.

'She's coming up quite fast,' Southwick said, the nightglass to his eye. 'I think I can just make out a black speck that is the Scourge in the distance. It's damned difficult, what with this nightglass showing everything upside down.'

Ramage cursed that there was only one nightglass on board the Dido, but it belonged to Southwick and he did not feel he could demand the use of it at this particular moment.

'How far now?'

'Under five hundred yards, sir. I reckon she might spot us any minute.'

Then, Ramage mused, what would she do? She could turn to larboard and head out to sea - in which case the Dido would follow her - or she could turn slightly to starboard, trying to give the Dido a wide berth but getting close to Pointe des Nègres, or else she could stay on her present course and engage the Dido, exchanging broadside for broadside.

Just at that moment the Scourge set off another false fire, which lit up the Achille perfectly: she was large on the starboard beam and Ramage with the naked eye could make out the tracery of her rigging.

'Let the foretopsail draw, turn to larboard on to the same course,' he snapped at Aitken. He should have turned the ship sooner so that she presented a smaller object for the Achille's lookouts to spot.

Slowly the Dido began to move ahead and turn so that the cliffs of Pointe des Nègres moved round from being dead ahead to broad on the beam. Before she finished the turn the false fire died down and Ramage, who had closed his right eye, cautiously opened it, and found he had kept his night vision in that eye. Not only that, but he could now just make out the Achille's position as she approached. He had to go to the ship's side and look astern out of a gunport on the starboard side.

'Three hundred yards,' Southwick said. 'She's holding the same course and making perhaps five knots.'

And then Ramage could make out the big black shape of the ship with a ghostly phosphorescent bow wave which flickered a pale green. She was about two or three hundred yards nearer Pointe des Nègres but, as the Dido finished her turn, on the same course.

'They must have seen us by now,' Southwick commented. 'I wonder why they haven't opened up with bowchasers.'

'Probably learned their lesson from using the sternchasers against the Scourge: they found the flashes blinded them,' Ramage said.

'Well, he's not trying to dodge us: he's not afraid of engaging us broadside to broadside,' said Aitken.

'He hasn't had much time to think about it,' Ramage said mildly.

'Well, he hasn't much choice now!'

The Achille was approaching fast. She had not increased speed: Ramage knew it was just a trick of the light, or the dark. But he decided to close the range.

'A point to starboard, Mr Aitken.'

As the Dido turned slightly, the Achille seemed to slide closer.

As far as Ramage could make out, she had not reduced sail. But even as he watched he saw the courses being clewed up: an indication that she had only just sighted the Dido. Now the French were at a slight disadvantage - being forced to fight with too much canvas set.

The range was closing fast now in the darkness: Ramage could see the ship quite clearly: she was two hundred yards away, broad on the Dido's quarter and overhauling her. Another three minutes and she would be abeam, and the fighting would start.

Ramage found himself timing the approach as he watched. Two minutes. He turned to Aitken. 'Tell the guns to be ready for the order to fire in about a minute.'

The first lieutenant snatched up the speaking trumpet and Ramage did not take his eyes off the Achille. Now the tip of her jibboom was abreast the Dido's taffrail. Now her foremast, bulbous with the clewed up course, was level with the poop.

'Stand by,' Ramage muttered at Aitken, who lifted the speaking trumpet to his lips.

There were several bright flashes as the Achille's forward guns opened fire, and Ramage was thankful that he had been watching the ship long enough to know exactly where she was: otherwise he would have been dazzled by the muzzle flash.

More of the French ship's guns fired and Ramage heard the tearing calico noise of the shot passing overhead. The French were aiming too high. Was this because the gunners were not used to firing in the dark or were they deliberately firing high to disable rigging?

Now, after firing her guns as they bore, the Achille was almost abreast the Dido and Ramage said: 'Fire!'

It was as though there was a huge clap of thunder and a prodigious flash of lightning as the Dido's broadside fired, every gun going off within a second.

Ramage had been a moment too late in closing his eyes and the combined flash of all the Dido's broadsides had dazzled him. He found it hard to see the Achille, although she was a bare hundred yards away, with the Dido still on a slightly converging course.

'A point to larboard should bring us on to the same course,' he told Aitken just as the Achille's forward guns fired again. It was curious how guns firing individually were never so terrifying as a broadside. Ramage just had time to decide that the French, firing a few guns at a time, had dazzled themselves, when a shot whined between him and Southwick after ricocheting off the mainmast.

Suddenly Orsini's carronades on the poop barked out again: they could be loaded quicker than the carriage guns, and Ramage could imagine the youth's excitement as he spurred on his men.

Then the Dido's second broadside crashed out: slightly ragged this time as the men took slightly different times to load their guns. Now the smoke was streaming across the quarterdeck, making them all cough and spreading through the ship like fog. It blurred the flash of the guns firing, softening the harshness until it was like lightning in a thick cloud.

So this is what a night action between ships of the line is like, Ramage thought to himself. The only startling thing was the flash of the guns: it turned night into what seemed to be the entrance to Hell. The rigging threw weird shadows on the sails; the sails themselves were lit up spasmodically and threw more shadows, apparently distorting the masts.

The darkness seemed to emphasize the noise. Obviously the guns were making no more noise than usual, but the darkness seemed to concentrate it, as though the thunder could not escape.

He heard Orsini shouting orders to his guns' crews: the lad was excited but controlled, and the guns crashed out yet again. Firing caseshot, they would be sweeping the Frenchman's decks, cutting down men and slashing rigging and sails.