Ramage and the Renegades

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Silkin gave a sniff which, registering disapproval, would have outdone anything Southwick could have produced. Ramage was standing naked in the middle of his cabin, trying to arrange an old stock as a loincloth. 'It's no good, the damned thing keeps slipping!' he grumbled.

'Breeches, sir, or even these trousers I bought from the purser: they will answer the purpose admirably.'

'Silkin, I have a good half a mile to swim, and I'm not going to be weighed down by heavy clothes.'

'These trousers, sir, they're not really heavy. Just nankeen, they are. Just enough for the purposes of modesty.'

'The devil take modesty,' Ramage snapped, 'I'm not anticipating parading in front of the women passengers. I'd go naked but for the fact that it would remind an enemy that the quickest way of disabling a man is to kick him in the groin.'

'What are the seamen wearing, sir?'

'I don't know, but they don't have such vivid imaginations as I do. Here, this stock is fine now. Give me a big pin. Ah, that's it. Now, that belt. Slide the frog round, so that it's in the small of my back.'

The sailmaker had been busy adapting cutlass belts which were normally worn slung over one shoulder; the swimmers had demanded a way of keeping the cutlass from getting between their legs as they swam, and the best he could do was devise a waistbelt stitched to the shoulderbelt which kept the cutlass to one side. Ramage had not liked it; instead he was just using a waistbelt but fitting it much higher, under his armpits, so that as he swam horizontally the cutlass blade lay along his back, the point on his buttocks. He preferred this method to the other because, with the blade to a man's left, it could cause trouble if he swam to the left or the right.

'What's the time?'

Silkin picked up Ramage's breeches and took the watch from the fob pocket. 'Just ten minutes past two o'clock, sir.'

'Good, time I was off. Quickly, that knife and sheath. Now, strap it round my right shin.' Ramage put his foot up on a chair. 'Tighter . . . that's fine. Now take the line at the bottom of the sheath - yes, it goes round my ankle.'

With the sheath knife secured on the side of his right shin, the cutlass slapping against his back, and dressed only in the stock round his hips, Ramage felt more than faintly ridiculous, but no one was going to see him for some time . . .

He met Aitken and Southwick at the top of the companionway. Aitken was naked to the waist and wearing seaman's trousers, a cutlass belt across his shoulder.

'You look like an Indian, sir,' Southwick said cheerfully, 'I half expected you to try to sell us mangoes.'

'I'm off to demonstrate the Indian rope trick,' Ramage said. 'Well, Aitken, do you still feel as confident?'

'No, sir,' the Scotsman said bluntly, 'I didn't feel confident when you first mentioned it, but as I don't feel any less so now, we needn't worry.'

Ramage took his hand in the darkness and shook it. 'I'll give you a wave when we take our exercise in the morning!' With that he went to the entryport, acknowledged the murmured good wishes of the small groups of men waiting there, and reached out for one of the two manropes hanging down into the water.

As soon as he grasped them, two seamen held them away from the hull, and two more scrambled down the side battens to hold them out farther down, where they would otherwise touch because the hull curved outwards in the almost exaggerated tumblehome.

Slowly Ramage let himself go hand over hand down the rope, acknowledging the good wishes of the sidemen as he passed them. Then the lapping of water against the hull became louder, and the curious mixture of seaweed and fishmarket smell peculiar to the waterline of a ship in the Tropics warned him he was almost in the water.

He felt chilled. A slow descent into the water or a sudden plunge? He let go and a moment later gave an agonized gasp: for a moment the water seemed icy cold, and he held his breath until he surfaced again.

Then, kicking away from the side of the ship, he checked first the cutlass and the knife and then, as an afterthought, the stock. Then, swimming on his back, he identified the particular stars he needed. A cloudless night: the one thing that would have postponed tonight's attempt would have been cloud, because it was impossible to see the Earl of Dodsworth or the Amethyst from the sea on a dark night.

The water was not as cold as he had expected and as he began swimming away on his back the Calypso seemed huge, her rigging and spars making a complex pattern against the stars, a vast net made by a crazy fisherman.

The cutlass was hanging down vertically, now he was swimming on his back, and the hilt was digging painfully into his shoulder blades. Aitken would be in the water by now and beginning his swim to the Amethyst. Because she was lying more to the south the first lieutenant had no further to swim: the Calypso was the centre of a radius whose circumference went through the Earl of Dodsworth and the Amethyst.

Ramage turned over and began swimming on his stomach. All the men had practised keeping their feet well below the surface, to avoid making any noise, and he was sure he was silent. He hitched the cutlass into the middle of his back and suddenly thought about sharks. No one had seen any sign of one all the time the Calypso had been anchored at Trinidade, but now, with only the stock round his hips, he suddenly felt vulnerable. It must be the darkness, he told himself, because he had never given it a thought while swimming naked with the men in daylight. Not only shark but barracuda, of which they had seen many. He found himself swimming faster, then realized that his strokes were making a noise.

He turned over on his back and saw from the stars that he had been swimming round in a half circle. He looked back and was surprised to see that the Calypso was now some distance away. He checked the position of Orion's Belt, which was acting as his compass, and after a few strokes decided to tread water and look for some sign of the Earl of Dodsworth. When he could see her masts clearly against the stars he began swimming again in a powerful overarm stroke. There was little or no phosphorescence, and at this distance if the guards heard a splash they would assume it was a fish leaping to escape a predator. A predator like a shark or a barracuda. . .

The sea now seemed warm and the air cooler on his face while he was treading water. In the Tropics at night the sea usually stayed at more or less its daytime temperature while the air temperature dropped below that of the water.

Where was Gianna now? Thinking of her took his mind off the thought of sharks and barracuda possibly circling below him, but as he congratulated himself on not feeling tired so far, he thought of the two dozen men who would be swimming in his wake from the Calypso in half an hour or so, and the twenty who would follow Aitken to the Amethyst. Was it possible that all of them would escape cramp, shark or barracuda? Was it possible that the whole operation would be achieved without someone screaming with pain as a shark's teeth took off a leg or the backward-pointing teeth of a barracuda ripped out a great piece of flesh? He shivered and wanted to clutch himself protectively, but to do so would miss a stroke and armour him about as effectively as a shrivelled fig leaf.

He began counting the strokes and stopped at a hundred for a rest, not because he was tired but to avoid arriving at the Earl of Dodsworth out of breath. There was no hurry; once on board and his first task accomplished, he would have to wait for the boarding party to arrive. Wet feet. Suddenly he realized that once he was on board he would have to be careful that his wet footmarks did not give him away. Even in the moonlight they would show up on the dry decks like blobs of black paint. He should have brought a towel, or a length of dry cloth, in a sealed glass jar. A thin roll of nankeen slid into a bottle which was then tightly corked would have done the job. Well, he had not thought of it and now it was about a quarter of a mile too late.

What else had he forgotten? He coughed as a wavelet slopped at the moment that he opened his mouth to take a breath. The salt water seared his throat and he immediately trod water and turned his face away from the ship. The sound of a racking cough like this would carry for miles; it seemed that he was coughing up his lungs as well as his throat. Finally the spasm ended and he thought of the two dozen swimmers who would soon be following him. If only one man in four accidentally swallowed water, as he had just done, that would mean six of them rasping away in the darkness . . .

He resumed swimming once his breathing returned to normal. This swim was taking longer than he anticipated, although he had cured himself of the tendency to swim in a half circle. It was hard on the neck trying to keep an eye on a star constellation which was almost overhead: he should have thought of that and chosen one nearer the horizon - except none in the right direction were as obvious as Orion's Belt, which could be identified at a glance.

All of a sudden - or so it seemed - the Earl of Dodsworth was in front of him, like a huge castle wall in the moonlight. For the last few minutes he had been swimming and distracting himself by having a furious argument with Gianna in his imagination as he tried to persuade her to get into a carriage he had waiting outside the Herveys' Paris residence.

The bow was to his left and he swam cautiously towards it, propelling himself by slow strokes with his feet as he checked the cutlass, the stock and the sheath knife strapped to his shin. There was little or no wind and the Earl of Dodsworth had her bow to the northeast, riding to the current which, weak at the moment, ran continually to the southwest and meant that her anchor cable would probably be hanging down almost vertically.

The mainyard seemed to show up strangely, as though it was emitting a faint orange glow. Then he caught sight of a glow in several gunports and realized that a lantern on deck amidships was lighting up part of the deck, rigging and mainmast. How would he get aft from the fo'c'sle without being seen if the guards were amidships with a lantern?

He turned towards the stern. Unless an odd rope or an extra rope ladder was hanging over, there was scant chance that he would be able to board there, but it was a chance he could not afford to neglect.

Now he was swimming as carefully as if he was walking across a frozen pool in hobnailed boots: the Earl of Dodsworth's sides rose almost sheer out of the water and he could make out the gunports - East Indiamen were always heavily armed; from a distance an unskilled eye often took them for warships. Now the outward curve of the stern and the sternlights, the big windows which lit the main cabin. Again there was the glow of a lantern, but no rope or ladder hung down.

He had arrived - just the length of the ship to cover, to reach the anchor cable - and he was feeling cold, but he was not puffing. All that would change soon: he would be hot and puffing by the time he reached the hawsehole after climbing the cable.

He stopped from time to time, keeping himself afloat by holding the tips of his fingers against the edges of copper sheathing, and listened for voices, but he heard nothing. The eight guards in the Earl of Dodsworth - did they stand a two-on-and-six-off watch at night?

Here was the cable: eight inches in diameter, perhaps ten, as thick as a man's leg at the knee. He checked the cutlass and knife again, paused for a few minutes while he breathed deeply, and then clasped his legs round the rope and pushed up while grasping it and hauling with his arms. The cordage was new and the thick strands of the cable-laid rope made it much easier to hold. Quickly he found the rhythm: clasp tight with the ankles, straighten up the body and then hold with the thighs; reach up with the hands, haul higher by making the body jackknife while sliding the legs higher.. .Ten feet above water, fifteen, twenty . . . Supposing a guard's bowels were troubling him and he came to the head, the so-called 'seat of ease' built in the stem, one each side of the bowsprit in an Indiaman like this and merely a wooden form with a circular hole. A seaman sitting there would hear someone climbing the anchor cable.

He had slowed down, his breathing shallow, until he realized that the chances of anyone being there were negligible and anyway it was too late to do anything about it. He resumed the scissor-cutting movement and worked his way up to the hawsehole, where he paused and listened. As soon as he was satisfied that no one had heard him he reached up, carefully holding the blade of the cutlass so that it did not hit a piece of metal and make a clang, and climbed on board.

Looking down at the sea he was almost hypnotized by the reflection of all the stars. He began to shiver as the water dripped off him, and he tried to squeeze as much as he could from his hair. His teeth were going to be chattering in a moment unless he did something about it. He walked aft until the belfry hid him from anyone abaft the fo'c'sle and reached over his shoulder to draw the cutlass, which he put flat on the deck and then removed the belt, now stiff and cold from the salt water. Then he pulled the pin from the stock and unwound it so that he was standing naked, except for the sheath knife on his shin.

Using the edge of his hand he wiped the drops of water from his body like a cook rolling dried pease into a jar; then he rubbed his body briskly. He twisted the stock between his hands, like a washerwoman squeezing the water from a towel, put it on the deck and smoothed it flat with his hands, and then wound it round his hips again, finally securing it with the pin. It was cold and clammy, but even as he put the wet and unyielding cutlass belt round his ribs again and tightened the buckle, he could feel the cloth warming slightly to his body.

Well, he was on board the Earl of Dodsworth and he could have been feeling a lot worse. His shin muscles were telling him he had swum a long distance; his thigh, shoulder and arm muscles were protesting at the climb up the rope, but he felt he could (in case of dire need) swim back to the Calypso and climb up her anchor cable.

As he warmed up and the salt water dried in his nostrils he realized that the ship smelled and sounded almost like a farmyard. There were several hen coops on the fo'c'sle, presumably supplying fresh eggs and white meat for the passengers. And turkeys, too. He could smell sheep's wool and guessed that several animals were tethered below with a couple of cows - no doubt, to provide fresh milk. Passengers were charged so much that they expected fresh food. Some of these passengers probably controlled areas of India as big as a dozen English counties, and were certainly not going to eat salt beef and sauerkraut!

The lantern just abaft the mainmast was dim; in fact the candle inside was obviously guttering, the wick probably fallen over so that it was only partly burning, the rest lying below the melted wax.

Ramage picked up the cutlass. The lives of sixteen passengers and the fate of an East Indiaman depended upon him not making any mistakes in the next few minutes. From infrequent visits to East Indiamen years ago, when he was a hungry midshipman and glad of an invitation to dinner on board - the richness of John Company food was famous among naval officers no matter what their rank - he remembered that the captain's cabin was right aft, with cabins for the most important passengers further forward on the same deck, and the cheaper cabins (for passengers who dined at the tables of the second and third mates) one deck lower.

Well, he needed to find the nearest passenger cabin that he could enter without a privateersman seeing him. He decided that going up and down companionways was the riskiest thing he could do; if a guard saw him, or he accidentally met one on the steps, there could be no doubt that a man rigged out with only a loincloth was an intruder and the alarm would be raised in moments.

Obviously he had to find the forwardmost passenger cabin on the upperdeck. Whether it was to starboard or larboard depended on the route he had to take to dodge the guards. How long since he had left the Calypso? It seemed hours ago. Weeks ago, in fact. It was probably only about twenty minutes at the moment, and very soon his boarding party would be slipping down into the water and beginning their long swim.

He came out from behind the belfry and saw the chimney of the galley. He continued moving to his right, his bare feet occasionally stubbing against an eyebolt or a coil of rope. After kicking one metal fitting - he could not see what it was - with a violence that seemed for a moment to have broken his left big toe, Ramage slowed down: he would have to look ahead at eye level, and then look down at the deck, before he moved. Looking ahead and trusting his feet to luck was an invitation to go sprawling.

Here was the companionway from the fo'c'sle down to the maindeck. He stood at the top and stared aft. Just the flickering lantern: no voices, no movement. Somewhere there a guard or two must be standing or sitting. A guard or a lookout or a privateersman doing both jobs. Eight guards - surely there must be at least two on watch?

The bottom rung creaked, but there was enough swell to make the Earl of Dodsworth pitch slightly, so that she gave a slight bow every minute or two, just enough movement for the masts to creak as they strained the shrouds and to make the yards grumble as they tried to swing round against the pull of the braces. But for the creaks, he thought, he could be moving through a graveyard: lockers, hatches, hen coops and scuttles looked in the darkness like tombs and gravestones, the rising moon, in its last quarter, beginning to give enough light to make the white paint look like marble.

Keeping close against the bulwark, just far enough away to clear the breeches of the guns, Ramage crept aft. Past the foremast and all its dozens of ropes forming the shrouds, halyards, topping lifts . . . Past the third gun, and the roundshot in racks round the hatch coamings, man-of-war fashion, each shot like a black orange resting in a cup-shaped depression cut into the wood.

Halfway to the mainmast he crouched down behind the breech of a gun and concentrated on the lantern. It lit a cone about ten feet in diameter on the deck, and it was set on a low table. Several things glinted to one side, like winking glass eyes. A cut-glass decanter and glasses? Ramage could think of nothing else that would flash in that fashion as he moved his head slightly.

Then, each side of the table, he picked out two easy chairs. The shape of them was indistinct - then he could just make out the figure of a man sprawled in each one. Not just lying back asleep but sprawled in the shapeless lump of a drunken man who had passed out.

The two guards on watch? It seemed likely. That left six others who would presumably be sleeping peacefully until the next pair were roused by these two. Well, the half-dozen were going to get a good long sleep, from the look of it.

He kept still for a few more moments. The hens in the coops forward clucked and then went back to sleep. Finally he was certain these were the only two men on deck, so six privateersmen should be sleeping somewhere below, and so were sixteen passengers, who would be locked in their cabins or bundled all together in a large cabin that could be guarded easily.

Would there be more guards on duty somewhere below? Was it likely? Why put the passengers in a separate cabin when they could be locked in their own cabins? In turn, that meant the other six guards would be sleeping near the passengers' accommodation, ready in an instant should anyone try to escape.

What were these two doing on deck, then? Presumably they were really lookouts; men whose task it was to watch for a boarding party from the Calypso. Could these men be the key to capturing the Earl of Dodsworth? It seemed so; they were (as far as the Lynx and the six guards off watch were concerned) the ones who would raise the alarm, whether the Calypso or the passengers made a move.

They were also, he realized, two of the men who would massacre the hostages in cold blood if they saw any rescue attempt being made from the frigate. At that moment Ramage found that he could cut their throats without a moment's hesitation.

He stood up and walked softly along the deck towards them, keeping well over against the guns so that if the lantern threw any shadow of him in the last few paces it would be seen only from over the side.

In a few moments he was standing beside the nearest man, breathing an unpleasant stench of rum and sweat. Beside him on the deck were an empty decanter and a glass, both on their side, both sparkling as the lantern flame danced and flickered. The man was lean with a narrow face, and he was breathing heavily with his mouth wide open to reveal at most three blackened teeth. The top of his head was bald but the hair growing on each side and the back was long, so that it resembled a mangy black cat curled up asleep. The second man was plumper, his hair tied in a queue, and there were several gold rings on the fingers of his hands, which were clasped across his stomach. There was an empty decanter and glass on the deck beside him, too.

On the table, opposite each man, gleaming dully in the lanternlight, was a pistol. Each was cocked. Each could be reached without the man standing up.

Cut their throats as they sagged back in a cloud of rum fumes? When he thought about the hostages, Ramage guessed he could do it - but was it necessary? He reached out for the nearest pistol, opened the pan and shook out the priming powder, blowing gently to remove the last trace. He repeated it with the second pistol. They still looked ready for use, but anyone squeezing the triggers would be disappointed; there would not even be a flash in the pan.

There was some rope a few feet away, neatly coiled, and in half an hour at the most the Calypsos would be on board. He picked up a pistol by the barrel and hit the nearest man on the side of the head with the butt. He took three steps to the other and hit him, careful not to bang anything with his cutlass, which he had transferred to his left hand.

The startling thing was that the men hardly moved. Perhaps they had slid further down in their chairs, but they still looked as though they had subsided in a drunken stupor, which of course they had, having exchanged in the last few moments one kind of stupor for another.

Ramage quickly pulled a length of rope from the coil, slashed it with his cutlass and then pulled off a second length. It took longer than he anticipated to roll the first man out of his chair and tie his arms and ankles. The second was equally difficult. Each was completely relaxed, as though every bone in his body had turned into calves-foot jelly.

Ramage dragged the two men to the guns, pushing each one into the deeply shadowed area under a barrel. Then, pausing as he decided to leave the lantern there, swinging its door open for a moment to straighten out the wick, he crept over to the main companionway and made his way down the steps.

There was another lantern hanging from the deckhead and it lit a row of doors, eight of them, four on each side. The first was open, the entrance to a black cavern; the rest had keys sticking out of them like tiny branches. The noise of several people snoring was coming from the first cabin. He tried to count the different tones. At least four people.

He crept closer to the door and listened again. Five. Yes, and there was another faint one, little more than steady but heavy breathing: six. The key was in the door, which was made of thick mahogany. The lock was solid brass and until recently had been polished - the Honourable East India Company ships were built of the best of everything. He swung the door gently until it closed and then turned the key. If the men inside were serious about escaping, they could probably break the lock with a few pistol shots, but they would be unlikely to try it in pitch darkness, when the risk of being hurt by a ricocheting ball was considerable.

Ramage decided to unlock the opposite cabin and rouse one of the hostages, to warn him of what was about to happen and leave him to release and warn the others, who would know and trust his voice and could then lock themselves in the safety of their cabins. He put down his cutlass carefully to leave both hands free and made sure the knife was loose in its sheath. As he slowly turned the key he wondered how the Calypsos were going to secure those six guards without a shot being fired. A shot... it needed only one. The moment the guards in the other ships heard a single shot, they would massacre the hostages, twenty-four men, women and children (assuming the sixteen in this ship were safe). That was why he had emptied the priming powder from the two pistols on deck; that was the reason none of the Calypsos had firearms, even though muskets and pistols could have been wrapped in oiled silk and canvas and carried on the rafts.

He was almost startled when the door pressed against him; then he realized he had turned the key and was pulling the handle. Quickly he opened the door wider, noted in the dim light from the lantern that there was a single bed in the middle of the cabin, shut the door behind him in case it swung and banged, and crept towards the bed. He wanted all the hostages warned without raising the alarm among the guards, and the only way of ensuring that the alarm was not raised was by everyone acting as though the door to the guards' cabin was still open.

His outstretched hand touched the foot of the bed. Curious that they did not give passengers swinging cots, because it must be difficult to stay in a bed in anything of a sea, even though the bed must be bolted to the deck.

The cover was a smooth material he could not identify. Shantung? A John Company ship would be furnished in exotic materials from the East. Now, if he was lucky the fellow in this bed would be an Army officer - or, rather, an officer in the company's military service. If his luck was out, the man would be some pompous and panicky nabob who would need a good deal of convincing. In fact it might be easier to leave him and try the next cabin.

He ran his hand along the bed as he crept softly towards the head of the bed, listening for breathing to determine where the sleeper's mouth was. Here was the body and he ran the tips of his fingers lightly along it to get some idea of where the man's head was, in case he shouted. Then his hand was cupped over a yielding mound of bare flesh; a mound topped by a firmer summit. It took him a moment to realize he was holding a woman's bare breast in his left hand but a moment later his right hand was on her face, pressing down on her mouth.

She started wriggling as he grasped a shoulder with his left hand and hissed: 'Don't scream, don't struggle, I'm from the -'

At that moment she bit the heel of his palm but he risked another bite, whispering urgently: 'From the British frigate. . . English . . . don't make a noise!'

Finally she seemed to be wide awake and her hands were pushing him away, but without the violence or urgency of a terrified woman.

'Do you understand?'

He felt her trying to nod and experimentally lifted his palm half an inch from her mouth.

'I understand, but don't suffocate me!'

The voice was calm, musical and verging on deep, but quite firm, and asking: 'Who exactly are you?'

'That doesn't matter, but I want you to -'

'My dear man, I'm not given to the vapours, but although I can see nothing I have the impression I am in the grasp of a naked man. A naked Englishman, so he says, although what difference that makes...'

'Madam,' Ramage whispered desperately, conscious of the minutes slipping by, 'my name is Nicholas Ramage, and I command the British frigate. A couple of dozen of my men are swimming over here and will be climbing on board in a few minutes. It is absolutely vital that they overcome the guards without a shot being fired, and I want you to unlock their doors and warn the rest of the hostages - the passengers, I mean - to stay in their cabins no matter what happens.'

'I'll warn them. You must have swum over; you feel devilish damp. I'll give you a towel in a moment.'

'Listen,' Ramage said urgently, 'you do understand what you have to do? Each of the cabins is locked with the key still on the outside. The point is, people will recognize your voice, so -'

'I understand perfectly! What about the scoundrels in the cabin opposite?'

'They're asleep and locked in. But if they wake up they might start shooting.'

'And the two guards on deck?'

'Unconscious and tied up.'

'You have been busy. Very well - stand back and let me get out of bed.'

'Let me help you, ma'am.'

'Please stand back. It's so hot in here that I sleep - well, without the encumbrance of a nightdress, as you probably realized!'

Drunken guards, barracudas, bare breasts, a cabin full of snoring pirates . . . even in the urgency of the situation Ramage had most certainly registered the breast - a fine one, that much was certain - but he had been too tense to make the obvious deduction that in this hot and airless cabin the rest of the body was almost certainly naked.

'I beg your pardon, ma'am,' he whispered. 'Incidentally, I am not entirely naked.'

'It's - well, let's say "miss" for now. And nakedness is of little consequence in the dark.'

'There's a lantern outside,' Ramage said and could have bitten off his tongue.

'Thank you for the warning.'

He heard the rustle of material and then she whispered: 'Lead me to the door, I can't see a thing.'

'Keep whispering or I'll never find you.'

'Ramage ... Ramage ... Captain Lord Ramage ... damp and smelling of seaweed . . .' The teasing whisper led him to her. So she had known the name. Well, for the moment he was concentrating on remembering where the door was, because it fitted so well and the lantern was so dim that no light penetrated a crack.

'I don't use my title,' he said, and suddenly bumped into her. To stop falling they both held each other tight as though embracing.

'Good morning, Captain,' she said, gently disengaging herself, 'you are really not properly dressed for paying social calls.'

Ramage took her arm and led her to the door. 'I'm tempted to take you hostage.'

'You'll have to make an exchange with the privateersmen. At the moment they claim me.'

He opened the door but she was through it and turning left to the other cabins before he could glimpse her face, and before he could catch up she had unlocked the first door and slipped in.

The best thing he could do was wait beside the guards' cabin until she returned. A minute or two later he saw a blur of white as she came out of the cabin and went to the next. Finally, after she left the last cabin, he walked across the corridor to wait at the door of her cabin, but she slipped into the next one and a minute or two later a middle-aged man with muttonchop whiskers came out, faintly absurd in a gown, and whispered: 'Ramage - everyone has been warned. We'll wait in our cabins with the doors locked. And - thank you!'

With that the man went back into his cabin after removing the key. Ramage then saw that all along the corridor people were removing the keys, to lock the doors from the inside.

He hurried back up the companionway and went to the ship's side, listening for the sound of swimmers. There was no sound and no swirls of phosphorescence. A rolled-up rope ladder lay on top of the bulwark; he untied the lashing, let it unroll and heard the end land in the water with a splash. On the other side he found a similar ladder and unrolled that.

Then he picked up the lantern and walked over to stand at the starboard entryport. He was out of sight of all the ships but the Calypso, and he held the lantern so that he could be seen by the swimmers. Almost at once he felt a tug on the bottom of the ladder and heard a faint swishing of water. A minute later Rossi was jumping down from the top of the bulwark, waving an acknowledgement of Ramage's signal warning him to be silent.

'The rest of the men are close behind, sir,' Rossi whispered. 'We went slowly, as you said, so we are not without the breath.' He looked round and said, a disappointed note in his voice: 'Mamma mia, you have not made the capture alone, Commandante?'

'No, I've left the easy part for you.' Ramage smiled and looked down to see two more men already climbing the ladder.

Within three minutes he was counting his boarding party and found them all present, with Martin and Paolo. He looked round for Jackson, pointed to the two men under the barrel of the guns, and whispered: 'They might be coming round soon. Gag them, please.'

The American waved to Rossi and Stafford, pulling his sodden shirt over his head and tearing two strips off the tail. Out of the corner of his eye Ramage saw Jackson lift the first man and bang his head on the deck, and then proceed to gag him. In the meantime another seaman was cleaning the wick of the lantern and stirring the molten wax with the tip of his finger to level it out. The lantern suddenly gave a brighter light and Ramage glanced round nervously: someone watching from the Lynx might well become suspicious of the shadows thrown by the group of men. 'Put the lantern down on deck, under the table,' he said hurriedly.

As soon as Jackson came back to report both men unconscious and gagged - not bothering to mention that one had given signs of recovering - Ramage gathered the men round and in a whisper now getting hoarse explained the position.

'If the total of eight guards is correct, then the six off watch are sleeping in a cabin below. I've locked the door on them. They'll probably be in hammocks because they prefer them and the passenger cabins are each fitted with one large bed.

'We've got to rush them and make sure they don't fire pistols. You see the two pistols on this table: the two men on watch were sitting here drinking, their guns within easy reach.

'The doorway into the cabin is the standard width. This is how we do it. You, Orsini, will carry this lantern; I'll take the one that's hanging from the deckhead outside the cabin door. Riley,' he said to one of the seamen, 'you will stand by the key of the door. When I signal, you'll unlock the door and pull it open - towards you: it opens outwards.

'I will go in first holding my lantern high and Orsini will follow with his. As soon as I go through the door I want you all to start shouting - anything to make a noise: I just want to confuse those men as they start waking up. Confuse their brains and dazzle their eyes.

'Martin, Stafford, Rossi, Riley - you'll have had time to see into the cabin by now - follow us. Orsini and I will take the two hammocks to the right, the rest of you take the four on the left. Aft, in other words.

'Cut the hammocks down. A good slash with a cutlass should cut the lanyards at the foot or head and tip the occupant out.'

'And then, sir?' Orsini inquired.

'There are so few of them that we can take prisoners,' Ramage said regretfully, 'but kill a man if there's a risk he'll otherwise use a pistol. Now,' he said as Orsini picked up the lantern and turned towards the companionway, 'follow me. And watch your cutlasses - don't let them bang anything.'

The steps of the companionway creaked, and as he crept down Ramage felt that the ship was suddenly holding her breath and listening: she had stopped her gentle pitching so that there were no groans from the hull and spars to mask the sounds they made.

The lantern below was burning steadily, the air having the faint sooty smell of untrimmed wick. Glancing down the line of doors he saw that all the keys were now missing except for the first on each side. The key was still on the outside of the cabin in which the 'Miss for now' had been sleeping. He knew the shape of one bare breast; he had not the faintest idea whether she was ugly, plain or beautiful. An intriguing voice, a good sense of humour, and very self-possessed in an emergency. She was probably coming home from India after being a teacher, or some old woman's companion. But for the 'Miss' he would have assumed she had been sent out to India to find a husband, succeeded and was now on her way home again . . .

Why the devil was he thinking about her at a time like this? He unhooked the second lantern and turned to Orsini and waited while Riley crept to the door and reached out for the key with his right hand, holding the brass knob with his left and glancing over his shoulder to make sure he would not bump into anything as he flung open the door.

Ramage checked the men behind him: Martin, Jackson, Rossi, Stafford and then the seamen not specifically chosen for the cabin. The cutlass blades shone dully in the lantern light; he noticed Orsini was using his dirk in his right hand but had a long, thin dagger in a sheath at his waist. Jackson had a cutlass and a knife - he had developed Paolo Orsini's liking for a main gauche.

He found himself staring at the grain in the mahogany door. 'Miss for now.' The passengers were in for a rude shock in a few moments: the bellowing of his men would echo in this confined space, although no one outside the ship would hear. How was Aitken getting on with the capture of the Amethyst? At least he had heard no shots . . .

He pointed at Riley, who turned the key with a loud click and flung back the door with a bang. Ramage plunged into the black space as the men behind him started shouting. In a moment the lantern showed hammocks slung from the deck beams at various angles, bulging like enormous bananas.

He slashed at the lanyards of the nearest one on his right, took a pace to one side to avoid the body that slid out of the canvas tube as it suddenly hung almost vertically, and reached across to cut the lanyards at one end of the next one. Orsini, cheated out of a hammock, crouched over the body of the first man, managing to hold up his lantern while pointing his dirk at the privateersman's throat and shouting bloodcurdling threats down at the staring eyes.

Ramage's man, caught up in the folds of the canvas, began swearing and obviously thought his shipmates were playing a joke on him until the point of Ramage's cutlass prodded the fleshy part of his right thigh.

From the left hand side of the cabin he heard above the yelling an angry shout end in a liquid gurgle, as though someone's throat had been cut. The noise made Ramage's victim try to scramble up, attempting to pull something from the folds of a blanket he had been using as a pillow. Ramage gave him another jab with the cutlass. 'Keep still, or you're dead!'

The man gave a grunt of pain and flopped back flat on the deck. 'Wha's going on?'

The yelling was dying as the last of the hammocks was cut down, but the thud of a cutlass blade being driven into the deck was followed immediately by a scream of pain, which cut off as sharply as it began.

Ramage's lantern was too dim to show him what was going on, and all he could do was to wait for his own men to report. To encourage them he called: 'Calypsos - have we secured them all?'

'I've got your man, sir,' said Martin.

'I've got mine, sir,' Orsini muttered. 'Alive,' he added, 'at the moment.'

'This stronzo here, I have to kill him,' Rossi grunted. 'He have a pistol in his hammock.'

'Prisoner, sir,' Jackson said, followed by Stafford's ' 'Ad to prod my fellah, sir, but 'e'll live.'

'Prisoner, sir,' Riley said and added, raising his voice in warning, 'a dead prisoner, if 'e don't keep still.'

Ramage turned to Orsini, who was nearest the door. 'Get your man out into the corridor where the others can secure him.'

The privateersman yelped as the midshipman prodded him to his feet. 'Ow! You'll do me 'arm,' the man complained.

'Yes, I just want an excuse!'

'You're just a bloody murderer!'

'You were ready to kill the hostages,' Orsini said, and to judge from the short, sharp scream the man gave, he must have punctuated his remark with another and stronger prod.

Ramage watched as Orsini, lantern held up, followed his prisoner through the door, where the man was seized by eager Calypsos.

'Now you, Jackson . . .' The American coxswain had an armlock on his prisoner, so the man lurched out of the cabin bent double. 'Rossi, you wait a minute. Stafford, are you ready?'

'Aye aye, sir. Up, you murderous bastard. No, you're not,' he said in answer to a muttered complaint Ramage could not quite hear, 'that was only a prick. Get movin', or I'll spit you like a suckin' pig ready for the fire!'

Riley followed with his prisoner and by then Ramage's man was scrambling to his feet, assuring Martin and Ramage that he too had surrendered, and his pistol was still in the folds of his hammock.

Outside, in what was in fact a lobby, Ramage saw several prisoners lying crumpled on the deck and before he could say a word one of the Calypsos had landed Martin's prisoner a savage punch that drove him to his knees, as though praying for mercy. A moment later a second punch sent him sprawling.

Ramage stood and watched. Eight guards captured and only one of them killed. He knew that every one of the Calypsos was filled with a fierce hatred for the privateersmen because they knew the eight men were on board the Earl of Dodswonh for one reason only - to murder the hostages if they thought it necessary. Men who could murder women in cold blood, Jackson had commented hours ago, should not expect too much mercy when their turn came . . .

A Calypso hurried down the companionway, dragging the end of a rope. 'Here, cut off what lengths you want: the rest of the coil's on deck - it'll kink if I pitch it down.'

It took about five minutes to tie up the men. Ramage was just going to call to the passengers that all was well and they could leave their cabins if they wished, when they remembered the dead man.

'Rossi - take a couple of men and get your privateersman up on deck. Wrap him in a hammock so you don't spill blood everywhere.'

'When we have him on deck, sir?'

'I'm not reading a burial service over a man waiting to murder women,' Ramage said bluntly.

'Si,va bene; - capito Commandante.'

'Orsini, take three or four men and bring down those two privateersmen stowed under the guns. Jackson, drag these men back into the cabin as soon as they're secured: we'll use it as a cell for the time being. Martin, unhook the ends of those hammocks and collect up any pistols you find. I'll hold this lantern so you can see what you are doing.'

The cabin was a strange sight: six hammocks, each suspended at one end but with the other hanging down on the deck, looked like sides of beef suspended from hooks in a slaughterhouse - an effect heightened by the large black stain surrounding the body lying among them, and which Rossi was beginning to turn over.

Suddenly Ramage began to shiver, his body feeling frozen although he had only just wiped perspiration from his brow and upper lip.

'It's cold, sir,' Jackson commented conversationally, and Ramage realized that several of the men were also shivering. The long swim, the excitement, the relief that now it was all over? Ramage began chafing his body with his hands; it was enough that they felt cold; the devil take the reasons.

'The Amethyst...'

'Yes, sir, I was wondering about her,' Jackson said, and Ramage realized he had spoken his thoughts aloud. 'If anything went wrong, I think we'd have heard shots by now. Nothing else for us to do tonight. Let's hope tomorrow night goes as well as this.'