Ramage's Trial

CHAPTER FIVE

The day began with a typical tropical dawn: the first hint of daylight showed a low bank of cloud on the eastern horizon looking more like a mourning band worn round a hat, with none of the jagged lines associated with squalls or thunderstorms.

The Calypso was alive with excitement and bustle, as though the frigate herself was excited at the prospect of sailing. Southwick strode the decks with the bounce of a suffragan bishop about to hold an unexpectedly large confirmation; Aitken had the firm walk of a landowner in the Highlands setting off on the ten-mile walk that would bring a prime stag in front of his musket. Young Paolo, with a telescope tucked under his arm, was watching the flagship for signals (not that any were expected, but one should never trust flagships) but more important watching every one of the anchored merchant ships: now was the time for them to start signalling all their defects, all the reasons why they could not weigh anchor (too few seamen), hoist sails (same excuse), sheet them home or brace them up (they needed new cordage or had sprung a yard), and why they had run short of water (having been too lazy or too cunning to send their men on shore to fill casks, they now hoped the Navy would send men and boats, in order to get the convoy moving). Or, as Southwick had commented bitterly, the kind of cunning excuses invented by sly men to get something for nothing.

Just as Paolo (the slight accent in his voice suddenly reminding Ramage of Gianna) reported that a merchant ship called the Beatrice had hoisted a wheft from the foretopmast, showing that she wanted to communicate with the commander. Ramage said briskly: "Loose the foretopsail and fire one gun . . ."

Aitken gave a bellow that sent a dozen men up the foremast and out along the yard: Southwick shouted an order to the gunner while having the men on the fo'c'sle heave a few more turns on the capstan and haul up more of the anchor cable, which had already been taken in to "short stay", the last position before Southwick would report "Anchor aweigh . . , up and down."

"The Beatrice, sir?" Paolo asked.

"Take a turn round the foredeck and then report it to me," Ramage said and Paolo grinned and walked forward.

Ramage sighed: none of the mules seemed to be making a move towards weighing, and from the look of the bedraggled ship with the wheft, the Beatrice, she probably needed everything, including men to man the pump . . . Well, this damned convoy was going to be sailed to England "by the book". Ramage had his orders from Tewtin to take the convoy to England: the SIGNALS and INSTRUCTIONS gave the mules their orders; his own conduct was governed by the large volume of the King's Regulations and Admiralty Instructions, and the very slim volume comprising the Articles of War; and that was that. Any mule wanting anything was going to be charged at the rate set down; those that did not keep up with the convoy without a good reason would get a tow to frighten them; after that they would be left to disappear astern, prey for French privateers.

Captain Ramage in the Calypso and the Count of Rennes in a large merchantman each had their own reasons for getting to England in a hurry, and Ramage had decided that the urgency of him getting news of Sarah more than justified sticking to the rules: there was no regulation saying that the King's ships were responsible for getting merchant ships under way or keeping them afloat: this had become a habit because most convoy commanders were (quite reasonably) frightened of the effect it could have on their career if some wretched master of a merchant ship complained to his owners, telling a self-serving story, and they in turn complained to Their Lordships, naming the captain and listing his alleged misdeeds.

As too many frigate captains had found to their cost, it was harder to answer allegations than to make them, and Lloyd's wielded influence far greater than most officers expected. And, of course, masters trying to justify their own conduct or shortcomings or that of their owners, did not always pay strict attention to the truth. However, frigate commanders understood one thing – Their Lordships appeared to fawn over Lloyd's, and a frigate captain found he was never employed again after a collision with them. There was a desperate shortage of frigates; there was a glut of post-captains to command them.

Ramage looked round the great bay. It was a good many years (a couple of centuries in fact) since it was named after Lord Carlisle, who had been made, as though by a whim, "Lord Proprietor of the English Caribbee Islands" by Charles I. Since then a good many thousand merchant ships had anchored in the Bay at the beginning or end of the long voyage to or from Europe. Once again another convoy was preparing to sail - though, he admitted sourly, at the moment there was little sign of it. The Calypso's foretopsail hung down like a curtain, slatting in the breeze; she had fired a gun, and the very first of the Signals from the Commander of the Convoy gave the explanation: Foretopsail loose . . . One gun. To prepare for sailing.

Both the other frigates were under way, and Ramage was pleasantly surprised at the men Tewtin had put in command.

But it was now time for the second signal from the convoy commander listed in the SIGNALS and INSTRUCTIONS: Maintopsail loose . . . One gun. To unmoor.

Ramage waved at Aitken, who was standing at the other side of the quarterdeck rail, and the first lieutenant lifted the speaking trumpet to his mouth, shouting an order which sent men racing up the ratlines and then out along the maintopsail yard. The sail billowed down as another spurt of smoke tried to race the echoing crash of the signal gun.

Pulling out the tube of his telescope, Ramage began inspecting the merchant ships and was reminded of a herd of cattle spread across a meadow. Left alone they would slowly chew the cud, clumsily rising every few hours, and if the wind got up or it began to rain, turning to face away from it. But the Calypso was now the barking dog coming into the meadow (not rushing, but slowly, like a well-trained animal) to disturb not just a few but every one of them.

The circular image in the glass revealed desultory movement on the fo'c'sle of two-thirds of the ships. But the only thing moving on board the Beatrice was the wheft, the knotted flag flapping at the foretopmasthead. Sidney Yorke's Emerald, by far the smartest in the anchorage, with hull and spars newly painted, the cordage showing the golden colour of new hemp, already had her anchor apeak and, with a foretopsail set, the ship was about to thread her way to leeward, away from the rest of the anchored ships and to the area well clear of the anchorage and off the town where the convoy was to form up. Form up. Ramage thought bitterly . . . easier to teach cows the quadrille than get these mules into their proper positions without broken bowsprits, ripped out jibbooms or, the more usual, having at least one ship locked in tight embrace with another, its jibboom and bowsprit stuck through the other's rigging, its bow locked amidships by torn planking . . .

Now Paolo was back. "Are you ready for my report, sir?" he asked with a grin.

"Yes - tell me, Mr Orsini, have you seen if any of the merchant ships have made me a signal?"

"Why yes, sir: I've just seen that one of them, the Beatrice, has a wheft flying at her foretopmasthead: I assume she wishes to communicate with you, sir."

"Very well, acknowledge it. If I remember rightly, hoisting a blue, white and red at the mizentopmasthead merely says: 'The Commander of the convoy sees the signal that is made to him'."

"Yes, sir, it doesn't specify which signal or who is making it," Paolo said, enjoying the game.

Ramage nodded and then, still looking through his glass, he groaned. "That horse won't start - the Beatrice is hoisting out a boat. We'll have the master on board in a few minutes with a list of requests ..."

" 'Bout time for the next gun, sir," Aitken reminded him, overhearing the conversation with Orsini and looking across at the Beatrice, a ship which was of no colour: her paint was worn off the hull by the combined attacks of sea and sea air, time and the wind. Time had turned the bare wood grey, so that she looked as if she had been built of driftwood. "The boat they've just hoisted out doesn't look as though she'll swim this far!" Aitken added.

And Ramage saw that the first couple of men who had climbed down into the boat were now busy bailing: obviously the planking of the boat, stowed on deck without a cover to protect the wood from the scorching sun, had split as the wood shrunk: "shakes", like the wrinkles on an old man's neck, would let the water leak through. It would take hours of soaking for the wood to swell up and staunch the leaks enough for the boat to be usable. Stowing the boat with water in it would have saved them a lot of trouble because the rolling of the ship would have kept the water swilling round.

"Very well, Mr Aitken, the last signal!"

The first lieutenant, after checking with Southwick that the anchor was off the ground, gave the order for the topsails to be sheeted home, and another gun to be fired. That was the final order to get the convoy under way and given in the SIGNALS and INSTRUCTIONS as To Weigh, the outward and leeward ships first.

"Let's get out to seaward of them," Ramage said. "If we stay here, one of them is sure to hit us."

"The Beatrice, sir," Orsini reminded him.

"You are the Keeper of the Captain's Conscience, eh?" Ramage teased him. "They've signalled that they want to communicate - and we're waiting for them."

"She's in sight of the flagship, sir," Paolo pointed out.

Indeed, the Queen was perfectly placed to see all that was going on, and if the Calypso left the anchorage without attending to the blasted Beatrice there would be plenty of sycophantic lieutenants on board the flagship only too anxious to make sure that the admiral was kept well informed.

He was going to have to do something about the damned ship sooner or later, but in the meantime it would not hurt to scare the Beatrice's master. "We'll circle the anchorage a few times while these mules get under way," he told Aitken. "Once we've got the leaders of the columns in position, Orsini can take a boat over to the Beatrice. I'm more concerned with seeing how these two frigates are handled . . . They'll all be nervous for the first few days, let alone the first few hours."

And he had made a few more hours slide by without thinking of Sarah. Plenty of work, plenty of bustle, plenty of alarms and emergencies... It was a good theory, but in practice it was going to be days and weeks and perhaps months of boredom, watching these mules making no attempt to keep position and knowing there was nothing he could do about it, except tow one or two - and leave some behind if necessary.

Ramage had chosen a convoy formation which gave him a broad front: the seventy-two ships were formed up in eight columns, each of nine ships. There were almost endless variations - some commanders preferred a long thin column of ships, claiming it was easier to control them. That might be so, but it was almost impossible to defend them: even a single privateer, let alone a couple of enemy frigates, could cut the convoy in half.

Having the ships advancing in a broad box-shaped formation meant that escorts could patrol ahead and astern, whence attacks were most likely to come, and since the box had narrower sides there was less room for a stray privateer to sneak in. But the real advantage, from Ramage's point of view, was that the mules had less chance to dally and drop astern.

With the convoy now formed up and heading northwards along the west coast of Barbados, the sun dipping low on the larboard beam. Ramage was weary but satisfied: getting under way could have been a lot worse. Even the abominable Beatrice was in position after Paolo had taken over half a dozen men to help the fools to weigh their anchor. Because of some tedious dispute about pay owing to some of her men, four of her six seamen had deserted last night in Barbados, swearing they would kill the master rather than sail with him again (and Paolo reported that he would not blame them). Four men short meant they could not turn the windlass to weigh the anchor, hence the wheft at the foretopmasthead.

As every drill sergeant knew, the most important man on a parade was the "right marker", the man against whom all the other files positioned themselves. Ramage realized how lucky he was in having Yorke and the Emerald as his right marker. But by giving Yorke the position of leading ship in the starboard column (and thus the pivot on which most convoy movements would be made) he had put the Emerald in the most vulnerable position of all if the French attacked with a squadron. However, in war there was always risk, and Yorke would be the last to complain. Yet he was not thinking of Sidney Yorke: if he was honest with himself. Ramage was worrying about Sarah, who had been caught up in the war by accident: she had gone off on a peacetime honeymoon with her new husband and the war had started again to wrench her away. To what, he dare not think.

At least the two former prize frigates were turning out well. John Mead, the young lieutenant just made post and given command of L'Espoir, seemed a good shiphandler and had imagination. The sail handling was taking too long, but obviously during the next few days Mead would have his men working against a watch. Sail handling was second nature with most captains; but less popular was gunnery exercise. Guns firing meant scorched paint. There was always a spurt of flame upwards from the touchhole and there was the muzzle blast, a mixture of smoke, unburnt powder and powdered rust from the shot. No matter how carefully shot was hammered and given a coat of blacking, there were always rust scales, and gunnery exercises (or a bout of action) always left the first lieutenant's scrubbed and holystoned decks stained and greasy - and badly marked by the wooden trucks of the carriages. There was no way that four wheels supporting a gun weighing a ton and a half being flung back in recoil were going to avoid scarring the deck planking, even if it was already grooved from previous years. Carpenters could plane and seamen scrub with holystones, but the marks were there, like cart tracks on a country lane, and a couple of hours' shooting worked the soot and rust powder well into the grain so that it looked like a chimney sweep's neck. Anyway, that was the problem for L'Espoir's new captain: Ramage's only concern was that he carried out gunnery exercises.

Summers, commanding La Robuste, was a completely different man: where Mead was lively and talkative, full of ideas which Ramage noticed he sometimes expressed without sufficient thought, Summers was dour; he gave the impression of never speaking a word (expelling it, almost) without chewing it ten or twenty times. It was not the hesitation preceding deep thought, of that Ramage was sure; the dourness came from a brain which turned over slowly, like a roasting pig revolving on a spit. Would Summers be as slow in reacting to an emergency - when a privateer rushed out of the darkness to cut off one of the convoy? Why had the admiral put Summers in command of La Robuste? If he had been an unsatisfactory first lieutenant in one of Tewtin's ships, it was of course a convenient way of getting rid of him. It wasted an opportunity to promote a favourite, but there must be times for flag officers when the need to get rid of a really incompetent (or irritating) subordinate overcame the demands of favouritism.

Summers, then, was the question mark; the convoy was sufficiently large and the escort of three frigates (one, L'Espoir, armed en flûte, so that virtually she carried no guns) was pathetically small: it averaged out at twenty-four merchant ships for each frigate. The escort was just large enough for Tewtin to avoid criticism from the Admiralty - unless it was heavily attacked and suffered disastrous losses. In that case Tewtin would probably be agile enough to make sure all the blame rested on the shoulders of the convoy commander . . . after all, admirals could not be everywhere, and had to rely on subordinates . . .

Still, it was a beautiful evening and Barbados was drawing astern on the starboard quarter, or rather the Calypso and the convoy appeared to be stationary on the sea, like small ornaments on a polished table, while the island itself seemed to be moving slowly away, distance softening the low outlines and turning the pale greys into misty and distant blues that would challenge a water-colourist.

What was Sidney Yorke (and his sister Alexis, for that matter) thinking about as they passed this northwestern coast of Barbados? It was out here, in the time of Cromwell, that one of Yorke's Royalist forebears had to escape from the island just a few yards ahead of the Roundheads and, according to Sidney, taking with him a French mistress, wife of some besotted Roundhead planter. He must ask Yorke to tell the story of that particular forebear, because he ended up in Jamaica as the leader of the Buccaneers, and the estates he then acquired now belonged to the Yorkes, though Ramage was far from sure that it was Sidney Yorke's branch of the family. It must be strange, though, looking across at an island and knowing that one and a half centuries ago, or whenever it was, all that parcel of land belonged to your family and, but for Cromwell's antics, would now belong to you.

Ramage realized that Southwick was standing nearby, obviously anxious to say something but unwilling to interrupt. Southwick always knew when he was away in another country and often another century.

"Ah, Southwick, this is probably the last time we'll ever see these mules in such good order!"

Southwick laughed and dismissed them with a-wave of his hand. "I was watching those masters at the conference: that question you put Mr Yorke up to asking had an effect! You looked so fierce that every one of them could see the Calypso towing them under. Worth five dozen warning shots, that bit o' play-acting."

"I hope no one got the wrong idea," Ramage said. "I'll tow when needed, but I'll also leave 'em behind if they keep dropping astern at night."

"I heard you threaten that, sir, but you wouldn't really, would you?" Southwick's doubt was quite clear.

"They'll get a couple of warnings, maybe three, but after that I'm not keeping the convoy jilling around until after noon. Otherwise it means we get only six hours or so's sailing out of twenty-four. We have to heave-to at daylight, say five thirty am, and the mule finally gets into position by noon. By six or seven o'clock at night he's reefing or furling again and snugging down for the night - and we've had the pleasure of his company for six or seven hours, making perhaps five knots. So in the twenty-four hours the convoy's covered thirty-five or forty miles, plus a bit for current if we're lucky. Remember, Southwick, we've got to sail 3,500 miles before we reach the Chops of the Channel. Does a hundred-day passage appeal to you? I'm damned if any of these mules are going to make me wait a hundred days for news of my wife."

"I understand that, sir," Southwick said, looking round to make sure no one else could hear them, "but I was thinking of Their Lordships."

"What about Their Lordships?"

"These damned shipowners have a lot of influence, sir. If we left one of their ships behind and they complained to Their Lordships . . . why, they could even cast you in damages. You personally, sir. If a shipowner cast you in damages in the High Court, and Their Lordships then decided you should face a court-martial under one of the Articles of War ..."

"I'd be in a pickle," Ramage admitted ruefully. "But I'll have some witnesses in my favour - the Count of Rennes, which means the interest of the Prince of Wales, and Mr Yorke and the master of the Emerald."

"Mr Yorke, yes, and all the King's officers in the convoy, but beyond that, remember the old saying, 'Put not thy trust in princes'."

"We could trust the Count."

"Ah, yes, more than most men - particularly since he owes you his life. But," Southwick said carefully, "I had in mind some of his friends in England: those who'd mistake the Board of Admiralty for another kind of gaming table."

Ramage nodded because the old master's warning made a great deal of sense. Fame was a high place surrounded with traps set by jealous men. Without intending or wishing it. Ramage had become one of the Royal Navy's most famous frigate captains, not a role he had sought or particularly wanted but one which was the result of many actions, many desperate fights, many prizes taken, many of his own men killed or wounded and more of the enemy. He had taken many chances too, and occasionally disobeyed orders deliberately, but for the good of the King's service. And he always had loyal shipmates like Southwick, and seamen as brave and faithful as Jackson, Stafford and Rossi.

Yet Southwick was thinking beyond all this: his memory was going back to Ramage's childhood, when his father the Earl of Blazey was one of the youngest and certainly the most brilliant admirals in the Navy and who had been serving a government that needed a scapegoat for having sent out too small a fleet against the French and too late to do any good. Their scapegoat had been Admiral the Earl of Blazey, and his subsequent trial had split the Navy and the country.

"Let's hope the mules behave themselves," Ramage said, and Southwick nodded: he had understood all the unspoken additional qualifications, ranging from Sarah to Sidney Yorke's support and the bad luck which put at least one Beatrice in the convoy. Another half a dozen Beatrices would most probably turn up in the next week. It was remarkable how these ships generally needed extra canvas and cordage before the weather turned bad as they reached the more northern latitudes . . .

Yes, the convoy was in good shape, the box of ships sailing along easily to the northwest to skirt Bermuda, the wind steady from the southeast, with L'Espoir out ahead, La Robuste tacking and wearing along the western edge, and to windward, placing her astern of the convoy, the Calypso under easy sail, in a good position to hurry down to the convoy in an emergency - and swoop on any merchantman showing signs of furling her wings for the night.

It was time for the watch to change. In a few minutes Southwick would be relieved by Kenton. Over in the Emerald, hidden from the Calypso by the rest of the ships in the convoy, Sidney Yorke and Alexis would probably be drinking tea and talking of - what? Their forebears in Barbados and Jamaica? He shrugged and wished Sarah's face would come clearly in his memory.

Sidney Yorke spread some soft butter over the slice of bread on his plate, and nodded towards the jam dish. Alexis pushed it towards him and said: "If only this weather would last all the way to England."

"We'd take a year to get there!"

"I don't think I'd mind. London is so boring . . ."

"Really boring - for a beautiful young woman like you?" Yorke asked with mild sarcasm. "Think what it must be like for a plain young woman!"

"It's much easier," Alexis said unexpectedly, "if you're plain and your father is only moderately wealthy, then you can dance and talk vapid nonsense. But if Nature made you beautiful and you happen to have a fair competence, as everyone seems to know I have, every man in the room, whether a pimply youth or some jaded old roué, is chasing after you."

"Beauty and the beasts," Yorke teased.

"Yes," Alexis said crossly, "and even when you are there they ogle me and whisper suggestions."

"You never tell me!"

"I should think not! If you knew what some of them said, you'd call them out, even tho' duelling is forbidden now."

"Why don't you find yourself a nice husband," Yorke said banteringly. "Then he can protect you from the pimply youths and jaded roués."

"Oh yes, one looks around and finds 'nice husbands' are thick on the ground, like ripe apples after a thunderstorm. I notice you're still a bachelor and certainly you rarely approve of anyone I happen to talk to for more than four minutes."

"Well, you do seem to choose the most extraordinary men. No chins, noses like beaks, ears like mug handles, wispy moustaches and with 'fortune-hunter' embroidered all over their elegant coats."

"Dear brother," Alexis said patiently, "you don't understand and you never listen. I've met only one real man in the last two or three years. One."

"Why didn't you marry him, then?"

"He didn't ask me," she said, blushing in spite of herself.

"Oh? So being rich and beautiful isn't enough, eh?"

"He was already married," she said bitterly, and as Yorke went on to tease her she burst into tears and, gathering up her skirt with one hand and trying to hide her face with the other, she ran from the cabin.

Yorke sighed and cursed his crude tongue: the girl was probably frightened to death of ending her days as a spinster, surrounded by lapdogs of all varieties and visited daily by a fawning parson hoping to be remembered in her will. . . Alexis who, even though she was his sister and he was prejudiced, was among the half dozen women he had ever met who combined beauty, elegance and wit with a natural warmth that prevented her being distant and forbidding.

But who was this man? Yorke was curious, but searching his memory he could not remember seeing her with any particularly outstanding married man. In the last two or three years, she had said. Well, he had not been away very often, so who the devil could it be? He knew of only one man he'd care to have as a brother-in-law. Anyway, he would have to go and make his peace with her.

She had been badly upset when she saw the Kingsnorth plantation and the old house as they had passed the northwestern corner of Barbados: she had wept when he told her what he could remember of Ned Yorke, their great-great-great-great-uncle, who had been driven from his estate by Cromwell's Roundheads, and she had wanted to know more - with what seemed to him to be a fierce longing - of the French woman who had escaped with him to become his wife and their distant aunt. That was the trouble, sailing the turbulent islands, be they British, French, Danish. Swedish or Dutch: there were too many Yorke family memories entwined in their violent history. In fact, what few people seemed to realize was that the history of the West Indies was simply the combined history of settler families, be they English, Scots, Welsh, Irish, Dutch, French, Danish, Swedish . . . yes, and Spanish and Portuguese, of course; the other half of the coin, as it were.

At that moment the door of the saloon opened and Alexis, now dry-eyed, came in and said briefly: "I'm sorry; I made a fool of myself."

He wanted to ask her about the man, but he knew her too well: he was sure her tears were at least partly caused by vexation with herself for having said so much.

"Let's go up on deck," he said. "It's going to be a glorious sunset, and we can watch Nicholas chasing up anyone starting to dawdle."

"His ship is so far astern it's impossible to see her - will she stay there the whole voyage?"

"No, probably not. The escorts usually shift about according to the wind direction. The Calypso will probably always stay to windward - as you can see, we have a quartering wind, but as it hauls round I expect you'll find the Calypso closer to us."

"We might invite him to dinner - on a calm day, of course."

"Indeed, we shall. And he'll invite us back, and you'll see what it's like for a young lady to be controlling her skirts while she's being hoisted on board one of the King's ships."

"Hoisted? What, like a bullock, slung over a strop?"

"No, no! The Royal Navy are very polite where women are concerned. Instead of the strap under the belly they use for a bullock, they lower a small seat, like the one for a child's swing. You climb into it and settle your skirts and arrange a brave smile on your face, and they hoist you right up into the air out of the boat on to the deck, where - if you are beautiful or important enough - the captain and all the officers are waiting to salute you and kiss your hand. A glimpse of an ankle as you alight from the chair and they are your slaves for - well, until the next beautiful ankle comes on board, which is unlikely to be within the next five years if they're on a foreign station!"

"Why don't we have such a chair in the Emerald?"

"We probably have, but we usually have the gangway rigged. You'd sooner walk up a gangway, I know."

She smiled. "It depends on the naval officers," she said.

A few moments later she asked: "What shall we have for dinner?"

Yorke looked puzzled. "When?"

"Oh wake up. Why, when we have Captain Ramage for dinner."

"We'll have to invite some of his officers as well, so we'll kill a sheep."

She had already produced a tiny notebook from a pocket in her dress. "Whom shall we invite, apart from Captain Ramage?"

"For Heaven's sake call him Nicholas. It's embarrassing when you are so formal with my best friend!"

"But I've only just met him," she protested. "He's not my best friend!"

"If anything happened to me, you'd find he was," Yorke said quietly.

"Well," she said cheerfully, "he's good company, so why not stay alive and let's all be friends. Now, who else are we inviting - that delightful Mr Southwick, for one."

"And the nephew - Paolo Orsini. He is a nice lad and I know Nicholas is very fond of him."

"He speaks excellent English. Who is he exactly? Is he really related to Captain Ramage - to Nicholas?"

"Dear me, that's a bit of a long story. Once upon a time," he said, dropping his voice as though beginning a fairy story, "there was a handsome young lieutenant in the Royal Navy who landed from an open boat on the coast of Tuscany and rescued a beautiful young marchesa from under the very feet of Bonaparte's cavalry."

Alexis nodded. "That sounds a very romantic story - but I'm sure it doesn't finish there, does it? All proper fairy stories have a happy ending."

"We don't know yet if this one has: it's still happening. Anyway, Nicholas rescued her with some of his men, fellows like Jackson and Stafford, who came on board the other day with the lieutenant who brought a message."

"Then what happened? Didn't I hear that she came back to England? I seem to remember her family were old friends of the Ramages - or perhaps her mother was."

"Yes, her mother. The Marchesa is the ruler of Volterra, so you can see Bonaparte was angry that she slipped through his fingers."

"Sidney, come on!" Alexis said firmly, "you can't leave the story there."

"Well, that's more or less all there is to it. Everyone thought Gianna and Nicholas would get married - until they realized the religious problems, she being Catholic."

"Were they in love?" Alexis asked casually.

"Blessed if I know. He didn't talk about her much when we were together in that Post Office packet - yet she was waiting for him when we arrived in Lisbon."

"But he eventually married someone else ..."

"Yes, very recently."

"But why is the story of the Marchesa unfinished?"

"Well, it seems she was very anxious to get back to her people in Volterra. It's not a large country but as soon as Bonaparte signed the Treaty of Amiens she decided to go back."

"She trusted that dreadful man?"

"Don't forget that most of the British government did, too. Addington and his half-witted friends thought they had pulled off a great coup, whereas they were falling into Bonaparte's trap. But with the Marchesa, I think it was a sense of duty."

"Why didn't Captain Ramage dissuade her?"

Yorke stifled a smile: the "Nicholas" quickly reverted to a formal "Captain Ramage" when Alexis disapproved of something. "He told me that he and his parents spent days trying to warn her that she might fall into the hands of Bonaparte's secret police."

"Yet she went ..."

"Yes, and during the Peace the Admiralty sent Nicholas with the Calypso on a long surveying voyage down to Brazil, and there he met his wife."

"She is Brazilian?"

"No," Yorke explained patiently. "I'm not sure of the details - damnation, I've only had time to speak to him a couple of times. Her ship was captured and he rescued her and her parents."

"He seems to make a habit of rescuing beautiful damsels in distress."

"Yes, doesn't he," Yorke said, ignoring the sarcasm. "Very lucky for the damsels, wouldn't you say? Saved the Marchesa from Bonaparte's assassins, and Sarah (that's his wife) from a crowd of half-breed pirates."

"All right, all right," she said, "I was just being catty. If he wasn't married I'd sit on a rock and imitate a Siren ..."

"But the Sirens lured poor sailors to their doom," Yorke protested.

"So they did," Alexis said drily and with a straight face.