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sullenly.
    Panting and nursing his bruised side, Kydd stood to survey the carnage, then strode aft. ‘Well done, Mr Gilbey,’ he said, shaking his first lieutenant’s hand. ‘See to our men forward, will you?’
    ‘
Qui est le capitaine
?’ Kydd demanded of the group of disconsolate officers.
    ‘He lies wounded below,’ one replied sulkily.
    ‘Then know that as of this moment your ship is in the possession of His Britannic Majesty.’ Kydd’s heart was still pounding from the heat of combat.
    One of the officers offered his sword. He brushed it aside. ‘The honours of war must wait for another time. Be so good as to muster your men aft.’
    It was the well-tried routine of taking over a captured ship – but with a twist. Very conveniently he could empty the vessel of the enemy to assemble them under guard on the open ground of the riverbank while he sent Curzon and a party of men to perform the usual rapid search below decks. The second lieutenant reported that
Marie Galante
was essentially undamaged and ready for sea – no mean prize.
    Gilbey returned from forward. ‘I’m truly sorry t’ say Mr Pearse is no more, and Mr Oakley has been skelped – which is t’ say, he’s taken a whiffler to the head, but I’ve a notion he’ll live,’ he added hastily.
    ‘Very good. Secure the ship – I want a talk with the captain.’
    Kydd found the commander in a cot below in the sick-bay, his intelligent brown eyes reflecting a sea of pain. His lower body was soaked in blood from a broken-off splinter, dark and vicious, protruding from eviscerated flesh in his lower thigh.
    Kydd felt for the man. He’d been unlucky enough to be caught by the carronade fire at the very outset of the engagement and the surgeon had not yet seen to him.
    ‘
Mes félicitations, le capitaine
,’ he gasped. ‘A boat from upstream, masterly! Together with your overwhelming army. Of course, we stood no chance.’ He was an older man, greying early, no doubt with the strain of keeping the seas for long months in fearful conditions. His gaze almost pleaded for understanding.
    ‘Your dispositions were most intelligent, sir, as gave us much difficulty.’ Kydd would not be the one to disillusion him on the details, and went on, ‘I’m quite certain Admiral Maréchal will be the first to honour you for your gallant defence under such odds.’
    Instantly the wounded man’s expression stiffened, the pain kept ruthlessly at bay. ‘You are no doubt from a frigate, Captain?’
    Kydd caught himself. The question was both astute and pointed: this officer had foreseen the possibility that
L’Aurore
might well be a scout from a powerful British squadron looking to bring Maréchal to battle and would welcome any indication of his whereabouts. He would get nothing from this defeated captain.
    More wounded men were being brought down and, at the appearance of the surly French surgeon, Kydd made his excuses and left.
    Curzon was ‘entertaining’ the other officers in their own quarters. The second lieutenant, who spoke fluent French, was attempting to bring off a
risqué
story concerning Piccadilly and a lady of the town but it was being received in an icy silence by the two Frenchmen. At Kydd’s interrogative glance he shook his head mutely.
    He had the vessel but it was not yielding the information he craved. Frustrated, Kydd moved on to the captain’s cabin. The master looked up from the working chart he had found. ‘Nary a thing, sir,’ he said, swivelling it round so Kydd could see. No squadron line of rendezvous – which could mean just as easily that there wasn’t one as that it was being kept private. ‘An’ while m’ French is nothing s’ special, I didn’t see a mention in his log.’
    Kydd scanned the neat writing, noting the regular scientific observations that this captain was in the habit of making, but nowhere was there mention of the innumerable signals and irritations of life under the eye of an admiral. On the other