Ramage

 Captain Croucher put his hands palms downwards on the table and, looking at a point in space about two feet in front of his nose, said silkily, 'It is perhaps relevant that I am President of this court and you are its junior member ...'

 Ramage sensed Croucher was not really bothered by Ferris's protests; he had another trick ready.

 '... However, before introducing the document the court will wait until later in the proceedings, when its relevance will be made clear.'

 He looked across at Barrow and said: 'Call the first witness.'

 While the word was being passed for the Bosun, Barrow hurriedly scribbled away, darting bis pen into the ink pot from time to time with the rapidity of a snake striking.

 Ramage could guess what he was writing: the page would be headed 'Minutes of Proceedings at a Court Martial held on board His Majesty's ship Trumpeter in Bastia on Thursday the 15th day of September, 1796.' Then would come, under the heading 'Present’, the names of the six captains, beginning with Croucher as president, ‘being all the captains of post ships according to seniority except Captain Lord Probus who certified the President his inability to attend through ill health.'

He would then scribble 'Insert order for trial' - the wording would be written into the fair copy of the minutes, as well as a record of his own appointment and the administration of oaths. Then there would be a discreet outline of the earlier exchanges with Captain Croucher, and now he would be scribbling a new heading 'Evidence in support of the charge'.

 The Sibella’s Bosun came into the cabin, pausing just inside the door, obviously bewildered by the array of senior officers looking up at him, and dazzled by the sunlight.

 Barrow looked up, motioned him to the table and gave him the Bible. The Bosun straightened his shoulders - he usually walked with a slight stoop - and repeated the Oath.

Captain Croucher told him: 'Don't answer a question until the Deputy Judge Advocate has had time to write it down, and don't speak too quickly.'

'Aye aye, sir.'

For several seconds Ramage had been listening to several men having a violent argument outside the cabin door and, just as Captain Croucher glanced up, thought he could distinguish a woman's voice speaking rapid Italian. Surely - no, he must be day-dreaming. Barrow, busy with his papers, had not noticed anything and began the questioning.

'You are Edward Brown, and were Boatswain of—'

The door was flung open with a violent crash that made everyone jump, and Gianna, her face white and drawn, emphasizing the fine chiselling of her high cheekbones, swept into the cabin. Her eyes blazed with anger and her whole bearing was that of a proud, impulsive young woman accustomed to being obeyed. Her dress, pale blue embroidered in gold, was partly hidden by a black silk cape which had been flung back carelessly over her shoulders.

 A Marine sentry stumbled into the cabin after her, musket in his hands, crying out, 'Come back, ye crazy bitch!' and then one of the Trumpeter's lieutenants, pushing the sentry out of the way, grasped her arm.

'Madam, please! I've told you the court is in session!'

But her beauty, her magnificent anger, was too much for him: he dare not hold her tightly and she waved off his restraining hand as if a fly had settled on her fan. Ramage saw Pisano follow them into the cabin flushed and angry.

 Gianna walked straight up to the big table and looked coolly at the six captains, who were so startled and overawed that to Ramage it seemed they shrank in size, ceasing to exist as flesh and blood and becoming six figures painted on canvas, transfixed at a certain moment in time by an artist's brush.

'Who,' demanded Gianna, 'is in charge here?'

 Oh, how he loved that voice when it became imperious! He didn't know whether to watch Pisano, the six captains, Gianna, the lieutenant who stood uncertainly a yard or so behind her, Barrow, whose spectacles had slid so far down his nose that it was difficult to know why they did not fall off altogether, or the Marine sentry, who clearly thought the cabin had been invaded by some bumboat woman.

Croucher reacted first but, completely under her magnetic spell, stood and bowed. 'I - er ... I am the President of the court, Madam.'

'I am the Marchesa di Volterra.'

Her voice and compelling, patrician beauty combined to silence everyone except the Marine sentry, who gasped, 'Gawd-orlmighty!'

 Ramage doubted if Croucher had ever waited for an admiral to speak with more apprehension than he waited for the girL

 'I have no legal right to appear in a court martial trying Lieutenant Ramage for the loss of his ship,' she said in a tone indicating quite clearly she regarded this as a trifling matter, 'but I have a moral right to appear in a court trying him for cowardice if it is based upon the accusations of my cousin.'

 Several people gasped, and Ramage glanced at the whitefaced Pisano who made no reaction: he'd obviously already heard all this a minute or two earlier, outside the cabin door.

 'I believe my cousin has in writing accused Lieutenant Ramage of cowardice; I believe my cousin accuses Lieutenant Ramage of abandoning my cousin Count Pitti; I believe—'

‘How can you possibly know of this, Madam?' exclaimed Croucher.

'But it is true, is it not?'

The sharp and authoritative note in her voice flashed the question at Croucher like the swift, clean riposte of an expert fencer, and he was slow to parry.

'Well - er, yes, in a way: Count Pisano has made certain charges—'

 'Accusations, not charges,' she corrected him. 'These accusations are without basis. I cannot let loyalty to my family prevent me from making certain that justice is done, so this court must know firstly that Count Pisano does not know Count Pitti was wounded: it was dark and although he says he heard him call out, he has admitted to me he does not know what it was he said.

'Secondly, Lieutenant Ramage carried me to the boat because I was wounded, and put me in it. Count Pisano - who came to the boat by a different route - was already sitting in it. So if he had heard Count Pitti call out, he should have gone back himself.

 'Thirdly, after Count Pisano and I were safely in the boat, Lieutenant Ramage went up to the dunes again - I saw him -and called for Mr Jackson. Several minutes passed before he returned, and during that time Count Pisano was impatient because he wanted the boat to leave.

 'Fourthly, when Lieutenant Ramage finally returned to the boat and we waited a few seconds for Mr Jackson to arrive  - we could see him coming towards us — Count Pisano was urging the Lieutenant to leave: in other words, he was urging the Lieutenant to abandon Mr Jackson, who had a few minutes earlier attacked four French cavalrymen and saved my life and that of Lieutenant—'

 At that moment Pisano ran forward screaming, 'Tu sei una squaldrina!' and hit her across the face; then there was a heavy, dull thud and a rattle, and Pisano collapsed to the deck at the girl's feet. The stolid Marine sentry, who had lunged forward and hit Pisano on the side of the head with the butt of his musket, took a pace backwards and stood stiffly to attention, a look of doubt beginning to grow on his face.

 Ramage leapt forward, realizing the Marine's musket blow had been the unthinking reaction of a person horrified that anyone should strike a woman....

'Good man!' Ramage exclaimed and in a moment Gianna was in his arms. 'Are you all right?' he whispered.

 'Yes - yes.' She lapsed into Italian. 'Have I done the correct thing? Have I made a terrible mistake?'

'No! You were magnificent. I—'

'Is the Marchesa all right?'

 Ramage realized that Croucher, trapped behind the table and unable to understand what they were saying, was now so agitated that he was shouting the question, probably for the third or fourth time.