“She might be scuttled, sir.”

Bolitho looked at him. “I think not. This is Djafou, Mr Bickford. They have nowhere else to go.”

Something was still keeping him here on the blood-spattered steps when he should be inside the fortress. Meeting the garrison’s commander and attending to countless other details before the squadron returned.

Giffard seemed to have been reading his thoughts. And that was strange too, for Bolitho had never given him credit for having any imagination. He asked, “Would you like me to send some of my men to search for the flag-lieutenant, sir?” He waited, squeaking back on his heels. “I can spare a platoon long enough for that.”

Bolitho imagined Calvert and his four companions out there somewhere in the darkness, terrified and helpless. Better they were dead than to fall into the bands of some of the marauding tribesmen described by Draffen.

He replied, “I would be grateful.” He made himself add, “But do not risk their lives to no purpose, Captain Giffard.”

The marine said, “They will obey orders, sir.” Then he grinned, as if more at ease with his usual pomposity. “But I will pass your order to them immediately.”

The central tower was divided up mainly into living quarters for the garrison officers, three of whom were accompanied by their wives. As Bolitho trod carefully over scattered stone chippings and various items of personal clothing and equipment he wondered briefly what sort of a life a woman could expect in a furnace like Djafou.

The commandant’s quarters were at the top of the tower and looked out across the bay towards the beaked headland.

He was sitting in a huge, high-backed chair, and made to rise as Bolitho, followed by Bickford and Allday, entered the room. He had a neat grey beard, but his face was the colour of faded parchment, and Bolitho guessed he had been the victim of a severe fever on more than one occasion. He was an old man, with wrinkled hands which hung as if lifeless on the arms of the big chair, and had probably been given the post of commandant because nobody else wanted it, or him.

Fortunately, he spoke good English, and had a gentle, courteous voice which seemed so out of place in the fortress’s grim and uncompromising surroundings.

Bolitho had already been told by Bickford that his name was Francisco Alava, once a colonel in the dragoons of His Most Catholic Majesty’s household. Now, and until the day he died, he was designated commandant of the most dismal place in the Spanish chain of possessions in the Mediterranean. He had probably committed some petty breach of etiquette or misdemeanour to receive such a post, Bolitho thought.

He said, “I would be pleased if you would make your quarters available to me for the present, Colonel Alava.”

The two hands lifted shakily and then fell back on the chair again. Sickness, old age and the awful explosions of Inch’s mortars had taken a hard cost of his frail resources.