He said, “If Neale could slip through . . .” He broke off. “The butter! Quick, Neale, strip off your clothes!” He reached out for Herrick. “We’ll rub him with butter, Herrick, and ease him through, like a sponge in a gun barrel!”

Neale pulled off his clothes and stood uncertainly in the centre of the storeroom. In the faint glow from the vent hole his small body shone like some discarded statue. Bolitho took a double handful of stinking butter from the deck and ignoring Neale’s cry of alarm slapped it across his shoulders. As Herrick followed suit Bolitho said quickly, “The loyal men, Neale, where are they?”

Neale’s teeth were beginning to chatter uncontrollably but he replied, “In the cable tier, sir. The surgeon and some of the older hands as well.”

“Just as I thought.” Bolitho stood back and wiped his palms on his breeches. “Now listen. If we get you through this hole, could you climb along the forechains?”

Neale nodded. “I’ll try, sir.”

“The others will be locked in the tier by staple. If I can distract the guards you open the door and release them.” He rested his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “But if anyone sees you, forget what I said and jump for it. You could swim ashore before anyone could catch you.”

He turned to the others. “Right, lend a hand here!”

Neale felt like a greasy fish, and at the first attempt they nearly dropped him.

Herrick suggested, “One arm first, Neale, then your head.”

They tried again, with the room plunged into total darkness as the struggling, wriggling midshipman was forced into the vent hole.

The boy was gasping with pain, and Proby said, “Lucky he ain’t no fatter.”

Then, with a sudden rush he was through, and after a few agonising seconds, while they all waited for a shouted challenge from the deck, his eyes appeared outside the vent hole. He was scarlet in the face and his shoulder was bleeding from the rough passage.

But he was strangely determined, and Bolitho said softly, “Take your time, boy. And no chances!”

Neale vanished, and Herrick said heavily, “Well, at least he’s out of it if the worst happens.”

Bolitho looked at him sharply. It was almost as if Herrick had read his own thoughts. But he replied calmly, “I’ll blow this ship to hell before I let it fall to the enemy, Mr Herrick! Make no mistake about it!”

Then, in silence, he settled down to wait.

* * *

John Allday leaned against a tall slab of rock, his chest heaving from exertion as he fought to regain his breath. A few paces away, lying like a corpse with his head and shoulders in a small pool, Bryan Ferguson drank deeply, pausing every so often to give a great gasp for air.

Allday turned to look back through the tangled mass of small trees through which they had just come. There was still no sign of pursuit, but he had no doubt that the alarm was now under way.