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allowed even a modest epaulette, never the frogging and other ornamentation of even the lowliest army officer.
    Kydd found himself on one wing seated beside an amiable officer, who introduced himself as Richard Wyvill, major in the First West Indian Regiment of Foot. ‘You’re new out from England?’ he enquired politely.
    ‘No, from Buenos Aires,’ Kydd said, ‘as first came from the Cape of Good Hope.’
    At Wyvill’s puzzled look, Kydd told of how the one had been taken, the other lost, in the daring recent feats at the fringe of empire.
    Over a capital dish of okra and flying fish, Kydd learned more about the Leeward Islands and their place in the scheme of things, how the untold wealth generated by King Sugar was streaming to England to finance the war and on no account might be jeopardised. And how every effort was being made to deprive the French of the same, and the very real danger of their determined retaliation.
    ‘Might the station still be called, as who’s to say, a sickly one?’ Kydd asked. In earlier times, a murderous toll in disease had been inflicted on the white soldiers and he had only narrowly survived yellow fever himself.
    ‘It still vexes, but now we’ve whole regiments of blacks who are not troubled by such concerns.’ That left the white officers, but they would take their chances in the hope that those surviving would be in position for a speed of promotion that could never be matched at home. ‘And, of course, you sailors have only to keep the seas to find yourselves well clear of the marsh airs that bring fever.’
    ‘The governor – he looks a right sort of cove. Another of your Scotsmen, then?’
    ‘Indeed. Francis Mackenzie, First Baron Seaforth, chieftain of the Clan Mackenzie, no less.’ When Kydd nodded amiably, he added, ‘As takes no mind of the curse of the Brahan Seer!’
    ‘Ah, yes,’ Kydd answered blankly, to be enlightened that this was the dire prediction of the eventual downfall of the Seaforth Mackenzies by a shadowy figure more than two centuries back.
    Lifting his glass, he saw Tyrell, four places up, forcefully making a point to a hapless colonel who sat back wincing under the tirade.
    Kydd glanced across the table to Pym, who raised his glass and offered, ‘If you’re looking for a cruise to line the pockets, m’ friend, then you’ve come to the wrong place for that.’
    ‘How so?’ Wyvill came in.
    ‘Our Sir Alexander, he’s not your prize-capturing sort. Takes it to heart since San Domingo that the Frenchies might desire to return and claim what they lost. You frigates’ll be out keeping station on the rest o’ the fleet all hours that God gives, sweeping up ’n’ down to wind’d atwixt here and Bermuda. You’ll see.’
    ‘He was at San Domingo?’ Taking place earlier in the year, off the not-so-far-distant Hispaniola, it was said to have been the greatest fleet action since Trafalgar.
    ‘He was – and for his pains had his hat blown from his head by a great shot on his own quarterdeck in
Northumberland
. Never forgave ’em.’
    There were appreciative chuckles while they did their duty on the spicy pepperpot.
    By the time the cloth was finally drawn and the brandy had appeared, Kydd had mellowed considerably, the memories of the south continent now in full retreat. Cigars from Spanish Cuba were brandished, and in the blue haze he listened lazily to the ebb and flow of conversation. They were all post-captains and senior field officers at this august gathering, he reflected with pride, and he was here by right, damn it.
    He pondered yet again on the turn of fortune that had taken him back to the Caribbean as a frigate captain. It seemed so distant, his time as a young seaman, almost like another life. Only in the Royal Navy was it possible to break through in society as he had done, from the common sort to gentleman with all that it meant in terms of respect, politeness and comforts. In fact, if he did well …
    ‘Dear fellow – do I