The black-hulled lugger, instead of obeying the brig’s command to lower sails and proceed tamely into the harbour of St Jean de Luz, had changed her course. She had been sailing south, but now reached west to cut across the counter of the brig. Even Sharpe, no sailor, could see that the chasse-maree’s fore and aft rig made the boat into a handy, quick sailor.

It was not the course change that had provoked Bampfylde’s astonishment, but that the deck of the black-hulled lugger had suddenly sprouted men like dragon’s teeth maturing into warriors, and that, from the mizzen mast, a flag had been unfurled.

The flag was not the blue ensign of the Navy, nor the tricolour of France, nor even the white banner of the exiled French monarchy. They were the colours of Britain’s newest enemy; the Stars and Stripes of the United States of America.

“A Jonathon!” a voice said with disgust.

“Fire, man!” Bampfylde roared the order in the confines of the dining-room as though the brig’s skipper might hear him. Yet the brig, head to wind, was helpless. Men ran on its deck, and gunports lifted, but the American lugger was seething past the brig’s unarmed counter and Sharpe saw the dirty white blossom of gunsmoke as the small broadside was poured, at pistol-shot length, into the British ship.

Lieutenant Ford groaned. David was taking on Goliath and winning.

The sound of the American gunfire came over the wind-broken water like a growl of thunder, then the lugger was spinning about, sails rippling as the American skipper let his speed carry him through the wind’s eye, until, taut on the opposite tack, he headed back past the brig’s counter towards the fleet of chasse-marees.

The brig, foresails at last catching the wind to lever her hull around, received a second mocking broadside. The American carried five guns on each flank, small guns, but their shot punctured the brig’s Bermudan cedar to spread death down the packed deck.