The two remaining cabins were half the size of the great cabin, although each held another 12-pounder. A section of the ship the width of the great cabin and forward of it had been bulkheaded off and then divided in half along the centre-line, making the bed place, or sleeping cabin, to starboard and the coach - some captains referred to it as their state room - to larboard.

He walked through to the bed place to inspeot the cot, and was thankful that it was well scrubbed; simply a long, shallow wooden box suspended from the deckhead by ropes at each end so that it could swing as the ship rolled. A mattress spread in the box and some sheets and blankets completed the bed . . . he felt sleepy at the thought of it.

He could hear men padding about overhead, for the quarterdeck was above, while one deck below and forward of him was the ward room, with cabins on each side for the four lieutenants, Master, Surgeon and perhaps the Marine officer. Forward of that but outside the ward room were the even smaller cabins, boxes, really, with bulkheads made of canvas stretched over frames made of battens, of the purser, gunner, carpenter, bos'n, and captain's clerk. And, larger, the midshipmen's berth.

Forward of that the Marines were berthed, and even farther forward the ship's company lived. They ate their meals at tables slung from the deckhead, each table belonging to six or eight men and called a mess, with a number. The mess system often provided a thoughtful captain with an indication as to whether or not he had a happy ship's company. Once a month a seaman could make an official request to change his mess, which was usually a signal that he had quarrelled with his shipmates. Half a dozen requests a month were acceptable; more than that should warn a captain that there was too much quarrelling and bickering on the mess deck.

At night the tables and forms were stowed and hammocks were slung: hammocks which spent the day stowed in nettings along the top of the bulwarks and covered with long strips of canvas, out of the way and, in action, providing some protection against musketry fire.

Only the captain lived in solitary glory on the main deck, along with twenty-six of the Juno's 12-pounder guns and a Marine sentry. Ramage wondered if it was the loneliness that had driven the previous captain to drink. Loneliness and responsibility, two things faced with confidence by a competent captain but which became corrosive acids to destroy an uncertain man.

A competent captain: for a moment Ramage mulled over the phrase and then felt a spasm, if not of fear, of something deuced close. Alone in the great cabin wondering what had destroyed his predecessor suddenly brought home to him that he now commanded a frigate. Not that captain walking down the Admiralty steps, nor the one hailing a passing boat, but Nicholas Ramage, who had never previously commanded anything larger than a brig.

He had dreamed of it for years and now he had achieved it, but thanks to a drunken predecessor the excitement was not there. The Juno, a 32-gun frigate, carrying twenty-six 12-pounders on the main deck, four 6-pounders on the quarterdeck, two more on the fo'c'sle. A typical frigate, in fact. She was 126 feet long on the gun deck and had a beam of thirty-five feet.

Ramage recalled some other details he had looked up hurriedly before leaving London: when fully provisioned her draught was sixteen feet seven inches. She had a complement of 215 men, and her hull had cost about £13,000, her masts and yard more than £800. By the time she had been rigged, sails put on board and boats hoisted, the total had risen to £14,250. The Progress Book at the Admiralty had ended up with a total that included a halfpenny.

He sat back in the chair and stared out through the stern lights. Prices, weights, lengths ... They were a ship on paper, yet the Juno frigate was so much more. You began with six hundred tons of timber, carefully selected and shaped; you needed some forty tons of iron fittings, bolts and nuts, and a dozen tons of copper bolts. Her bottom was sheathed with more than two thousand sheets of copper, to keep out teredo and deter the barnacles and weeds. Eighteen thousand treenails locked futtocks and planks, beams and breasthooks, stem and stern-post . . . Four tons of oakum had been driven into hull and deck seams by skilled and patient caulkers, and there were twenty barrels of pitch and twice that number of tar used in her construction. Two hundred and fifty gallons of linseed oil - much of that rubbed into masts and yards. Three coats of paint for the whole ship weighed two and a half tons, yet that was nothing when you realized that masts, yards and bowsprit weighed more than forty tons, Fifteen tons for the standing rigging, twelve for the running; six tons of blocks and nine of spare yards and booms. Six tons of sails (the main course alone needed 620 yards of canvas), thirty-five of anchor cables. Weight, weight, weight - and water, provisions, men and their chests, stores for the gunner, carpenter and bos'n, let alone guns, powder, shot... She's all yours now, he told himself, until the Admiralty say otherwise, or you put her on a reef or sink her in a storm of wind. Like all ships, the Juno would be a demanding mistress but an exciting one.

She was a great deal bigger than his first command, the cutter Kathleen, which he had lost at the Battle of Cape St Vincent; she was a lot bigger than the Triton brig, his next command lost after a hurricane in the West Indies. Yet the most important thing - what he found daunting at the moment - was that the complement was 215 men, which was twice that of the Triton and four times as many as the Kathleen.

Captain the Lord Ramage was now, by virtue of the commission still in his pocket, the commanding officer of the Juno frigate.

The responsibility for the ship and her men was his from now on, to wear like an extra skin. All he had to show for it so far was an epaulet on his right shoulder, but the printer of the Navy List would eventually lift the type and move his name from the list of lieutenants and put it at the bottom of the list of captains ...

As he stood up to put his commission away in a drawer he heard a noise outside the door and found that the First Lieutenant had at last provided him with a Marine sentry. Ramage told him to pass the word for the Master and Southwick arrived so promptly that Ramage guessed the old man had been standing by the capstan, waiting for the call.

The Master sat down in a chair at Ramage's invitation, his hat on his knees, and when he saw Ramage's eyebrows raised questioningly he nodded: 'Your talk worked, sir; I can see a difference in the men already. I think it was the red baize bag: I saw a lot of 'em straighten themselves up when you mentioned that!'

'They've probably noted me down as a wild man with a cat-o'-nine-tails,' Ramage said ruefully. 'Damnation, you can remember the only times I've had men flogged.'

'Don't you fret, sir; one man came up to me not five minutes ago - one of the Kathleens who served with us in the Mediterranean. He was all excited that you'd joined the ship and by now is probably talking up a gale o' wind on the messdeck!'

Ramage nodded, and then waved at the sideboard. 'There's nothing to drink yet. My trunk is on board - I hope - and some purchases I made in Portsmouth should be out later in the day. In the meantime I shall have to eat by courtesy of the ward room. Now, to bring you up to date.'

Quickly Ramage explained that the Juno was under orders for the West Indies and was to sail as soon as possible. All four lieutenants on board would be leaving the ship in the morning - their orders from the Admiralty were on the sideboard - and four new ones would be arriving during the day. Southwick's old chess opponent, Bowen, was due on board during the day, and so was a Marine officer.