Ramage glanced at his watch and said: "Fire!"

Jackson took the strain on the lanyard. Suddenly the gun gave a sharp, almost bronchitic cough, and leapt back in recoil, the trucks rumbling until brought to a stop by the thick rope breeching secured to the bulwark each side and passing through the big ring on the breech.

One and three-quarter minutes from the moment he had given them the word. Not bad, not particularly good.

"Secure the gun and return equipment to the magazine," Ramage ordered.

Southwick walked across and muttered crossly, "They've got rusty ... this soft life they've been leading for the last month or so. If you'll give me half an hour with them, sir..."

"Just wait," Ramage grinned. "If you think that's slow, we'll see what the packetsmen do."

The sponge, rammer and handspikes had been lashed against the bulwark, and the little canvas bonnet protecting the lock mechanism and flint against spray had been tied in position when Ramage turned to the packetsmen. He had no wish to humiliate them; he just wanted them to demonstrate themselves.

"Bosun - pick your four best men for that gun's crew. Pick a fifth man to collect wads, pricker and powder horn from the magazine."

Four packetsmen shambled up to the gun. A fifth man stood by the hatch and the two boys joined him. Ramage glanced round and held up his hand.

"Is everyone ready?"

The men muttered and Ramage said loudly, "Load and run out number one gun, starboard side. Roundshot!"

As the fifth man and the boys ran below, the four packetsmen began casting off the gun, but Ramage noticed they did not overhaul the tackles. That meant the ropes would almost certainly kink and curl and jam in the blocks. They undid the lashings holding the rammer and sponge and tossed both down on the same side of the gun - that would waste time because the rammer worked on one side and the sponger on the other. The two handspikes followed, and were kicked out of the way as a man grabbed a roundshot and in his haste dropped it.

Southwick raised an eyebrow - there was no need for anyone to touch a shot at that point since the first boy had not yet arrived with powder. The fifth man appeared with wads, pricker and powder horn, but as the gun captain snatched the powder horn the fifth man in his excitement dropped the wads, which rolled aft. He was so flustered that he scampered round picking them all up, instead of grabbing the nearest and passing it to one of the two men at the muzzle of the gun.

By then a boy had arrived with the cartridge, which a seaman snatched and thrust into the muzzle. Then he looked round hurriedly for the rammer - and realized that it was on the other side of the gun.

Ramage looked at his watch. Two and a quarter minutes.

They all had to wait while the man with the wads came back in response to the gun captain's shouts. In went the wad and was rammed home. The sponger had a shot ready in his hands and tried to cram it in the muzzle. He was so clumsy that it dropped and rolled aft along the deck. Finally a shot was in and rammed home, priming powder was in the pan, and the gun ready to run out for firing. The men were hauling on the tackles to run it out before Ramage realized that the gun captain was holding the trigger lanyard taut and, even as he watched, the second captain cocked the lock without waiting for an order. If the gua moved a few more inches its own travel would tighten the lanyard and fire it - and probably kill the gun captain as it recoiled.

"Belay!" bellowed Ramage at the top of his voice, and fortunately the men froze.

Even as he strode across to the gun he saw the gun captain had not realized what he was doing. Ramage stopped right beside him and took the lanyard from his hand.

"You fool!" he said coldly. "The lock is cocked - if they'd run out another couple of inches the gun would have fired and you'd have been killed by the recoil - and some of the others too. And you" - he turned to the second captain - "don't you ever touch a lock until the gun captain gives the order. Now, carry on!"

He walked back aft, seething, and looked at his watch. Nearly four and a half minutes. Finally the gun captain called, "Number one gun ready, sir."

"Fire!"

And he looked at his watch yet again.

As the smoke drifted way he looked at the packetsmen. "Bosun!" he snapped. "The first crew took one and three-quarter minutes. Guess how long yours took."

"Three minutes, sir?" the man asked nervously.

"I wish they had. Six and a quarter minutes. They are your best men, but you saw how they nearly killed themselves. Right, secure the gun. You and your men," he told the Bosun harshly, "are going to exercise at the guns until you wish gunpowder had never been invented."

He turned to the Master, who commented gloomily, "And that was the leeward side..."

The fact the packet was heeled to leeward meant that when running the gun out ready to fire, its own weight helped the men at the tackles. If they had been using a gun on the other side they would have had to haul it up the inclined deck.

"Exercises start now," Ramage told Southwick angrily, "and continue for two hours. No live firing, but the men will ram and sponge as though there was."

He knew he was in a fury, although that was not going to make the men any faster.

"Jackson!" he called. When the American coxswain came running aft, Ramage said, "As soon as the Bosun divides his men into fours, I want you, Stafford, Rossi and Maxton to go through the drill with each crew one by one. Make sure they know what they're trying to do. When you're satisfied they all know the drill, report to me."

An hour had passed before Jackson made his report, and Ramage ordered the three crews to three of the 4-pounder guns. For the remaining hour he had the crews competing against each other, loading, running out, pretending to fire, sponging, ramming and running out again until sweat was pouring from their bodies. At each gun stood Rossi, Stafford or Maxton, bellowing encouragement, instructions and occasionally abuse while Jackson strode from one gun to another, like the conductor of a wayward orchestra.

Every ten minutes Ramage timed a different crew, and to begin with there was a gradual improvement, measured in seconds rather than minutes. But after that the improvement stopped as the men wearied. Very well, he thought to himself, from now on it's punishment, not training.

At five o'clock he ordered the guns secured and the magazine locked. He glanced up at the sails, impatient for the next day, so that he could start exercising the packetsmen aloft.

By early evening the Lady Arabella was making seven knots with a brisk quartering wind. The Os Farilhões islands, their sharp outline caught by the last of the sun's rays and giving the impression of several sails on the eastern horizon, were eight miles away on the starboard beam.

Southwick, responsible for navigation, was already grumbling about the French charts. "These packets," he muttered to Ramage. "They carry just enough charts to get them through to their usual destination. Fancy Stevens not carrying a chart for anywhere south of Brest! Supposing he ran into a week of bad weather on the way home and found himself driven on to the Spanish peninsula, or into the Bay of Biscay? Not that these damned French charts are much better than having nothing. Don't trust 'em."

"Kerguelen was going to - in fact he took us down to Lisbon with them without running ashore!" Ramage said mildly. "He probably brought the French charts on board with him because he didn't trust British ones!"

"Or he guessed that packets don't carry a proper folio of charts. And this business of measuring the prime meridian from Paris," Southwick snorted. "Why not Greenwich, like other civilized people!"