He was meticulous in having the mail sorted quickly - and equally meticulous in refusing to allow anyone but Post Office employees to be in the sorting-room while it was being done. The early days when impatient folk protested that his predecessor always allowed them to wait there for it were now long past.

He was equally meticulous in having the commander to dinner on the night the packet arrived. Although in any case he enjoyed the company of the lively Falmouth men, the long chats over glasses of rum punch after the meal also meant that he kept himself well informed about everyday events in England. Also the commanders had few problems, whether concerning their youngest sons, maiden aunts or their ships, that they did not discuss with him. Over the years he had become a distant uncle to most of the sons and daughters of the commanders, and his ambition when he retired was to live in Falmouth and enjoy the company of the large and closely knit "packet families".

His closeness to the commanders, and his meticulous habits, meant that at this moment his world was chaos: Smith was now a man with a job but almost no work. There were no bags of foreign mail to be officially sealed and labelled - no one was writing letters to England now, not until the Kingston Chronicle announced that a packet had at last arrived. And then, Smith thought gloomily, everyone possessed of pen and paper will write a score of letters and the commander will start complaining about the bulk ...

Still, Lord Auckland in a letter sent by the Hydra - instinctively he tapped the paperweight holding it down - had written reassuringly. It was not normally Lombard Street's policy to get involved with other Government departments - they were usually so lamentably disorganized - but from what he could see (reading between the lines, anyway) the Cabinet had decided that action over the heavy loss of packets was now up to the Admiralty. He was pleased and flattered to note that Lombard Street had seen (at last) that Jamaica was the real centre of the Foreign Mails on this side of the Atlantic, despite the claims of that damned agent in New York. Obviously the Admiralty agreed, but anyway Lord Auckland assured him that Sir Pilcher Skinner had been given orders to put one of his best officers in charge of a complete investigation.

Smith moved a paperweight half an inch to stop a particularly thin sheet from flapping too irritatingly in the breeze. Well, Sir Pilcher was a meticulous man, and the Deputy Postmaster knew he could rely on his choice of officer. There were two 74-gun ships in the harbour, each commanded by a senior captain. Presumably one of them would be given the job, and there were plenty of frigates. For the first time in weeks, Smith began to nourish a hope that his orderly world would return ...

Smith took out his watch. He'd wait another hour before leaving for lunch, although for all the good he was doing sitting here he might just as well have accepted Mrs Warner's invitation to her picnic. He admitted she frightened him a little. Although she was quite one of the most comely widows in Kingston, her constant invitations were embarrassing: people gossiped and chattered and all took it for granted that even a well-chaperoned young widow had only marriage in mind if she entertained a bachelor to dinner more than a couple of times in the year.

Someone was knocking at the open door, and he glanced up to see a young naval officer standing there. Ah, news from Sir Pilcher! That was the advantage of being a commander-in-chief; you had plenty of young fellows to run errands for you.

"Mr Smith?"

The Postmaster nodded.

"My name is Ramage. Sir Pilcher sent me.'

Again the Postmaster nodded affably, waiting for him to deliver the letter, or whatever it was from the Admiral.

"About the packets," the lieutenant said, coming right into the room.

This was rather irregular: Sir Pilcher was not the man to send verbal messages.

"What about the packets, pray?"

"Sir Pilcher said you could tell me about them. You have a letter from him, I believe?"

"No. At least, telling me what?"

"That I would be calling on you."

"Wait a moment."

Smith waved Ramage to a chair and bellowed: "Dent! Come here, Dent!"

A moment later an elderly clerk appeared at the door.

"Are there any letters for me?"

"Only this one, sir," Dent said, holding it up nervously.

"Give it to me! When did it arrive?"

"A couple of hours ago, sir; came by messenger."

"Then why the devil - oh, go away!"

Smith looked across at Ramage. "I'm sorry. It's from Sir Pilcher - give me a moment to read it."

He looked at the right-hand corner of the table for a paper-knife, extricated it from under a pile, and opened the letter with the precision of a surgeon. He read it twice, folded it again and reached out, his hand hovering between the labels "Outward packets - lost" and "Inward packets - lost". Finally he tucked it temporarily under "Lord Auckland", mentally noting that he would write a fresh label later.

He thought for a moment, and then looked up at the lieutenant. He's only a youngster, he thought crossly; obviously one of Sir Pilcher's favourites. There's no disguising that the Admiral's one major fault is pushing his favourites and giving them quick promotion. It wouldn't matter if half of them weren't young ninnies. This one doesn't look as much of a ninny as the usual run, but a lieutenant! Damnation, with the foreign mails at stake a rear-admiral would not be too much, even if his only task was to ask questions.

There were dark rings under the lad's eyes: late nights, heavy drinking, wenching ... Sir Pilcher's young lieutenants never seem to have done much fighting: those two scars over his right eyebrow - slipped with a glass of wine in his hand no doubt, or fell out of some trollop's bed: they aren't deep enough to be wounds.

Yet, Smith admitted to himself, the youth's eyes were intelligent enough: brown, deep set and almost frightening. He was handsome, too, if you liked that thin-faced aristocratic type; high cheekbones and a hard, firm chin.

The lad was looking at him, and Smith found himself feeling uncomfortable, as if he had been thinking aloud. A curious power seemed to surround the lieutenant, as though his body was merely the covering for a powerful spring. Smith found it hard to understand why a lad like this was content to hang around as one of the Admiral's lackeys.

"Forgive me, Lieutenant," Smith said finally, "I was preoccupied. All this is a great worry to me."

"To everyone," Ramage said politely. "Would you care to ...?"

"Yes, of course. Now, what do you want to know?"

Ramage shrugged his shoulders.

"Everything! How the Packet Service is organized ... How frequently the packets sail... The routine for loading mails ... How long the voyage usually takes ... Who actually employs the commanders ... Does the Post Office own the ships..."

Smith threw up his hands. "But what's all that got to do with Sir Pilcher finding out how and why the packets are being captured?" He was conscious of Ramage's eyes boring into his brain.

"Then tell me, Mr Smith," he said gently, "where do you think I should start finding out 'how and why'?"

"Well, my dear fellow, that's your affair!" Really these young men had precious little sense of responsibility!

"Suppose it was your job, Mr Smith. Where would you start making your inquiries?" Ramage persisted, taking a piece of paper from his pocket and unfolding it. "For example, the distances involved are quite considerable. Roughly 4,200 miles from Falmouth to Barbados, 300 up to Antigua, and another 900 on to Jamaica. From Jamaica back to Falmouth - well, let's take it from the Windward Passage. That's about 3,750 miles, depending on the wind."