Round the foremast several sacks of Irish potatoes and yams had been emptied out and spread over the deck, and a dozen seamen were patiently sorting them out and throwing away those that had gone rotten or showed signs of mildew. The smell drifted aft, and Ramage was reminded of a country barn. For a moment, as his memory went back to Cornwall, he thought of swallows jinking through shafts of sunlight and shadow.

Already Southwick had assembled a party of foretop and fo'c'slemen to prepare anchors and cables. As soon as the Calypso was clear of the English Channel, her anchor cables had been taken off the anchors and hauled below, to be stowed in the cabletier. The hawsehole, one each side, out of which the cable led when the ship was at anchor, had been blocked first with a hawse plug the size of the hawsehole, and that had been reinforced by a blind buckler, yet another circular wooden disc backed up by iron bars, and ensuring that waves could not force water into the ship.

Now men were driving out the iron bars and then levering out the blind bucklers. The plugs were harder - men had to drive them out with heavy mauls while others, scrambling over the bow, caught them and made sure they did not fall over the side.

Meanwhile men were busy down in the cabletier. a hot and dank part of the ship, where several cables were coiled down but which was always damp because the cables, impregnated with salt (as well as sand and shell scraped off the sea bed and ingrained in the lay of the ropes), never properly dried out. Now they were hauling the end of one up to the hawse and then another. Each end was led round, one to be secured to an anchor on the larboard side, the other to starboard.

Soon Southwick was back on the quarterdeck reporting that the ship was ready for anchoring, and Ramage offering him a telescope to inspect the island. The master was not impressed by what he saw. 'If the other side's like this, then there are no anchorages,' he grumbled. 'All I can see are steep cliffs. Those mountains must be a good fifteen hundred feet - one looks like that big sugarloaf at Rio de Janeiro. I grant they should put the other side in a lee, but a lee's no good without a bay. Nothing for that fellow Wilkins to paint...'

At that moment Ramage saw that 'that fellow Wilkins' was collecting his canvases together and taking them below. He was one of the Calypso's more welcome guests: he had quickly picked up the routine of daily life in a frigate, and quietly went about his painting without asking for special favours. The result was, of course, that he had become popular. He had painted several striking portraits. The first, of Southwick, was one of the best likenesses that Ramage had seen of anyone: looking at the canvas, one half expected Southwick's face to break into a grin. The second one, of young Paolo, had revealed his Italian lineage but in some subtle way merged it into his midshipman's uniform. The next venture had been a large canvas with three seamen sitting on the deck with a sail across their legs, busy stitching. Wilkins had contrived to let the viewer feel he was sitting among the men, Jackson, Stafford and Rossi, with the canvas round him. The portrait of Bowen sitting with his head bowed over a chess board made Ramage think that Wilkins had somehow diagnosed something of the surgeon's tragic past, when drink had nearly ruined him, but the painting showed Bowen's victory, not a defeat. And, knowing Southwick's frequent defeats at Bowen's hands while playing chess, Wilkins had painted in the chessmen so that Bowen was trying to find a way out of checkmate.

Within another hour the Calypso was reaching fast and only two or three miles from the southern tip of the island. Aitken came up to Ramage and saluted formally.

'Do you want the men sent to quarters, sir?'

Ramage shook his head and smiled. 'It's a hard habit to break, isn't it! But we're at peace and this is a deserted island, so we'll keep your decks free of sand.'

Ramage thought for a moment and then said: 'Send Jackson to the foremasthead, and Orsini to the main: tell them to watch out for any dark patches in the water that'll warn of rocks. And light patches for reefs, too!'

Aitken passed the order and then Ramage said: 'Have the deep sea lead ready. I hope we don't have to use it. but if we can't anchor on the other side we might as well have some idea of the depth.'

The deep sea lead was a very long line with a heavy lead weight on the end. The lead was taken out to the end of the jibboom and the line led back aft, clear of everything, and then forward again to the forechains, where it was brought back on board. As soon as the word was given the lead was dropped, taking with it line nearly twice the length of the ship. The leadsman and his mates could let more run, but initially more than 300 feet went in a matter of seconds. The usual hand lead was used only for depths of twenty fathoms and less.

Ramage, now holding the only telescope on the quarterdeck, because the other two had been entrusted to Jackson and Orsini, went through all the evolutions the Calypso might need to perform and could rely on Aitken and Southwick remembering the various drills, while Kenton and Martin had enough ingenuity to think of anything unusual.

'Quarterdeck there, foremast here!'

Aitken lifted the speaking-trumpet and answered Jackson.

'Thought I saw a puff of smoke at the southern end, sir, like a bonfire being put out.'

'Can you see smoke now?'

'No, sir, it only lasted a few moments.'

'Keep a sharp lookout,' Aitken said, in the standard response. He turned to Ramage, an eyebrow raised. Jackson was one of the best lookouts and probably the most reliable seaman in the ship.

'Could have been a flock of small birds flying off,' Ramage said. 'I've known the movement being mistaken in the distance for a puff of smoke.'

'Aye, sir. It's hardly the place one would expect to find a gillie roasting a deer!'

Colours could now be distinguished, although the sun dipping to the west was already beginning to throw shadows across the near side of the mountains, giving shape and design to apparently smooth peaks. There was some grass on the lower slopes, not many trees and those were evergreens stunted by constant exposure to the trade winds. Although he had only seen paintings of it, Ramage could understand Southwick's reference to the sugarloaf hill being like the famous one overlooking Rio de Janeiro.

'A tiny Antigua,' Aitken said. 'It has that same dried up and wasted look in places, like a deserted Highland hill farm.'

'I'm glad I'm not going to command the garrison,' Ramage said, 'although it seems a good spot for young subalterns dodging gambling debts and the furious fathers of jilted brides!'

He caught sight of small waves breaking on the nearest shore and noted that they showed the Calypso was now less than two miles away. Curious how one had these little mental pictures to help estimate distance when anything was close. At two miles one could see a small building on the beach; at a mile the colour of its roof was distinguishable. A man standing on the beach could be picked out at 700 yards and if he was walking one could spot him at half a mile.

'Pass this southernmost headland about a mile off,' Ramage instructed Southwick. 'That should keep us clear of any reefs. As soon as we round it we'll then stretch along the leeward side of the island under topsails and hope to find an anchorage for the night.'

Aitken came up holding a slate. 'If the highest peak is fifteen hundred feet, sir, I calculate the island is almost exactly two and a half miles long.'

Ramage nodded: the figure coincided with his rough and ready measurement some minutes ago, when he divided the height of the peak into the length of the island and got an answer of nine.