Ramage was still holding Sarah's letter when he heard feet coming down the companion ladder and, a few moments later, the sentry's shout of: "The first lieutenant and the master, sir!" Both men came into the cabin in answer to Ramage's call and he gestured for them to sit down. It was a ritual - the master with his flowing white hair and unadmitted rheumatism sat in the armchair beside the desk, while Aitken used the settee.

The two of them waited patiently for Ramage to begin. However, although Ramage had seen them less than a week ago at the Royal Exchange at the Lloyd's presentation, he wanted to hear first about the ship.

"Well, as I told you on the dock, sir, we're about ready," Aitken said. "The men are hammering in the nails on the last few sheets of sheathing, as you can hear, and every inch of running and a good half of the standing rigging has been renewed. The master sailmaker agreed to condemn all the topsails and t'gallants, so we have new ones. They've all been scrubbed to get the sizeout of 'em. We had three days without a breath of wind so we could hoist 'em, let fall, and check over the cut. They're all strong sails, sir, with the last row of reef points put in deep.

"All the cabins have been painted out. We've had your cabins open ever since but I'm sorry the stink is still here. Five 12-pounders have been changed. Two of the old ones were honeycombed, so I suppose we can count ourselves lucky they didn't blow up on us."

Aitken grinned at Ramage. "The master attendant wouldn't believe how many times we'd been in action with them."

"If a honeycombed gun is going to blow up, it's as likely to do it in practice as in action," Ramage pointed out.

"Aye," Aitken agreed, his Scots accent pronounced, "but the effect could be disastrous in action; in practice it'd be just an accident."

"Has everything else been checked?" Ramage asked. "Rudder, gudgeons and pintles, tiller ropes, wheel ropes . . . Capstan and voyol block . . .?"

"Everything," Southwick said with more than a hint of reproach in his voice. "Even the ensign halyard's been renewed, sir."

Ramage recognized the "why don't you give over?" tone of the "sir": Southwick had served with him since the day Lord (then just an unhonoured commodore) Nelson had given a very young lieutenant his first command. And that reminded him.

"By the way, Southwick, Lord Nelson was inquiring after you. You'll be flattered to hear that he remembered your name from the time he put me in command of the Kathleen, and seems to have noticed every time your name was mentioned in a Gazette letter."

The old master grinned with pleasure and then said, as a hint to Ramage to give some more news: "You mentioned in your letter yesterday His Lordship's plans."

"Yes, we called on him and Lady Hamilton, but I'm here now because of a message I received yesterday morning - after the Dover 'chaise had left, otherwise I'd have been here earlier."

He then told both men of the talk he had had with Nelson, followed by Captain Blackwood's unexpected visit the previous morning with the news of the Combined Fleet's concentration at Cadiz.

Southwick rubbed his hands together with the glee of a trencherman watching tender roast beef being carved. "St Helens, eh, and if the Victory's gone, we race her to Cadiz. Give us a bit o' luck with the winds in the Bay of Biscay, and we could beat her!"

"At least we have a clean bottom and a decent suit of sails," Aitken said.

"What about the ship's company?" Ramage asked suddenly, remembering he had caused several heads to shake in the dockyard when he gave permission for each watch to have ten days' leave, starting with the larboard watch.

The dockyard commissioner had wanted to countermand Ramage's order, declaring that a good half of the men would desert. "You're just turning 'em loose," he had said, "then you'll come whining to me that you haven't enough men to shift the ship out of the dock, let alone get under way." But Ramage had been adamant. It was a test of his own leadership: all the men had done very well from prize money (several of the senior petty officers were by their standards rich) and they served in a ship which was happy, frequently in action, and where sickness (thanks to the Surgeon Bowen and a sensible diet) was almost unknown. Ramage's feeling was that if any men took advantage of his trust to desert, he did not want those sort of men anyway.

"The ship's company, sir?" Aitken repeated, as though puzzled by the question. "Well, we are still a dozen or so short of complement, as before, but everyone's back from leave."

"All of them?"

"All," Aitken said. "In fact half a dozen came back early - spent all the money they'd drawn."

So much for the dockyard commissioner, Ramage thought. How did one let him know without offending a man who wielded great power within his dockyard walls?

"What's the earliest they can flood up?" Ramage asked.

"The master attendant reckons he can start in a couple of hours. But we'll have to wait for high water to get out over the sill of this dock, which is the smallest in the yard and used only for frigates, as you know, and by the time they've knocked away all the shores and fished them out so they don't tear the sheathing, we'll have an hour of ebb running ..."

"Well, I'm not going down the dam' Medway on an ebb tide," Ramage said firmly. "Trying to save a few hours could cost us a couple of days stuck in the mud - and Medway mud is the deepest and stickiest known to man."

Southwick sighed thankfully. "I was going to suggest we waited for the first of the next flood, sir ... We'll have a fair wind most if not all of the way to Sheerness, so it won't matter that we're butting the young flood. It'll be so near low water we'll be able to see the deep channel: this end of the river has more bends than a snake with colic."

Ramage glanced at Aitken. "I've no doubt you've lots of reports, accounts, and so on for me to sign before we sail ... ?"

Aitken lifted a folder which he had put beside him on the settee. "I have them here, sir."

"And the bill for that yellow paint?"

"That, too, sir, but Southwick and I had intended it to be a present."

The run down the Medway to Sheerness had been notable - as Bowen had commented - for its smell. Medway mud seemed to be a vile and viscous mixture of sewage, blue clay and brown glue, stretching out in a wide band on each side of the fairway as the river twisted from Chatham to Garrison Point at its mouth, where it passed between Grain Spit to larboard and Cheyney Spit to starboard and ran into the Thames at Great Nore.

"Look at those dam' sea birds," Bowen had exclaimed, pointing at a dozen or so waders. "By rights they should stick fast in the mess!"

Southwick was more concerned with two birds jinking across the river, uttering sharp cries. "Ah, if only I had a fowling piece I'd get one of those snipe!" he exclaimed.

"And who'd retrieve for you?" Aitken inquired sarcastically.

As the river widened at Kethole Reach and Saltpan Reach in the approaches to Sheerness, the flood stream - now strong, eddying and curling round the few buoys (marking the entrances on the starboard hand to Half Acre and Stangate Creeks and West Swale) and tilting them upstream - carried swans past them, proud-looking creatures which refused to hurry, moving in a stately fashion to give the Calypso just enough room to pass between them as she passed the mudflats, one of which had a curious name, Bishop Ooze.

"They remind me of three-deckers," commented Aitken, "but they tack and wear with less fuss."

Soon Sheerness was astern and Southwick took the frigate down the fairway clear of Sheerness Middle Sand to meet Sea Reach, turning to larboard at the Great Nore with the flood stream under her to go on a few miles and then turn to come alongside the powder hoys at Black Stakes.