The only reminder that from time to time an enemy could threaten the magazine was the rolls of thick felt, for the moment held up by tapes against the deckhead, out of the way of the men carrying powder, but in action the blankets of felt would be unrolled, to hang down, soaked with water, heavy curtains to prevent the flash from guns or an explosion from penetrating the magazine and blowing up the ship.

The last curtain had a small aperture cut in it: in action, each powder cartridge would be passed through it to a waiting powder monkey, who would hold up his wooden cartridge case and, with the flannel bag thrust in, push down the lid before hurrying back along the passageway past the wet felt curtains, and making his way back to the gundeck.

Ramage and Aitken, inside the magazine, inspected the copper. Several sheets near the doorway were a rich reddish-gold: they had been renewed in the past few days. The powder room beyond - where both Ramage and Aitken had to back and fill so that their own shadows did not obscure what they were trying to inspect - also had some new sheeting.

When Ramage commented on it, Aitken said: "I took the opportunity when we had all the powder out. I asked the gunner if he had anything needing to be done down here, but he said no. So I made my own inspection. No sheet was actually worn through, but a dozen or more were paper-thin and would soon go . . ."

"That damned gunner," Ramage said. "I did nothing about him ..."

The run down the Thames and out into the English Channel always excited Ramage, not because he enjoyed navigating between the sandbanks which littered the twisting channels, where being an instant late in tacking or wearing round a buoy or getting caught in stays (or even misjudging the strength of the current) could put the ship hard aground, but because of the names.

Start with the Yantlet, at the western end of Sea Reach. Very well, that took its name from the Yantlet Flats, over to starboard, miles of mud and ooze. But Yantlet? There was no village on the chart; simply a small creek of that name.

East and West Knock, off Shoeburyness. Knock - like knock, knock? Out to the Great Nore again and then steering south-east for the Four Fathom Channel, leaving the long tongue of Red Sand to larboard, to come into the Kentish Flats and then bear up to the north-east into the Queen's Channel to avoid two long stretches running parallel with the coast, Cliffend Sand (off Reculver) and Margate Sand.

And then the reach into Botany Bay, off Foreness Point, and a haul on the sheets to pass North Foreland, the eastern tip of the county of Kent. Botany Bay? The next to the west was called Palm Bay, but what could be botanical, backed by the wicked white cliffs that formed the Foreland itself?

Then Broadstairs Knoll, into the Old Cudd Channel and down the Gull Stream, to pass inside the Goodwin Sands and across the Downs, the comparatively sheltered anchorage favoured by ships of war and merchant ships waiting to go up to the port of London or the Medway.

Southwick was in his element in these waters: he knew the Thames and the Downs "like looking at my face in the morning"; he rarely glanced at the chart and, although the leadsman stood ready in the chains, rarely called for a cast of the lead.

The Calypso stretched down from the South Foreland, seeming to delight at being at sea again, her copper-sheathed bottom clean, the new topsails and topgallants stretching into shape, the wind flattening out the creases and pressing the canvas into fair curves.

The wind, Ramage noted thankfully, was beginning to veer as they rounded the South Foreland and hardened sheets to bring Dover into sight. By the time Shakespeare Cliff was on the quarter and Danger Rock on the beam, the wind had settled into the north-west.

"If it stays there," Southwick said jubilantly, pointing at the windvane stuck on the weather bulwark capping, a rod with lines at the top, each with a cork tied to it studded with feathers, "we'll be in St Helens a'fore His Lordship has time to sail in the Victory!"

"Don't count on that," Ramage cautioned. "His Lordship has the light of battle in his eyes: he wants a couple of dozen of the Combined Fleet destroyed. That'll give him wings, as well as teeth."

The Calypso was rising and falling easily to the crests, occasionally butting a large one into sheets of spray which flung up to darken the foot of the foresail and send streams of water over the planking, rivulets of water twisting and turning with the pitch and roll as they ran aft along the deck. Ramage could feel the salt spray tightening the skin of his face and once, when he incautiously rubbed his eyes, the dried salt made them sting.

Now for the long stretch across the shallow bay known to seamen as Hythe Flats, with Roar Bank and Swallow Bank just inshore of Dungeness Point at the southern end.

Halfway across Hythe Flat, Ramage looked at the chart. Yes, although it was not marked in, Aldington was now on the beam, four miles or so inshore of the long stretch of beach (with Martello towers like beer mugs every few hundred yards) in front of Dymchurch.

Were those towers any use? Would they be, rather, if Bonaparte tried to land his troops? The original Mortella Tower in Corsica, manned by thirty-three French soldiers, had held out against the British for weeks; the design was copied by the gentlemen at the Horse Guards (although for some reason the name was altered to Martello), with seventy-four of them built along the coast facing France. Father had inspected one, and he said they cost £7,000 each and had two storeys. The ground floor was the magazine and the upper accommodation, with a swivel gun or howitzer on the roof. With walls nine feet thick on the seaward side they must be proof against enemy gunfire but brutally cold for the garrisons in winter . . .

Now they were round "The Ness". He looked across the dead flat Romney Marsh, where the smooth fields were occasionally punctuated by a church tower or steeple with a small cluster of the village round it, and saw where the land rose sharply at the back of the Marsh, like a long cliff. Somewhere there, if only he knew exactly where to look with the bring-'em-near, was Treffry Hall. Had Sarah come home yet, or was she still staying in Palace Street? Curiously he hoped she was still in Palace Street: it was depressing to think that she might be over there at home and this very minute looking out of one of the windows, across the Marsh and towards the Ness, not knowing that that tiny speck on the sea was the Calypso . . .

Now, almost a copy of Hythe Flats, Rye Bay curved inshore, with Broomhill Sands, Camber Sands and finally Winchelsea Beach before swinging out again at Fairlight, with another dozen miles to Beachy Head.

Names and history . . . just a few miles ahead of the Calypso the ships of the Norman King William had landed on the Sussex beaches, to meet Harold at what William later called Battle, and where he built an abbey to show his gratitude to the Almighty . . . that was almost 750 years ago. Over two hundred years ago the Spanish Armada had sailed up here, to anchor off Calais, some forty miles astern of the Calypso, and there Sir Francis Drake had set about them with fireships. That was the trouble with sailing up or down the Channel: one's thoughts kept foundering on reefs of history. There was an advantage in being someone like Southwick, to whom history was something that happened yesterday. What happened the day before yesterday (and earlier) was forgotten.