"I don't see why," Stafford said stubbornly.

"Use your head," Jackson said sharply. "A ship of the line at sea on the loose means at least one of our snips of the line finding her. And it means a dozen or more looking for her. Don't think it'd be a question of sending out a frigate or two ..."

"All right, all right, I get your point," Stafford conceded. "But I presume their Lordships will be keepin' a blockade on places like Brest, Lorient, Cadiz and Toulon."

"And Ferrol, and Cartagena . . . You forget the Dons have more ports than the French - as many, anyway. And to prevent one ship slipping out on a dark night it has to be a tight blockade."

"Frigates," Louis said unexpectedly. "Supposing the French turned loose all their frigates to raid convoys. Don't forget we rarely have more than a couple of frigates escorting the big West Indian convoys-just imagine three French frigates attacking ..."

"The way you all tell it, we won Trafalgar and lost the war," Stafford grumbled.

"No, nothing like that," Jackson said placatingly. "We're only saying don't expect we won't see another French sail at sea."

"You'll be saying next that these two up ahead are French and steering down to sink us," Stafford retorted.

"No, they're probably Russian," Louis said drily. "With snow on their decks!"

"Wild men, these Russians," Stafford said. "I remember seeing a Russian ship in Malta some years ago. Their seamanship was 'orrible. Good job they 'ad strong ships, the way they came alongside the jetty. 'Bang, crash, sling a rope' - that's 'ow they did it."

Ramage put the telescope to his eye again and then said to Southwick: "I don't like the cut of their sails. Their hulls will be coming up over the horizon any moment now, and we'll hear from Orsini, but in the meantime those sails have a strange cut."

"Could be a couple of Algerines," Southwick commented. "They've got a few big ships."

Ramage shook his head. "I don't think so," he said. "They could be, but why would there be two of them?"

Southwick shrugged his shoulders. "No telling with Algerines."

Several more minutes passed before Orsini hailed, and there was no mistaking the excitement in his voice. "Deck there! I can make out their hulls now. They look French!"

Ramage glanced across at Southwick. "Could be like us -captured and put into service."

"Aye," Southwick said. "Maybe even taken at Trafalgar. Could have been bought in at Gibraltar and commissioned there."

Ramage nodded again. "The battle was four months ago, so there's been enough time."

And that, he thought to himself, settles that: it was an uncomfortable thought that two French line of battle ships could be bearing down on them. There could be no escape; the Calypso would be pounded into firewood unless she could get far enough away to escape in the dark of night.

Ramage knew that now he had two options: first, to turn away this minute, and make a bolt for it. This could get him the reputation of the captain who fled at the sight of two of his own ships. Or, second, carry on and meet them, making or answering the challenge, assuming they were the King's ships, captured from the French.

It was not the first time he had had to make the choice, and looking at it another way, since the Calypso had been captured from the French and bought into the Royal Navy, she too could be mistaken for French by any other ships and in fact more than once he had passed her off to fool the French.

"The man who ran away" - no, he did not want that reputation, and with two ships involved it would be one to spread quickly. Not that anyone would really blame him: a frigate being engaged by two ships of the line would be as brief an episode as a kitten being savaged by two bulldogs.

Five minutes later, when Ramage put the telescope to his eye again, there was no mistaking the correctness of Orsini's hail: the two ships were French; that much was clear from the sweep of their sheers and the cut of their sails. But there was no reason to suppose that since they Were French built they were not King's ships. The more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed that they had been taken at Trafalgar.

Ramage noted that both ships were staying close together: they were sailing within a couple of ship's lengths of each other. If they were French and planning mischief, they would spread out to cut off the Calypso's escape. But in fact they were behaving just like two British ships of the line after sighting a friendly frigate . . .

"Beat to quarters, Mr Kenton. Have the challenge and our pendant numbers bent on, and the reply, in case they challenge first."

The thudding of the drum as a Marine drummer hammered away with his drumsticks suddenly brought the Calypso's decks to life, as though an anthill had been disturbed with a stick.

The gunner and his mate hurried below to the magazine, unrolling felt curtains as they went, to prevent any flash from the guns penetrating to the powder stowed in scores of cartridges and in casks in the powder room.

Men rigged the washdeck pumps and began sluicing water across the decks as others scattered sand: water would soak any spilled gunpowder and the sand would prevent feet slipping. The second captains of all the guns hurried down to the magazine to collect the locks from the gunner which would provide the spark to fire the guns. They collected priming wires and lanyards for the locks as well as horns of priming powder and boxes of quills, which were already filled with priming powder.

Ship's boys, known as powder monkeys, waited in the long corridor leading to the magazine, ready with their cylindrical wooden boxes to receive the cartridges for the guns.

The guns themselves, thanks to the exercises just completed, were all ready for loading: each had its crew round it, with the officers at their divisions, with the exception that the first lieutenant, Aitken, who would normally be on the quarterdeck at general quarters, was taking Kenton's place while he was on watch.

All the implements for loading the guns were ready; the rammer on its long handle was ready to ram home first the cartridge, then a wad, and then a roundshot. The sponge which, soaked with water, would be used to sponge out the burning residue in the bore of the gun so that it would not prematurely ignite the cartridge or any loose powder, was lying ready along with the wormer, which looked like a giant corkscrew on a long handle and was used to ream out any remaining piece of burning cartridge left behind after the gun had been fired.

Small tubs beside each gun were filled with water for the sponges (and for the men to dip their heads in to cool themselves off in action) and between each gun another, smaller tub was partly filled with water and short lengths of slowmatch - in effect fuses - were fitted into notches cut into the rim. The slowmatches were fitted so that the burning ends hung over the water - a further precaution against stray grains of powder being ignited.

As soon as he received the word from the quarterdeck, Lieutenant George Hill, the third lieutenant and commanding the division of guns that included Jackson's, gave the order to load.

By now Stafford had returned from the magazine with the lock and had bolted it on to the gun, threading the lanyard through the trigger and coiling it neatly on the breech. He now stood with the horn of priming powder round his neck like a hunting horn with the pricker ready in his left hand.

Jackson, as gun captain, stood to the rear while Rossi, Louis and the other two Frenchmen were ready to take the cartridge from the powder monkey waiting behind Jackson and ram it home, followed by a roundshot after the wad, a thick circular piece of felt. Wads were now lying in piles beside each gun in what were called cheeses.

At the order to load and as soon as powder and shot had been rammed home Jackson took the lanyard, which was three feet longer than the distance the gun recoiled, and stood behind the gun, ready to give aiming orders. Squatting with his left leg flung out sideways so he could sight along the barrel, he would when the order to fire was shouted, give a sharp pull on the lanyard after Stafford had cocked the lock and jumped clear of the recoil.