The fact the packet was heeled to leeward meant that when running the gun out ready to fire, its own weight helped the men at the tackles. If they had been using a gun on the other side they would have had to haul it up the inclined deck.
"Exercises start now," Ramage told Southwick angrily, "and continue for two hours. No live firing, but the men will ram and sponge as though there was."
He knew he was in a fury, although that was not going to make the men any faster.
"Jackson!" he called. When the American coxswain came running aft, Ramage said, "As soon as the Bosun divides his men into fours, I want you, Stafford, Rossi and Maxton to go through the drill with each crew one by one. Make sure they know what they're trying to do. When you're satisfied they all know the drill, report to me."
An hour had passed before Jackson made his report, and Ramage ordered the three crews to three of the 4-pounder guns. For the remaining hour he had the crews competing against each other, loading, running out, pretending to fire, sponging, ramming and running out again until sweat was pouring from their bodies. At each gun stood Rossi, Stafford or Maxton, bellowing encouragement, instructions and occasionally abuse while Jackson strode from one gun to another, like the conductor of a wayward orchestra.
Every ten minutes Ramage timed a different crew, and to begin with there was a gradual improvement, measured in seconds rather than minutes. But after that the improvement stopped as the men wearied. Very well, he thought to himself, from now on it's punishment, not training.
At five o'clock he ordered the guns secured and the magazine locked. He glanced up at the sails, impatient for the next day, so that he could start exercising the packetsmen aloft.
Chapter Eighteen
By early evening the Lady Arabella was making seven knots with a brisk quartering wind. The Os Farilhões islands, their sharp outline caught by the last of the sun's rays and giving the impression of several sails on the eastern horizon, were eight miles away on the starboard beam.
Southwick, responsible for navigation, was already grumbling about the French charts. "These packets," he muttered to Ramage. "They carry just enough charts to get them through to their usual destination. Fancy Stevens not carrying a chart for anywhere south of Brest! Supposing he ran into a week of bad weather on the way home and found himself driven on to the Spanish peninsula, or into the Bay of Biscay? Not that these damned French charts are much better than having nothing. Don't trust 'em."
"Kerguelen was going to - in fact he took us down to Lisbon with them without running ashore!" Ramage said mildly. "He probably brought the French charts on board with him because he didn't trust British ones!"
"Or he guessed that packets don't carry a proper folio of charts. And this business of measuring the prime meridian from Paris," Southwick snorted. "Why not Greenwich, like other civilized people!"
Ramage had forgotten that. "When do we come on to the British charts?"
"Just south of the latitude of Brest. Stevens has a copy made from some other chart. He's left the south-eastern section blank - probably too damned idle to finish the job."
Ramage began pacing up and down the starboard side of the deck: the strange lassitude that had threatened to overcome him in Lisbon, and which had been given a sharp nudge by Gianna's arrival, had now vanished completely. The Lady Arabella was a strange command for him - strange in every sense, from the ship's company to her actual ownership - but at least a command. Sir Pilcher Skinner was the other side of the Western Ocean; the Admiralty and Lombard Street were still a few hundred miles to the north. It was going to be a problem convincing Their Lordships about the fate of the packets, but that was all sufficiently far over the horizon to be left for a day or two so he could enjoy Gianna's company. The devil take it, she'd gone below ten minutes ago to change before the evening meal, and he was already missing her...
He had to write a full report for Their Lordships before they reached Plymouth, and it would be worth having Much write one as well. In fact, Ramage thought, I'm damned if I won't take Much to London with me; Lord Spencer can hear the Mate's story from the man's own lips if he wishes to. Yorke will probably travel to London at the same time, so he will be available too.
He looked slowly round the horizon as he walked. The wind was little more than fifteen knots, and there was the usual evening cloud to the westward, looking dark and menacing with the sun setting behind it.
As he watched several men washing down the deck to clear away the sand, he saw how easy it would be for the most unobservant landlubber to pick out the former Tritons. They were working with a will, not a sloppy eagerness as though trying to please. They had a brisk precision; their complete economy of movement made the least effort do the most work. He had noticed it before, when Stevens was in command, because that had been his first chance of comparing man-o'-war's men working side by side with packetsmen.
There had been scores of occasions when he had seen a crowd of lubberly volunteers or newly pressed men being shown how to do various tasks on board a man-o'-war, and it had taken weeks for them to get into the swing of it all. But here were packetsmen - trained seamen who had spent their life in merchant ships - who made a very poor showing when working alongside men who had spent only a few years in ships of war.
Of course, he had to make allowances for the fact that these packetsmen were sullen; there was no disguising that. They hated exercising at the guns; they would resent being roused out to go to quarters to meet the dawn; they already resented having to scrub the decks daily. Nor did they like the idea of four lookouts, one on each bow and each quarter: Stevens had been content with one at the bow. Well, Ramage thought grimly, they are going to dislike the drill I have planned for them tomorrow even more. They would probably hate him long before they sighted the English coast, but he was going to work the packetsmen until they were ready to drop. And if they did drop, he was going to be sure it was on to scrubbed decks.
Yorke sauntered over and fell into step beside him.
"Feels good, doesn't it?"
"Aye," Ramage said, motioning Yorke to follow him down to the cabin, "I was never a good passenger."
"Nor me," Yorke said ruefully.
"Sorry, I didn't mean it like that!"
"I know you didn't; it just reminded me. Anyway, you've already got her looking more like a ship."
Ramage led the way into the cabin, acknowledging the salute of the seaman on guard at the door, and waved Yorke to a seat. "By sunset tomorrow these packetsmen are going to wish they'd never been born!"
"Oho! What other little treats have you got in store?"
"Four hours' drill at the guns, for a start. And an hour's sail drill. More if they don't look lively!"
"Is it worth it? I mean," Yorke said hurriedly, "you gave them a good run at the guns today and we'll be in Plymouth before you can get a polish on them. If we sight any ships with designs on our virtue, presumably we'll make a bolt for it."
"We most certainly will. No, I'm going to work these packetsmen until they nearly drop simply because it's the only way to punish them."
"Why not leave it to the courts?" Yorke said mildly.
"Courts?" Ramage snorted. "These scoundrels will never be hauled before a court! And if they were, how can we prove what we've seen with our own eyes? Their word against ours, and a smart lawyer would probably convince a judge that we never saw anything; that we are just nasty troublemakers perjuring ourselves."
"But they'll certainly be arrested, won't they?"
Ramage shook his head. "I can't see it. The Post Office - the Government, rather - are going to handle everything very discreetly, and to a politician 'discreetly' is a polite word for 'secretly'."