He saw Bolitho as Allday aided him to his feet and gasped,

“She’s done for!”

Then he swayed and would have fallen but for Bundy and one of the midshipmen.

Bolitho said harshly, “Clear the lower decks. Get as many wounded from the wreckage as you can.” He heard the growl of water surging through the hull, the squeal of trucks as a gun broke free and careered across the deck. “Mr Kilburne, muster all available hands and launch what boats have survived. Mr Browne, stay with the captain.”

Men were lurching out of the piles of fallen debris, confused, frightened, and some half mad as they ran blindly to the gangways.

A few marines tried to restore order, and Bolitho saw the third lieutenant, probably the only surviving one, pushed aside, his arm broken and useless, as he attempted to restrain them.

The deck gave another shudder, and Bolitho saw water seeping through some gunports as the hull tilted still further, dragged down by the great burden of wreckage alongside.

Allday shouted, “The quarter-boat is being warped round, sir.” He looked dangerously calm, and his cutlass was in his fist.

Bundy seized his chronometer and sextant, but found time to report, “I’ve got some ’ands lashing a raft together, sir.” Bolitho barely heard him. He was staring over the broad stretch of water with its freedom somehow symbolized by the white-capped waves which stretched towards the horizon and the oncoming pyramid of sails.

Then he saw Phalarope, stern on as she braced her yards hard round, her shadow leaning over the creaming water while she went about, her gilded bird pointing away from him, away from the enemy.

Allday said brokenly, “God damn him! God damn his cowardly soul!”

A boat appeared at the tilting gangway, and another was being pulled down the side, the boatswain and a burly gunner’s mate hauling wounded and drowning men from the water and dropping them on the bottom boards like sodden bales.

Neale opened his eyes and asked huskily, “Are they safe?” He seemed to see Bolitho through the blood on his face. “The people?”

Bolitho nodded. “As many as possible, so rest easy.” He looked at the widening array of makeshift rafts, floating spars and casks to which the survivors clung and waited for a miracle. Many more floundered in the sea itself, but few sailors could swim, and soon many of them gave up the fight and drifted on the tide with the rest of the flotsam.

Bolitho waited for a few more dazed and bleeding men to be dragged into the quarter-boat, then he climbed in and stood beside Allday, with Neale slumped unconscious between them.

Midshipman Kilburne, who had changed from youth to manhood in the last few moments, called, “Stand quietly, lads!

Easy, all!”

Like the other boat, this one was so crammed with men it had barely ten inches of freeboard. Each had run out just two oars to keep them stem on to the waves, which such a short while before had been their allies, and now seemed determined to capsize and kill them.

“She’s going!”

Several men cried out, shocked and horrified, as Styx rolled over and began to slide into the water. Some of the older hands watched her in silence, moved and too stunned to share their sense of loss. Like all ships, she meant much more to the seasoned hands. A home, old faces, familiar ways. Those too were gone for ever.

Browne whispered, “I’ll not forget this. Not ever.” Styx dived, but the sea was so shallow that she struck the bottom and reappeared as if still fighting for life. Water streamed from her gunports and scuppers, and a few corpses, caught in the broken shrouds, swayed about as if waving to their old shipmates.

Then with a final lurch she dived and stayed hidden.

Allday said dully, “Boats shoving from the shore, sir.” He sensed Bolitho’s complete despair and added firmly,

“We’ve bin prisoners afore, sir. We’ll get through this time, an’

that’s no error.”

Bolitho was looking for the Phalarope. But, like Neale’s ship, she had disappeared. It was over.

THOMAS HERRICK, acting-commodore, sat with his elbows on the polished table in Benbow’s great cabin and ran his eyes once more over his painstakingly worded report.

He should have been proud of what he had achieved, when even the most optimistic shipwrights and carpenters had proph-esied that his ship would be another month at least undergoing repairs. Tomorrow was the first day of August, far ahead of anything he had dared to hope.

Those words he had waited impatiently to write in his report to their lordships— Being in all respects ready for sea, etc, etc —were right there, waiting for his signature, and yet he could summon little jubilation or enthusiasm.

It was not the news, but the lack of it. He suspected it had all started when the shot-torn frigate Unrivalled, one of Bolitho’s new squadron in the Bay, had anchored in Plymouth, her pumps clanking to keep her afloat until help arrived. Even then it should not have upset Herrick more than any other such wartime event.

He had seen too many ships go, too many dead and wounded being landed as were the Unrivalled’s casualties, to display his inner and private emotions.

But ever since Bolitho had shifted his flag to Styx, and had sailed away on what Herrick had considered to be a very doubtful mission, he had been troubled.

Phalarope’s name in the signal book, and the bald announcement that she was being appointed to Bolitho’s command, had done little to ease his apprehension. Dulcie, who was ever near and staying at the Golden Lion Inn in Plymouth, had done everything to comfort him. Herrick’s mouth softened at the thought.

It made him feel almost guilty to be so lucky. But Dulcie did not understand the ways of the sea or the Navy. If he had any say in it, nor would she, Herrick had firmly decided.

He heard footsteps in the adjoining cabin. Ozzard, Bolitho’s servant, like a lost soul since his master had gone without him.

There were several like him in Benbow’s fat hull. Yovell, Bolitho’s clerk, who had written this report in his round hand. Round, like the man and his Devonshire accent.

The deck moved very slightly, and Herrick stood up to walk to the open stern windows. There were fewer ships being repaired now, and less din of hammers and creaking tackles aboard the masting-craft.

He could see Keen’s seventy-four, Nicator, swinging to her cable, her awnings and windsails spread to make life between decks as easy as possible in this sultry heat. And Indomitable, their other two-decker, whose new captain, Henry Veriker, had already made something of a reputation for himself in the small squadron.

He was almost deaf, an injury inflicted at the Nile, common enough after hours of continuous firing. But his deafness came and went, so that you were never sure what he had heard or mis-interpreted. It must be difficult for his lieutenants, Herrick thought. It had been bad enough on the one night they had dined together.

He leaned over the sill and saw the new frigate, the one he had seen shortly after her launching when he had rejoined his own ship. Lower in the water, a black muzzle at each open port, and all three masts and standing rigging set up. Not long now, my beauty. Who was her lucky captain to be, he wondered?

Seeing the new frigate reminded him yet again of Adam Pascoe. Young devil to take the appointment without a thought of what it could mean. Phalarope. Bolitho had made that ship, given her life. But Herrick still remembered her as she had been when he had stepped aboard as her junior lieutenant. Bitter and desperate, with a captain who had looked upon any sort of humanity as a sin.

He heard the sentry’s muffled voice and turned to see the first lieutenant striding beneath the deckhead beams, bent right over to save his ginger head from a collision.

“Yes, Mr Wolfe?”

Wolfe’s deepset eyes flitted briefly to the written report and back to his captain. He had worked harder than most, but had still found time to knock some sense into his youthful and barely trained lieutenants.

“Message from the officer of the guard, sir. You can expect the port admiral in half an hour.” He bared his uneven teeth. “I’ve already passed the word, sir. Full side party an’ guard of honour.” Herrick considered the news. The port admiral, a rare visitor.

But what he had seen he had liked. A portly, comfortable man, now better used to the ways of dockyards and chandlers than to a fleet at sea.

He replied, “Very well. I don’t think there’s anything to fear.

We’ve even beaten Captain Keen’s Nicator to a state of readiness, eh?”

“Orders, d’you think, sir?”

Herrick felt uneasy at the prospect. He had not even had time to select himself a flag-captain for, no matter how temporarily his broad-pendant might fly above Benbow, select one he must. Maybe it was too final, he thought. Severing the last link with his rear-admiral and true friend when he still knew nothing of what was happening.

More feet clattered, and after the marine’s announcement from the outer lobby, the fifth lieutenant stepped smartly inside, his cocked hat jammed beneath one arm.

Wolfe scowled at him and the youth flinched. Actually, the first lieutenant was quite pleased with the young officer, but it was far too early to show it. Wait until we get to sea, he usually said.

“A—a letter, sir. From the Falmouth coach.” Herrick almost snatched it from him. “Good. Carry on, Mr Nash.”

As the lieutenant fled, and Wolfe settled himself in another chair, Herrick slit open the envelope. He knew the handwriting, and although he had been hoping for a letter, he had been dread-ing what she might say.

Wolfe watched him curiously. He knew most of it, and had guessed the rest. But he had come to accept the captain’s strange attachment for Richard Bolitho, even if he did not fully understand it. To Wolfe, a friend at sea was like a ship. You gave to each other, but once parted it was best to forget and never go back.

Herrick put down the letter carefully, imagining her chestnut hair falling over her forehead as she had written it.

He said abruptly, “Mrs Belinda Laidlaw is coming to Plymouth. My wife will take good care of her during her visit.” Wolfe was vaguely disappointed. “Is that all, sir?” Herrick stared at him. It was true. She had sent her warmest greetings to him and to Dulcie, but there it had ended. But it was a step in the right direction. Once here, amidst Bolitho’s world, she would feel free to speak, to ask his advice if she ever needed it.

Voices echoed alongside and Wolfe snatched up his hat and exploded, “The admiral! We forgot all about him! ” Breathing heavily, and grasping their swords to their sides to avoid being tripped, the stocky captain and his lanky first lieutenant ran for the quarterdeck.

Admiral Sir Cornelius Hoskyn, Knight of the Bath, hauled himself up to and through the entry port, and in spite of his portliness was not even breathless as he doffed his hat to the quarterdeck and waited patiently for the marine fifers to complete a rendering of Heart of Oak for his benefit.

He had a warm, fruity voice and a complexion as pink as a petticoat, Herrick thought. A man who always had time to listen to any visiting captain and do his best for him.

The admiral glanced up at the flapping broad-pendant and remarked, “I was glad to hear about that. ” He nodded to the assembled lieutenants and added, “Your ship does you credit.

Ready to sail soon, what?”

Herrick was about to say that his readiness report only needed his signature but the admiral had already moved on towards the shade of the poop.

Behind him trooped his flag-lieutenant, secretary, and two servants with what appeared to be a case of wine.

In the great cabin the admiral arranged himself carefully in a chair, while his staff busied themselves, with Herrick’s servant’s guidance, laying out goblets and wine cooler.

“This the report?” The admiral dragged a minute pair of spectacles from his heavy dress coat and peered at it. “Sign it now, if you please.” In the same breath he added, “Good, I hope that glass is cool, man!” as he took some wine from one of his minions.

Herrick sat down as the lieutenant and secretary retreated from the cabin, the latter clutching Herrick’s sealed report like a talisman.

“Now.” Sir Cornelius Hoskyn regarded Herrick searchingly over the top of his spectacles. “You will receive your orders, possibly tonight. When I leave I shall expect you to call your other captains to conference, prepare them for sailing without further dalliance. Short-handed or not, leaking, I don’t care, it is their problem. Some say peace will soon be upon us, pray God it is so, but until I am convinced otherwise, the state of war still exists.” He had not even raised his voice, and yet his words seemed to echo around the sunlit cabin like pistol shots.

“But with all respect, Sir Cornelius,” Herrick was out of his depth but persisted “my ships are still under the command of Rear-Admiral Bolitho, and you will of course be aware that—” The admiral eyed him gravely and then deliberately refilled their goblets.

“I have the greatest respect for you, Herrick, for that reason I came to do a task I hate more than any other.” His tone softened. “Please, drink some more wine. It is from my own cellar.” Herrick swallowed the wine without noticing it. It could have been pump water.

“Sir?”

“I have just received news by special courier. I must tell you that ten days ago, whilst apparently attempting to destroy enemy shipping south of the Loire Estuary, His Britannic Majesty’s frigate Styx was wrecked and became a total loss. It happened quickly and in a rising wind.” He paused, watching Herrick’s face.

“And due to the arrival of several enemy vessels, including a ship of the line, the attack was discontinued.” Herrick asked quietly, “Our other vessels withdrew, sir?”

“There was only one of any consequence, and her captain, as senior officer present, made the decision. I am terribly sorry to have to tell you. I have heard what your particular friendship meant.”

Herrick rose as if he had been struck. “Meant? You mean . . .”

“There could not have been many survivors, but of course we can always hope.”

Herrick clenched his fists and strode blindly to the stern windows.

“He often said it would be like that.” He asked harshly, “Who was the other captain, sir?” In his heart he already knew.

“Emes of the Phalarope. ”

Herrick could not face him. Poor Adam must have seen it happen, while that bloody coward Emes took to his heels.

Another thought made him exclaim, “My God, sir, she’s coming here from Falmouth!” The words tumbled out of him. “The girl he was to marry! What shall I tell her?” The admiral rose to his feet. “I think it best that you go about your duties and try to lose yourself in them. It has been common enough in this everlasting war. But you never get used to it, nor will I try to console you, when I know there is no consolation. If I hear more I shall let you know as soon as possible.” Herrick followed him to the broad quarterdeck, only partly aware of what was happening.

When his mind eventually cleared, the admiral’s barge had left the side, and Wolfe faced him to ask permission to dismiss the guard and side party.

“Will you tell me, sir?” His hard, flat voice was somehow steadying.

“Richard Bolitho, the Styx, all gone.” Wolfe swung round, shielding him from the others.

“Right then, you laggards! Move your lazy carcasses or I’ll have the bosun use his rattan on your rumps!” Herrick returned to the cabin and slumped down in a chair.

The ship, his broad-pendant, even his new-found happiness meant nothing.

Wolfe reappeared at the screen door. “Orders, sir?”

“Aye, there are always those, Mr Wolfe. Make a signal to Nicator and Indomitable. Captains repair on board. ” He shook his head helplessly. “It can wait. Sit you down and have some of the admiral’s wine. He says it is very good.” Wolfe replied, “Later I’ll be glad to. But I have certain duties to deal with. I’ll make that signal at eight bells, sir. Time enough then.”

Outside the cabin Wolfe almost fell over the tiny shape of Ozzard. God, the man had been weeping. Everyone must know already. Always the same in the Navy. No damn secrets.

Wolfe paused in the sunlight and took several deep breaths.

He had no special duties, but it was more than he could do to sit and watch Herrick’s anguish. The fact he could do nothing for a man he had come to respect so much troubled him deeply, and he could not recall ever feeling so useless.

In the cabin Herrick poured himself another goblet of wine, then another. It did not help, but it was something to do.

His hand paused in mid air as his glance settled on the sword rack and the presentation sword which Bolitho had left behind when he had gone over to Styx.

It was a beautiful piece of craftsmanship. But not much to show for the man who had earned it a hundred times over.

Herrick climbed out of the Benbow’s green-painted barge and waited for his coxswain to join him on the jetty.

He was later, much later, than he had intended in getting ashore. There was a dusky red glow over the Sound and anchorage, and the ships looked at peace on the flat water.

Herrick had sent a message to his wife, telling her as much as he could. She was a sensible woman and rarely lost her self-control. But Herrick had meant to be with her when the Falmouth coach rolled in.

“Return to the ship, Tuck. I’ll get a wherry when I return.

Mr Wolfe knows where I am.”

The coxswain touched his hat. He knew all about it but was thinking more of Allday than Bolitho. As coxswains they had come to know each other well, and got along together.

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“And if there is any rumour through the lower deck . . .” Tuck nodded. “Aye, sir, I know. I’ll be across ’ere so fast the keel won’t touch the water.”

Herrick strode along the jetty, his shoes clicking on the round, worn cobbles which had felt the tread of a legion of seafaring men as far back as Drake, and further still.

Herrick paused, unnerved, as he saw the Golden Lion, its windows glowing red in the sunset, as if the whole building were ablaze. In the yard a coach stood empty, abandoned by its team of horses, a servant or two loading boxes on its roof for the next leg to Exeter.

It was bad enough as it was, but for the coach to be on time, even early on this particular evening, made it worse.

He saw a one-legged man, balanced on a crude crutch, playing a tin whistle to the amusement of some urchins and a few passers-by. His shabby red coat showed he had once been a marine, the darker patch on one sleeve where the chevrons had once been sewn told Herrick he had also been a sergeant.

Herrick fumbled for some coins in his pocket and thrust them at the crippled figure. He was ashamed and embarrassed, angry too that such a man could end like this. If peace did eventually come, there would be many more red coats begging in the streets.

But the man did not seem at all perturbed. He gave a broad grin and touched his forehead with mock smartness.

“Sar’nt Tolcher, sir. This is the life, eh, Cap’n?” Herrick nodded sadly. “What ship, Sergeant?”

“Last one, sir? The old Culloden, Cap’n Troubridge, a real gennelman ’e was, for a sea-officer, that’s to say.” Herrick needed to go, but something held him. This unknown marine had been at the Nile when he and Bolitho had been there.

Another ship, but there.

“Good luck to you.” Herrick hurried away towards the entrance.

The marine pocketed the money, aware that his small audi-ence had gone. But the stocky captain with the bright blue eyes had made up for a lot.

Down to the Volunteer now for a few pots of ale with the lads.

His crutch scraping over the cobbles, the crippled marine, one-time sergeant in the Culloden, was soon lost from sight.

Both women were facing the door as Herrick entered their room, as if they had been there for hours.

He said, “I am sorry, Dulcie, I was detained. Fresh orders.” He did not see the sudden anxiety in his wife’s eyes for he was looking at the girl who was standing by an unlit fire.

God, she is beautiful. She was dressed in a dark green gown, her chestnut hair tied back to the nape of her neck by a matching ribbon. She looked pale, her brown eyes filling her face as she asked, “Any news, Thomas?”

Herrick was moved both by her control and the easy use of his name.

He replied, “Not yet.” He walked to a small table, picked up a glass and put it down again. “But news travels slowly, good news that is.”

He walked across to her and took her hands in his. Against his hard seaman’s hands they felt soft and gentle. Helpless.

She said quietly, “Dulcie told me what you wrote in your note. And I heard something about the loss of the ship from some officers downstairs. Is there any hope?” Her eyes lifted to his. They made her outward calm a lie. Her eyes were pleading with him.

Herrick said, “We know very little at present. It’s a foul bit of coast there, and as far as I can discover, Styx foundered after hitting something, possibly a wreck, and went down immediately.” Herrick had gone over it a hundred times, even while he had been explaining his orders to the other captains. He knew well enough what it would have been like. Herrick had lost a command of his own. He could hear the din of falling spars, the screams, the pandemonium of a well-ordered ship falling apart.

Men swimming and dying. Some going bravely, others cursing their mothers’ names until the sea silenced them.

“But your Richard was in good company. Allday would be at his side, and young Neale was a first-rate captain.” She looked quickly at the other woman. “Who will tell his nephew?”

Herrick released her hands very gently. “No need for that. He was there. Aboard the ship which—” He caught the words in time. “In Phalarope. She was in company at the time.” Dulcie Herrick touched her breast. “Bless the boy.”

“Aye. He’ll take it badly.”

Belinda Laidlaw sat down for the first time since she had left the coach.

“Captain Herrick.” She tried to smile. “Thomas, for you are his friend, and now mine too, I hope. What do you think happened?” Herrick felt his wife place a glass in his hand and eyed her warmly.

Then he said, “Richard has always been a frigate captain at heart. He would want to go for the enemy, waste no time. But as the rear-admiral in total command he had other responsibilities this day. To execute Admiral Beauchamp’s plan to help rid England of a mounting threat of invasion. It was his task, his duty.” He looked at her imploringly. “God, ma’am, if you knew how he cared, what it cost him to put to sea without seeing you, without explaining. The last time I saw him he was fretting about it, the unfairness to you.” He added firmly, “But if you know Richard, really know him, you will understand that to him honour and love are as one.”

She nodded, her lips moist. “That I do know. I will have it no other way. We met only last year, merely months ago, of which time I have been with him just a few days. How I envy you, Thomas, sharing things with him, looking back on memories I shall never know.” She shook her head, her hair tossing over one shoulder. “I will never give him up, Thomas. Not now.” Tears ran unheeded down her cheeks, but when Herrick and his wife moved towards her she said, “No. I am all right! I do not intend to lose myself in self-pity now that Richard needs me.” Herrick stared at her. “That warms me deeply, ma’am. But do not destroy yourself for hoping too much, promise me.”

“Too much?” She walked to the open windows and stepped out on to the balcony, her slim figure framed against the sea and sky. “Impossible. He is what I live for. There is nothing more I care about, dear friend.”

Herrick felt his wife’s hand in his and squeezed it gently.

Belinda was like a ship caught aback by a fierce squall. Only time would tell.

He looked at his wife as she whispered, “You spoke of orders, Thomas?”

“Forgive me, dearest. With all this on my mind . . .” He looked at the window as the girl re-entered the room. “I have been ordered to sail with a merchant convoy to Gibraltar. Several valuable cargoes, I understand, and a rich prize at any time.” He recalled his dismay and fury at being sent on a convoy when he needed to be here. Admiral Hoskyn had spoken of his respect for him. But if he refused to accept this first duty as acting-commodore, not respect, love, even a knighthood would save him. The Navy had a long, long memory.

He added, “It will be a safe if wearisome task, and I shall be back in Plymouth before you know it.” It was only half a lie, and came easier than he had expected.

Belinda touched his sleeve. “Will the ships come here?”

“Aye. Two from Bristol and the others from the Downs.” She nodded her head, her eyes very bright. “I shall take passage in one of them. I have some friends in Gibraltar. With friends and money I might be able to discover some news of Richard.” Herrick opened his mouth to protest but shut it as he saw Dulcie give a brief shake of the head. It was true that more information had been gleaned from Spain and Portugal about dead or missing officers than through accepted sources, but her sincerity, her incredible belief that Richard Bolitho was alive and safe would leave her vulnerable, and a long way from help if the worst happened.

“One is an Indiaman, the Duchess of Cornwall. I believe you had some contact with John Company in India. I am certain they will make you as comfortable as they can. I will send her master a letter.” He forced a grin. “Being a commodore must have some uses!”

She smiled gravely. “Thank you. You are good to me. I only wish I could sail with you instead.”

Herrick flushed. “Lord, ma’am, with all the roughknots and gallows’-bait I have to carry as my company, I’d not rest easy in my cot!”

She tossed her hair from her shoulder. No wonder Bolitho was completely captivated, Herrick thought.

She said, “At least I shall see your ship every day, Thomas. I will not feel so alone.”

Dulcie took her hand in hers. “You will never be that, my dear.” Herrick heard a clock chime and cursed it silently.

“I have to leave.” He looked at the girl in the green gown.

“You will have to get used to this too.” He was deceiving her. Or was he gaining some of her courage, her belief?

Outside in the cooler evening air everything looked much as before. Herrick glanced at the street corner, half hoping to see the one-legged marine there.

At the jetty he saw the barge riding motionless in shadow, then the oars swinging into life as she headed towards him.

Herrick gripped his sword tightly and wished his eyes would stop stinging. Tuck would no more let him take a waterman’s boat than spit on the flag.

Between them, Tuck and the beautiful girl with the chestnut hair had given him a new strength, although deep inside him he knew he would probably pay dearly for it. But that was tomorrow. This was now.

He tapped his scabbard on the worn cobbles and said half to himself, “Hold on, Richard! We’re not done yet!”

“You wish to see me, sir?” Lieutenant Adam Pascoe stood in the centre of the cabin, his eyes on a point above the captain’s right epaulette.

Emes sat back in his chair, his fingertips pressed together.

“I do.”

Beyond the screen and the darkened stern windows it was quiet but for the muffled sounds of sea and wind, the regular creak of timbers.

Emes said, “It is five days since Styx foundered. Tomorrow it will be six. I do not intend to go through another hour, let alone a day, with you saying nothing but the briefest words demanded of your duties. You are my first lieutenant, an honoured appointment for one so young. But perhaps you are too young after all?” Pascoe looked at him squarely. “I can’t understand! How could you do it? How could you leave them to die like that?”

“Keep your voice down, Mr Pascoe, and address me as sir at all times.”

Tap . . . tap . . . tap . . . his fingers touched each other very gently and exactly.

“The attack on those French vessels was pointless, once the presence of larger men-of-war was realized. This is a very old frigate, Mr Pascoe, not a liner! ” Pascoe dropped his gaze, his hands shaking so that he had to press them against his thighs to control himself. He had thought about it, dreamt about it, and never lost it since that terrible moment. If his uncle had died, it would not be death he would have feared. But the sight of the Phalarope, the ship he had once loved, going about to leave him and his men to drown or to perish from their wounds, would have been the worst part for him.

Emes was saying in his usual controlled tones, “If your uncle had not been aboard Styx, you might have felt differently. You are too involved, too close to accept the facts. Styx had no chance.

My first responsibility was to this ship, and as senior officer to take control of the remainder of our strength. A brave but pointless gesture would get no thanks from the Admiralty, nor from the widows you would create if you had your way. I am satisfied with your duties up to a point. But if I have cause to admonish you again, I will see you stand before a court martial, do you understand?”

Pascoe blurted out hotly, “Do you think I care about—”

“Then you should!” Both hands came down on the table with a bang. “From what I have heard, your uncle’s family has a proud name, am I right?”

Pascoe nodded jerkily. “He has done everything for me.

Everything.”

“Quite so.” Emes relaxed very slowly. “You are of that family, the same blood.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then remember this. You may be the last of the Bolitho family.” He held up one hand as Pascoe made to protest. “You may be. Just as I am the last in mine. When you return home, others will be looking to you. There is more at stake now than your despair. Hate me if you will, but do your duty well—that is all I ask, no, demand! ”

“May I go, sir?”

Emes looked down at his hands and waited for the door to close behind the young lieutenant with the unruly black hair.

Then he touched his forehead and looked at his palm. It was wet with sweat, and he felt dirty and sick.

It was not over, and he knew that it would take more than time to heal it. Pascoe would not let it lie there, and in his despair might destroy everything.

Emes picked up his pen and stared emptily at his log book.

He had been right, he knew he had been right, and he must make the others recognize the fact.

Would the nightmare never end? The accusations and the contempt he had been shown by those who had never heard a shot fired or known the agony of a captain’s worst decision.

Those same unknown inquisitors would condemn him out-right. To be given a chance, and then allow his admiral to be lost without some personal sacrifice could have no defence in their eyes.

He glanced round the cabin, remembering Bolitho here, how he must have felt aboard his old command after all this time. If he needed further reminder of that meeting he only had to look at his first lieutenant, it was stark and clear in his eyes.

In his neat hand he began to write. Today’s patrol passed without further incident . . .

SINGLY and in groups, defiant, or dazed to the point of collapse, the survivors from Neale’s command staggered up the shelving beach which in the time it had taken to reach it had been ringed by a cordon of armed soldiers.

Almost the worst part of it was the complete silence. The bewildered sailors lay or squatted on the wet sand and stared not at their captors but at the lively water where their ship had once been. Others walked dejectedly in the shallows, peering at the flotsam, searching for a swimmer amongst the drifting corpses while the gulls hovered eagerly overhead.

Further along the beach a few women were tending to some other survivors. A handful of seamen from one of the invasion craft which Styx had sunk before she too had foundered. They glared at the growing crowd of British sailors, showing a hatred which even the distance and the line of soldiers could not hide.

Bolitho watched the boats pulling off shore, fishermen mostly, hastily commandeered by the local military to search for the living, friend and foe alike.

Neale groaned and tried to get to his feet. “How many?” Allday replied, “Hundred, maybe more. Can’t be sure.”

Neale fell back and stared dazedly at the blue sky. “Less than half, dear God!”

Browne, who had somehow managed to retain his hat during the pull to the beach, asked, “What happens now? I am somewhat unused to this.”

Bolitho held his head back and allowed the sun to penetrate the ache in his eyes and brain. Prisoners. Somewhere on the enemy coast. Because of his own folly.

He said shortly, “Go amongst the others. Call a muster.” He saw Styx’s surgeon on his knees beside a spreadeagled seaman. Thank heaven he had survived. Some of the men looked in a bad way.

The three midshipmen had all lived through it, as had the youthful third lieutenant, although he was barely conscious, and delirious with his shattered arm. Bundy, the master, the boatswain too, and one or two marines, although most of the afterguard had been swept away when the mizzen had crashed amongst them.

As Neale had said, less than half. In the twinkling of an eye.

Bolitho shaded his face and stared seaward again. The mist seemed thicker, and there was no sign even of the French men-of-war. But the flotillas of invasion craft were assembling into some kind of order and would soon be on their way again. This time they would know they had an escort nearby and also be more vigilant against another surprise attack.

Allday whispered, “Here they come, sir.” The cordon at the top of the beach had parted, and three French officers with a close escort of soldiers strode purposefully towards the scattered groups of sailors.

He recognized the uniform of the leading officer as that of a captain of artillery. Probably from one of the coastal batteries.

The captain reached the three midshipmen and eyed them coldly.

Bolitho said, “Give them your weapons and the third lieutenant’s sword.”

Allday drove his cutlass savagely into the sand and said vehe-mently, “I wish this was in his belly!” Browne unclipped his own sword and stooped down to remove Neale’s from his belt.

For the first time since he had been carried into the boat Neale seemed to show some of his old zest and courage. He struggled to his feet, clawing his hanger from its scabbard, while around him the soldiers raised their pistols and muskets, taken off guard by Neale’s apparent recovery.

Neale yelled in a cracked, barely recognizable voice, “To me, lads! Face your front! Repel boarders!” Bolitho saw the French captain’s pistol swing up from his hip and stepped quickly between him and the delirious Neale.

“Please, Capitaine. He is ill!” The Frenchman’s eyes darted swiftly from Neale to Bolitho, from the terrible wound on the young captain’s head to the epaulettes on Bolitho’s shoulders.

The silence closed round again like a wall. Neale remained swaying on his feet, peering at his men, who in turn were watching him with pity and embarrassment.

It was a tense moment. To the French soldiers, more used to monotonous garrison duty than to seeing an enemy ship sink in minutes and disgorge her company on a hitherto untroubled beach, it was like a threat. One wrong act and every musket would be firing, and the sand red with blood.

Bolitho kept his back on the Frenchman’s pistol, sweat trick-ling down his skin as he waited for the crack, the smashing impact in his spine.

Very gently he took Neale’s hanger from his fingers. “Easy now. I’m here, and Allday.”

Neale released his grip and let his arm fall. “Sorry.”

He was giving in to the pain at last, and Bolitho saw the ship’s surgeon hurrying up the beach towards him as Neale added brokenly, “Loved that bloody ship.” Then he collapsed.

Bolitho turned and handed the hanger to the nearest soldier.

He saw the officer’s gaze on his own sword and unfastened it, pausing only to feel its worn smoothness slipping through his fingers. A dishonoured end, he thought bitterly. In a few months it would be a hundred years old.

The French captain glanced at the weapon curiously and then tucked it under his arm.

Allday muttered, “I’ll get it back somehow, you see!” More soldiers and some waggons had arrived at the top of the beach. Wounded and injured men were being bustled unceremoniously into them, and Bolitho saw the surgeon being ordered to take charge.

He wanted to speak to the files of exhausted men who were already losing personality and purpose as like sheep they followed the impatient gestures, the menacing jerks of bared bayonets.

Perhaps that was what had roused Neale from his torpor.

What they were all trained for, those last few moments before a victory or a defeat.

Bolitho glanced at some of the civilians as he followed the French officers up to a narrow roadway. Women mostly, carrying bundles of bread or clean washing, caught in their domestic affairs by the sudden intrusion of war.

He saw a dark-haired girl, her apron twisted bar-taut in her hands, watching the seamen as they limped past. As he drew level her eyes became fixed on him, unwinking and without expression.

Maybe she had lost somebody in the war and wanted to know what the enemy looked like.

Further along the roadway a man pushed through the crowd and tried to seize one of the seamen by the shoulder. A soldier gestured threateningly and the man vanished in the crowd. Who was he, Bolitho wondered? Another one unhinged by battle?

Curiously, the seaman had not even noticed the attack and was plodding obediently after his messmates.

Browne whispered, “They’ve got a carriage for us, sir.” The final parting. A French naval lieutenant had now appeared and was busy writing details of the captives on a list, jerking his finger at the soldiers to separate and divide the prisoners into their proper stations.

The midshipmen were behaving like veterans, Bolitho thought. Young Kilburne even smiled at him and touched his hat, as with his two companions and a handful of junior warrant officers he was directed back along the road.

The artillery captain relaxed slightly. Whatever happened now, he could control it.

He pointed to the carriage, a faded vehicle with scarred paint-work, a relic of some dead aristocrat, Bolitho thought.

Allday scowled as a bayonet barred his path, but the naval lieutenant gave him a curt nod and allowed him to climb into the carriage.

The door was slammed shut, and Bolitho looked at his companions. Browne, tight-lipped and trying desperately to adjust to his change of circumstances. Neale, his head now wrapped in a crude bandage, and propped beside him, Styx’s remaining commissioned officer, the unconscious third lieutenant.

Allday said hoarsely, “No wonder they let me on board, sir.

Always need a poor jack to carry his betters!” It was a wretched shadow of a joke, but it meant more than gold to Bolitho. He reached over and gripped Allday’s thick wrist.

Allday shook his head. “No need to say nothing, sir. You’re like me just now. All bottled up inside.” He glared through the dirty window as the coach gave a lurch and began to move. “When it bursts out, them buggers will have to watch for themselves, an’

that’s no error!”

Browne lay back against the cracked leather and closed his eyes. Neale was looking terrible, and the lieutenant, blood already seeping through his bandages, was even worse. He felt a touch of panic, something new to him. Suppose he got separated from Bolitho and Allday, what then? A strange country, probably already reported dead . . . he shook himself and opened his eyes again.

He heard himself say, “I was thinking, sir.” Bolitho glanced at him, worried that another of his companions was about to give in.

“What?”

“It was as if we were expected, sir.” He watched Bolitho’s level stare. “As if they knew from the beginning what we were doing.” Bolitho looked past him at the humble dwellings and scurrying chickens beside the road.

The missing flaw, and it had taken Browne to uncover it.

The journey in the jolting, swaying coach was a torment. The road was deeply rutted, and with each savage jerk either Neale or Algar, the third lieutenant, would cry out with agony, while Bolitho and the others tried to shield them from further harm.

It was useless to try and halt the coach or even ask the escort to slow down. Whenever he tried to attract the coachman’s attention, a mounted dragoon would gallop alongside and make threatening passes with his sabre to wave him away from the window.

Only when the coach stopped for a change of horses was there any respite. Lieutenant Algar’s arm was bleeding badly, in spite of the bandages, but Neale had mercifully fainted into pain-less oblivion.

Then with a crack of the whip the coach took to the road again. Bolitho caught a glimpse of a small inn, some curious farm workers standing outside to stare at the coach and its impressive troop of dragoons.

Bolitho tried to think, to discover substance or disproof in Browne’s idea that the French had known all about their movements. His head throbbed from the jolting motion, and the ache of despair which grew rather than lessened with each spin of the wheels. They were heading away from the sea, north-easterly, as far as he could judge. He could smell the rich aromas of the countryside, the earth and the animals, much the same as in Cornwall, he thought.

Bolitho felt trapped, unable to see a course to take. He had destroyed Beauchamp’s hopes, and had lost Belinda. Men had died because of his tactics, because of their trust. He looked through the window, his eyes smarting. He had even lost the family sword.

Browne broke into his thoughts. “I saw a roadside stone, sir.

I am almost certain we’re heading for Nantes.” Bolitho nodded. It made sense, and the bearing was about right.

The pace slowed a little after that and Bolitho said, “They must have orders to reach there before dusk.”

“Alive, I hope!” Allday wiped the lieutenant’s face with a wet rag. “What wouldn’t I give for a good tot right now!” Browne asked hesitantly, “What will become of us, sir?” Bolitho lowered his voice. “Captain Neale will doubtless be exchanged for a French prisoner of equal rank when he is well enough to be moved.”

They both looked at Lieutenant Algar, and Bolitho added, “I fear he may not live long enough to be exchanged.” He turned his gaze to Neale again, his face normally so pink from wind or sun was like a sheet. Even with good care he might never be the same again. He said, “I want you to agree to any French proposals on exchange, Oliver.”

Browne exclaimed, “No, sir. I cannot leave you . . . what are you saying?”

Bolitho looked away. “Your loyalty warms me, but I shall insist. It is pointless for you to remain if offered the chance.” Allday asked gruffly, “D’you think they will keep you then, sir?”

Bolitho shrugged. “I don’t know. Not many flag-officers get taken prisoner.” He could not hide the bitterness. “But we shall see.”

Allday folded his massive arms. “I’m staying with you, sir. An’

there’s an end to it.”

Once again the coach shook itself to a halt, and as two mounted dragoons took station on either side, the rest of the escort dismounted.

A face appeared at Bolitho’s door. It was the French naval lieutenant, his blue coat covered in dust from the hard ride across country.

He touched his hat and said in careful English, “Not much longer, m’sieu.” He glanced at the two bandaged figures. “A surgeon will be waiting.”

“Nantes?”

Bolitho expected the lieutenant to turn away, but instead he gave an amused smile.

“You know France, m’sieu.” He thrust two bottles of wine through the window. “The best I can manage.” He touched his hat again and sauntered towards the other officers.

Bolitho turned, but said nothing as he saw the intent expression on Browne’s face.

“Look, sir!”

There were a few trees beside the road and some tiny dwellings nearby. But rising above all else was a newly built tower, and there were some masons still working around its base and chipping away at the gold-coloured stone.

But Bolitho stared at its summit and an ungainly set of mechanical arms which were clearly framed against the sky.

He said, “A semaphore tower!”

It was so obvious he was stunned by the discovery. Even the stone which had gone into the rough walls must be some of that brought from Spain. It was certainly not from hereabouts.

The Admiralty too had ordered the construction of semaphore towers, south from London to link their offices with the main ports and fleets, and the French had been using their own signalling system for even longer. But both countries had concentrated on the Channel, and nothing at all had been reported about the wider usage of this new chain of towers. No wonder their movements had been so swiftly reported up and down the Biscay coast, and French men-of-war had been ready to move into planned positions before any possible raid on their harbours and shipping.

Allday said, “I think I saw one just as we were leaving the coast, sir. But not like that. The semaphore was mounted on the top of a church.”

Bolitho clenched his fists. Even at Portsmouth the semaphore was set on the cathedral tower to command the anchorage at Spithead.

“Here, open those bottles!” Bolitho pushed them into Allday’s hands. “Don’t look at the tower. That lieutenant will see us.” He dragged his eyes away as the semaphore arms began to swing and dance like a puppet on a gibbet. Ten, maybe twenty miles away a telescope would be recording each movement before passing it on to the next station. He recalled reading of the new chain of towers which linked London to Deal. In a record-breaking test they had sent a signal all seventy-two miles there and back in eight minutes!

How the local admiral must have gloated when Styx’s first penetration of the channel beyond the Ile d’Yeu had been reported.

After that it had been simple. He must have despatched three ships to seaward during the night, and when Styx, accompanied by Phalarope, had attempted to engage the invasion craft, his own vessels had pounced. No time wasted, no vessels squandered or wrongly deployed. Like a poacher’s sack. Bolitho felt the anger rising to match his despair.

The coach began to roll forward again, and when Bolitho glanced through the window he saw the semaphore arms were still, as if the whole tower, and not its hidden inmates, was resting.

A new thought probed his mind like a needle. Herrick might be ordered to mount an attack with heavier ships of the squadron.

The result would be a disaster. The enemy would gather an over-whelming force of vessels, and with the advanced knowledge arriving hourly on their new semaphore system, almost every move Herrick would make could be countered.

He looked at the sky. It was already darker, and soon the signal stations would be rendered dumb and blind until daylight.

The horses and the iron-shod wheels clattered over a made-up road, and Bolitho saw larger buildings and warehouses, and a few windows already lit and cheerful.

There still had to be some faint hope. Twenty-five miles down the Loire from Nantes was the sea. He felt the chill of excitement on his skin in spite of his efforts to contain it. One step at a time.

No more hope without a constructive thought to sustain it. He opened the window slightly and imagined he could smell the river, and pictured it wending its way towards the open sea, where ships of the blockading squadron maintained their endless vigilance.

Allday watched him and recognized the mood.

He said quietly, “Remember what you asked afore, sir? About the falcon on a line?”

Bolitho nodded. “Don’t hope for too much. Not yet.” Voices challenged and equipment jingled as the carriage and escort clattered beneath an archway and into a walled square.

As the coach responded to its brake, Browne said, “We have arrived, sir.”

Bayonets moved across the windows like pale rushes, and Bolitho saw an officer carrying a large satchel watching from a doorway. As promised, a doctor was waiting. Even that order must have been passed directly here by semaphore. Yet it was all of forty miles from the beach where they had struggled ashore.

The door was wrenched open and several orderlies lifted the moaning lieutenant and carried him towards the nearest building.

Then it was Neale’s turn. Still unconscious and unaware of what was happening, he too was carried bodily after his lieutenant.

Bolitho looked at the others. It was time.

The French lieutenant made a polite blow. “If you will please follow me?” It was courteously asked, but the armed soldiers left no room for argument.

They entered another, heavily-studded door on the other side of the square, and then into a bare, stone-flagged room with a solitary window, barred, and too high to reach. Apart from a wooden bench, a foul-smelling bucket and some straw, the room was empty.

Bolitho had expected some sort of formal investigation to begin at once, but instead the heavy door slammed shut, the sound echoing along the corridor like something from a tomb.

Browne looked round in dismay, and even Allday seemed at a loss.

Bolitho sat down on the bench and stared at the stone floor between his feet. Prisoners of war.

The French naval lieutenant stood with arms folded as Bolitho, assisted by Allday, slipped into his coat and tugged his neckcloth into place.

They had been awakened early by the usual commotion of the military. The main building and smaller outlying ones had obviously been commandeered by the local garrison, but still bore the mark of grandeur and privilege. A great house and home farm before the revolution, Bolitho thought. He had seen a small part of it when he had been escorted to another room where Allday, watched the whole time by a keen-eyed guard, had been allowed to shave him.

Bolitho knew it was useless to ask Allday to leave him now.

They would make the best of it, as they had been forced to do before. But to all outward appearances Allday must be seen as his personal servant. If he was recognized as a professional seaman he would soon be sent to join the rest of Styx’s company, wherever they were.

The lieutenant nodded approvingly. “Bon.” He ignored Allday’s warning scowl and brushed some dust from Bolitho’s shoulder.

“Are you ready, m’sieu?”

Bolitho, followed by Browne and Allday, walked out into the corridor and began to climb a grand staircase to the next floor.

Much of the stairway had been damaged, and Bolitho saw several holes in the plaster where musket balls had cut down some of the previous occupants.

Some orderlies had given them food, minutes after the first trumpet call. The food had been coarse but plentiful, with some rough wine to wash it down. Bolitho had forced it down rather than worry his two companions.

The French lieutenant was saying, “You will now meet my superior officer, Contre-Amiral Jean Remond. He ’as travelled much of the night to be ’ere.” He gave a brief smile. “So please do not rouse ’is temper!”

Before Bolitho could make a sharp retort, he added almost apologetically, “For my sake, m’sieu!” Leaving them with an escort he strode on ahead to a pair of high doors.

Browne whispered, “He must be the French admiral’s flag-lieutenant, sir.” For a few seconds it seemed to amuse him.

Bolitho looked towards a window and beyond. The country-side was lush and green in the morning sunlight. Between some houses he saw the glint of water, the masts of a moored vessel.

The river.

The lieutenant reappeared and beckoned to Bolitho. To Browne and Allday he said shortly, “Remain ’ere.” His casual attitude was gone. He was on duty again.

Bolitho entered the big room and heard the door close quietly behind him. After the abused lower floor and staircase this room was sumptuous. Thick carpets, and a towering painting of a battle which seemed to involve many hundreds of horses, gave the room a kind of arrogant elegance.

He walked towards an ornate table at the opposite end of the room. The distance seemed endless, and he was very aware of his dishevelled appearance when compared with the figure behind the desk.

Contre-Amiral Remond was dark-skinned, even swarthy, but incredibly neat. His hair, as black as Bolitho’s, was brushed forward across a broad forehead, beneath which his eyes glittered in the filtered sunlight like stones.

He stood up only briefly and waved Bolitho to a gilded chair.

That too, like the carefully measured distance from the door, was placed just so.

Bolitho sat down, again conscious of his own salt-stained clothes, the throbbing ache of his wounded thigh, all of which added to his feeling of defeat. The fact he guessed that was the intention of his captor did nothing to help.

In spite of his guard he felt his eyes drawn to his sword which lay across the table as if for a court martial.

The French admiral said curtly, “Is there anything you wish to tell me?”

Bolitho met his unwinking stare. “The officers and men of the frigate Styx. I am responsible for them. Their captain is too ill to plead for them.”

The French officer shrugged as if it was of no importance.

“My officers will deal with the matter. It is you who interest me.” Bolitho fought for time. “You speak very good English.”

“Naturally. I was a prisoner of your people for some months before I was released.” He seemed to grow irritated at revealing something personal and snapped, “We of course knew of your new command, of the misguided attempt to interfere with French ships. In fact, we know a great deal about you and your family.

Of a noble tradition, would you say?” He hurried on without waiting. “Whereas I had to work my way up from nothing, without privilege.”

“So did I!” It came out sharper than he had intended.

Remond gave a slow smile. He had very small teeth, like a terrier’s. “No matter. For you the war is over. As your equal in rank it was my duty to meet you, nothing more.” He picked up the old sword and casually turned it over in his hands.

Bolitho had the strange feeling that Remond was less sure of himself. He was testing him, trying to find out something. He dropped his eyes, praying that the swarthy-faced admiral would not see his sudden determination. The new semaphore system.

Remond needed to know if he had discovered it.

Perhaps the French had a Beauchamp all of their own who had created a plan to destroy the would-be destroyers?

Remond remarked, “A fine old blade.” He replaced it carefully on the table, nearer to Bolitho. “You will be given suitable quarters, naturally, and allowed to keep your servant with you.

And if you give your word of honour not to try and escape, you will also be afforded certain liberty as decided by your guards.” He looked at the sword. “And you will be permitted to keep your sword also. When peace is signed you will be sent home without a stain on your character.” He sat back and eyed Bolitho bleakly.

“So?”

Bolitho stood up slowly, his eyes on the man across the table.

“Peace is only a rumour, Contre-Amiral Remond. War is still a reality. I am a King’s officer and find no comfort in waiting for others to fight for me.”

His answer seemed to take Remond aback.

“That is absurd! You reject captivity with all the rights of your rank? You have hopes for escape, perhaps? That too is ridiculous!” Bolitho shrugged. “I cannot give my word.”

“If you intend to persist with this attitude, all hope of rescue or escape are gone. Once I leave here, the military will be in charge of you!”

Bolitho said nothing. How could he stay in comparative comfort after losing a ship and so many lives? If he ever returned home it would be with honour, or not at all.

Remond nodded. “Very well. Then your companions shall stay with you. If the injured captain dies because of his captivity, you will be to blame.”

“Must the lieutenant stay too?” Strangely, Bolitho felt calmer with the threats, now that the promises had been pushed aside.

“Did I forget to mention him?” The French admiral picked a piece of thread from his breeches. “The surgeon had to remove his arm during the night, I believe. But he died nevertheless.” Remond lowered his voice and continued, “Try to see reason.

Many of the garrisons are manned by fools, peasants in uniform.

They have no love for the British navy, the blockade, the attempt to starve them into submission. In Lorient now, you would be with your fellow officers and protected by the sailors of France.” Bolitho lifted his chin and replied coldly, “My answer is unchanged.”

“Then you are a fool, Bolitho. Soon there will be peace. What use is a dead hero then, eh?”

He shook a little bell on his desk and Bolitho sensed the doors open behind him.

Remond walked round the desk and eyed him curiously. “I think we shall not meet again.” Then he strode from the room.

The lieutenant joined Bolitho by the table and looked at the sword. He gave a deep sigh and said sadly, “I am sorry, m’sieu.” He beckoned to the escort and added, “It is arranged. You will be taken to another prison today. After that . . .” He spread his hands. “But I wish you luck, m’sieu.” Bolitho watched him hurry to the stairway. No doubt Remond had somebody superior to him waiting at Lorient. The chain of command.

The soldiers fell in step with him, and moments later he was back in the cell, and alone.

IT WAS a whole week before Bolitho was taken from his isolation and put into a shuttered carriage for the journey to his new prison.

It had taken every ounce of his self-control and determination to endure the seven days, and he had thanked his hard upbringing in a King’s ship more than once as time seemed to stretch to an eternity.

His guards must have been hand-picked for their coarseness and brutality, and their ill-fitting uniforms only added to their air of menace.

Bolitho was made to strip naked while several of the guards searched him and removed every personal possession from his clothing. Not content with that, they’d removed his rear-admiral’s epaulettes and gilt buttons, presumably to be shared round as sou-venirs. And all the while they had subjected him to every humiliation and insult. But Bolitho knew men as well as he understood ships, and had no illusions about his guards. They were seeking an excuse to kill him, and showed their disappointment when he remained silent and apparently calm.

Only once had his will almost cracked. One of the soldiers had dragged the locket from about his neck and had peered curiously at it for several moments. Bolitho had tried to appear unconcerned, even though he wanted to hurl himself at the man’s throat and throttle him before the others cut him down.

The guard had prised open the locket with his bayonet, and had blinked with astonishment as a lock of hair had blown across the floor and then out of the open door.

But the locket was gold, and he had seemed satisfied. He would never know what it had meant to Bolitho, the lock of Cheney’s hair which she had given him before he had left her for the last time.

Without a watch, or anyone to speak with, it was hard to mark the passing of time, even the pattern of events beyond the walls.

As he was led from the cell into the courtyard and saw the waiting carriage, he was grateful. If the new prison was worse, or he was about to face a firing-party instead of captivity, he was glad of an end to waiting.

Inside the darkened coach he found the others waiting for him. It was unexpected and moving for each one. As the carriage began to move and the mounted escort took station behind it, they clasped hands, barely able to speak as they examined each other’s faces in the chinks of sunlight through the shutters.

Bolitho said, “Your being here is my fault. Had I given my word you would have been sent home, soon perhaps. Now,” he shrugged, “you are as much a prisoner as I am.” Allday seemed openly pleased, or was he relieved to find him still alive?

“By God, I’m fair glad to be rid of those scum, sir!” He held up his two fists like clubs. “Another few days o’ these mounseers an’ I’d have swung for ’em!”

Neale, propped between Browne and Allday, reached out and touched Bolitho’s hands. His head was heavily bandaged, and in the fleeting stabs of sunshine his face looked as pale as death.

He whispered, “Together. Now we’ll show them.” Allday said gently, “He’s doing his best, sir.” He looked at Bolitho and gave a quick shake of the head. “Not changed a mite since he was a young gentleman, eh, sir?” Browne said, “I was interrogated by two of the French officers, sir. They asked a lot about you. I heard them discussing you later, and I suspect they are worried.” Bolitho nodded. “You did not let them know you speak and understand French?”

He saw Browne smile. He had almost forgotten about his flag-lieutenant’s other assets. A small thing, but in their favour.

Browne clung to a strap as the carriage gathered speed. “I heard some talk about more invasion craft being sent up to Lorient and Brest. Two types, I think. One is called a chaloupe de can-nonière, and the other is a smaller type, a péniche. They have been building them by the hundred, or so it sounds.” Bolitho found he was able to relate this sparse information to his own predicament without despair. Perhaps the testing he had endured, alone in the cell, had given him the hatred he needed to think clearly, to plan how best to hit back.

He looked at Neale as he lolled against Allday’s protective arm. His shirt was open to the waist, and Bolitho could see the scratches on his skin where someone’s fingers had torn off the locket Neale always wore. It had contained a portrait of his mother, but they had seized it nonetheless. Poor, broken Neale. What was his mind grappling with now, he wondered, as the wheels clattered and bounced along the open road. Of his beloved Styx, of his home, or of his first lieutenant, the taciturn Mr Pickthorn, who had been an extension of his own command?

But for me, he would he safe in hospital.

Dozing, and reawakening as if fearful that their reunification might be just one more taunt and part of the nightmare, they sustained each other, and endured the heat of the shuttered coach without knowing where they were or where they were bound.

Several times the coach halted, horses were watered or changed, some bread and wine were thrust into the carriage without more than a swift glance from one of the escorts, and they were off again.

“If we are separated again we must try to keep contact somehow.” Bolitho heard a carriage clatter past in the opposite direction.

A wide road then, not some winding lane. “I intend to escape, but we shall go together.” He felt them looking at him, could even sense their awakened hope. “If one of us falls or gets taken, the others must go on. Get the news to England somehow, tell them the truth of the French preparations and their new signals system.”

Allday grunted. “Together, sir. That’s what you said. If I have to carry all of you, begging yer pardon, sir, we’ll stay together, an’

England will have to wait a mite longer.” Browne chuckled, a welcome sound when they might all be shot dead before another day had passed.

He said, “Keep your place, Allday. You’re an admiral’s servant, not his cox’n, remember?”

Allday grinned. “I’ll never live it down.” Bolitho put his finger to his lips. “Quiet!” He tried to loosen one of the shutters but only managed to move it very slightly. Watched by the others, he knelt down on the floor, ignoring the pain in his wounded thigh, and pressed his face to the shutter.

He said softly, “The sea. I can smell it.” He looked at them, as if he had just revealed some great miracle. To sailors it was just that. The sea.

They would be taken out of the carriage and shut away once more in some stinking prison. But it would not be the same, no matter what privation or suffering they had to face. How many men must have seen the sea as an enemy, a final barrier to freedom. But any sailor nursed it in his heart like a prayer. Just get me to the sea, and somehow I’ll reach home.

The carriage stopped, and a soldier opened the shutters to let in some air.

Bolitho sat very still, but his eyes were everywhere. There was no sign of water, but beyond a series of low, rounded hills he knew it was there.

On the other side of the road was a great stretch of bare, bar-ren looking land, across which, in rolling clouds of thick dust, troops of mounted horsemen wheeled and reformed, the spectacle like part of that huge picture in the commandant’s room.

Browne said softly, “Like the escort, sir. French dragoons.” Bolitho heard the blare of a trumpet and saw the sun gleam across black-plumed helmets and breast-plates as the horses changed formation and cantered into another wall of dust. Open country. Very suitable for training cavalry, perhaps for invasion.

Also, they represented a real threat to anyone trying to escape from captivity. As a boy, Bolitho had often watched the local dragoons parading and exercising at Truro, near his home in Falmouth. Had seen them too hunting some smugglers who had broken away from the revenue men, their sabres glittering as they had galloped in pursuit across the moor.

The shutters were replaced and the coach jerked forward.

Bolitho knew the act had been a warning, not an act of compassion. No words could have made it clearer. Those proud dragoons shouted it from the skies.

It was dusk by the time they finally alighted from the carriage, stiff and tired after the journey. The young officer in charge of the escort handed some papers to a blue-coated official, and with a curt nod to the prisoners turned on his heel, obviously glad to be rid of his charges.

Bolitho looked past the official, who was still examining the papers as if he was barely able to read, and looked at the squat building which was to be their new prison.

A high stone wall, windowless, with a central tower which was just visible through the shadows of the gates.

An old fort, a coastguard station, added to and altered over the years, it might have been anything.

The man in the blue coat looked at him and pointed to the gates. Some soldiers who had been watching the new arrivals fell in line, and like men under sentence of death Bolitho and the others followed the official through the gates.

Another delay, and then an elderly militia captain entered the room where they had been left standing against a wall and said,

“I am Capitaine Michel Cloux, commandant here.” He had a narrow, foxy face, but his eyes were not hostile, and if anything he looked troubled with his command.

“You will remain as prisoners of France, and will obey whatever instruction I give without question, you understand? Any attempt to escape will be punished by death. Any attempt to over-throw authority will be punished by death. But behave yourselves and all will be well.” His small eyes rested on Allday. “Your servant will be shown what to do, where to go for your requirements.” Neale gave a groan and staggered against Browne for support.

The commandant glanced at his papers, apparently unnerved.

In a gentler tone he added, “I will request aid from the military surgeon for er, Capitaine Neale, yes?”

“Thank you, I would be grateful.” Bolitho kept his voice low.

Any sign that he was trying to assert his rank might destroy everything. Neale’s distress had made a small bridge. The commandant obviously had distinct instructions about the care and isolation of the prisoners. But he was probably an old campaigner who had lost comrades of his own. Neale’s condition had made more sense to him than some coldly worded orders.

The commandant eyed him warily, as if suspecting a trap.

Then he said, “You will attend your quarters now. Then you will be fed.”

He replaced his cocked hat with a shabby flourish.

“Go with my men.”

As they followed two of the guards up a winding stone stairway, supporting Neale in case he should slip and fall, Allday murmured, “They can’t steal anything from me here. I’ve naught left!” Bolitho touched his throat and thought of the locket, her face as he had last seen her. And he thought too of Belinda the day he and Allday had found her in the overturned coach on the road from Portsmouth. Allday was probably right. The locket had been a link with something lost. Hope was all he had now, and he was determined not to lose it.

For Bolitho and his companions each day was much like the one which had preceded it. The food was poor and coarse, but so too was it for their prison guards, and the daily routine equally monotonous. They soon discovered they had the little prison to themselves, although when Bolitho and Browne were allowed to walk outside the gates with an armed escort, they saw a heavily pitted wall and some rough graves to show that previous occupants had met a violent end here before a firing-squad.

The commandant visited them every day, and he had kept his word about sending for a military surgeon to attend Neale.

Bolitho watched the surgeon with great interest. He was the same one he had seen at Nantes who had removed the young lieutenant’s arm. Later Browne told him that he had heard him saying he must get back to his barracks, a good three hours ride.

To men kept deliberately out of contact with the rest of the world, these small items of news were precious. They calculated that Nantes was to the east of their prison, twenty or thirty miles inland. That would fix the prison’s position no more than twenty miles or so north of where they had stumbled ashore from the wreck.

It made sense, Bolitho thought. They had been taken inland, then brought back to the coast again, but nearer to the Loire Estuary. In his mind’s eye Bolitho could see the chart, the treacherous reefs and sand-bars, the start and end of many a voyage.

He had noticed that the commandant only allowed two of them to take a walk or exercise outside the walls at any given time. The others remained as surety and hostages. Maybe the graves marked where others had tried to outwit the little commandant and had paid the price.

On one hot August morning Bolitho and Browne left the gates, but instead of heading for the road, Bolitho gestured west-wards towards the low hills. The three guards, all mounted and well armed, nodded agreement, and with the horses trotting contentedly over the grass they strode away from the prison. Bolitho had expected the guards to break their usual silence and order them back, but perhaps they were bored with their duties and glad of a change.

Bolitho tried not to quicken his pace as they topped the first rise.

Browne exclaimed, “God, sir, it looks beautiful! ” The sea, a deeper blue than before, spread away on every side, and through the dazzling glare and drifting heat haze Bolitho could see the swirl of currents around some tiny islets, while to the north he could just discern another layer of land. The far side of the estuary, it had to be. He glanced quickly at the guards but they were not even watching. Two had dismounted, the other still sat astride his horse, a bell-mouthed blunderbuss resting across his saddle, ready for instant use.

Bolitho said, “There should be a church, if I’m right.” Browne made to point, but Bolitho snapped, “Tell me!”

“To our left, sir. On the blind side of the prison.” Bolitho shaded his eyes. A square-towered church, partly hidden by the hillside, and nestling into the ground as if it had been there since time had begun.

“We’ll go back now.” Bolitho turned reluctantly away from the sea. “Someone might be watching.” Browne fell in step, completely mystified.

Bolitho waited until he heard the jingle of harness behind him and then said, “I know exactly where we are, Oliver. And if I’m not mistaken, that church tower is occupied by French sailors rather than priests!” He glanced at the lieutenant, the urgency making his voice desperate. “I would lay odds that it is the last semaphore link this side of the estuary.” He strode towards the prison, his hands clasped behind him. “If only we could break out long enough to destroy it.”

Browne stared at him. “But they will build another, surely, sir, and we . . .”

“I know. Executed. But there has to be a way. If our ships attack, and I believe they will, if only to prove Beauchamp’s plan too hazardous, they will be completely destroyed. And as to time, my friend, I think there may be little enough of it left. England will know of Styx’s loss, and efforts begun to obtain exchanges at least for the surviving officers.”

Browne bit his lip. “Captain Neale will be reported missing, some of Styx’s people are bound to speak out and say what happened to him and ourselves.”

Bolitho smiled gravely. “Aye. Neutral sources will soon be selling that information to the right ears. My guess is that the French intend to delay matters over releasing any of Styx’s people until they are ready and their new invasion fleets are in position. Admiral Beauchamp was right. ”

“He chose wisely for his commander,” said Browne.

Bolitho sighed. “I would like to think so, Oliver. The longer I remain in captivity and useless, the more I think about that attack. I should have seen the flaw in the plan, ought to have allowed for it, no matter what intelligence the Admiralty was able to offer.” He stopped and looked Browne squarely in the eyes.

“When I saw Phalarope stand away, I nearly cursed her captain’s soul to damnation. Now I am not so convinced. He may have acted wisely and with some courage, Oliver. I have always said a captain should act on his initiative if his set orders tell him nothing.”

“With respect, I must disagree.” Browne waited for a rebuke then hurried on. “Captain Emes should have risked a hopeless battle against odds rather than leave Styx unaided. It is what you would have done, sir.”

Bolitho smiled. “As a captain perhaps. But when my flag fell, Emes took over command. He really had no choice at all.” Bolitho could feel Browne’s disagreement more strongly than a shouted argument.

Allday was waiting in the upper part of the tower, and as the two officers, sweating from their walk in the sunlight, climbed the curving stairway, he said, “The surgeon’s been back, sir. Cap’n Neale is pretty bad.”

Bolitho brushed past him and hurried into the larger of the two rooms. Neale lay on his back, his eyes wide open and staring at the ceiling, while his chest heaved and fell as if it would burst. One of the guards was removing a bucket which contained some bloodstained dressings, and Bolitho saw the little commandant standing by the barred window, his face grave.

“Ah, Contre-Amiral Bolitho, you are here. Capitaine Neale is worsening, I fear.”

Bolitho sat carefully on the rough cot and clasped Neale’s hand. It was like ice, in spite of the room’s warmth. “What’s this, John? Come on, my lad, speak to me.” He squeezed his hand very gently but there was no response. Not you too. God in heaven, not you.

The commandant’s voice seemed to come from far away. “I have orders to transfer you to Lorient. There, Captain Neale will be in safer hands.”

Bolitho looked at him, his mind grappling with his words, what they meant. It was for nothing. Neale was going to die, and they were being sent to Lorient where there would be no chance to escape and wreck one of the towers.

He protested, “M’sieu, Captain Neale cannot survive another coach journey!”

The commandant turned his back and stared towards the sea.

“I am ordered to send you to Lorient. The surgeon knows of the risks, but assures me that only by remaining with you does the young capitaine hold on to life at all.” His tone softened as it had at their very first meeting. “But you will travel by sea. It is little enough, m’sieu amiral, but my influence is equally small.” Bolitho nodded slowly. “Thank you. I shall not forget. None of us shall.”

The commandant squared his narrow shoulders, embarrassed perhaps at their sudden contact.

“You will be put aboard ship tonight. After that . . .” He shrugged. “It is out of my hands.”

He left the room, and Bolitho bent over Neale again. “Did you hear that, John? We’re taking you somewhere where you’ll get proper care. And we shall all keep together, eh?” Neale’s eyes moved towards him, as if even that effort was too much.

“No . . . use. They’ve . . . done . . . for . . . me . . . this . . .

time.”

Bolitho felt Neale trying to grip his hand. To see him try to smile almost broke his heart.

Neale whispered, “Mr Bundy will want to speak about his charts again.” He was rambling, his gaze blurred with pain.

“Later . . .”

Bolitho released his hand and stood up. “Let him rest.” To Browne he added, “Make sure we leave nothing behind.” He was speaking to give himself time. They had nothing to leave behind, as Allday had already pointed out.

Allday said quietly, “I’ll take care of Captain Neale, sir.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

Bolitho crossed to the window and pressed his forehead against the sun-warmed bars. Somewhere to his left was the church tower, although he could not see it. It would take days to get the attacking ships into position, but mere minutes to send a signal by semaphore to summon reinforcements to destroy them.

Nobody knew. Perhaps nobody would ever know. And Neale with so many of his men would have died for nothing.

He pressed his face still harder until the rough iron steadied him. Neale was not dead, and the enemy had not won.

Browne watched him anxiously, wanting to help, and knowing there was nothing he could do.

Allday sat down and peered at Neale. His eyes were closed and his breathing seemed easier.

Allday thought of the French ship which would take them to Lorient, wherever in hell that was. He despised the “mounseers” as he called them, but any ship was better than a carriage and a lot of damn soldiers.

Anyway, he did know that Lorient was to the north, and that was nearer to England.

The little commandant waited by the doorway and looked at Bolitho curiously.

“It is time, m’sieu.”

Bolitho glanced round the room, their prison for such a short time. Neale, strapped unconscious to a stretcher, and with Allday close by his side, had been carried out earlier that afternoon.

Without him and his desperate efforts to cling to life, the room already seemed dead.

Browne said, “Listen to the wind.”

That too was like an evil omen. Within an hour of Neale being carried away the wind had started to rise. The weather’s moods were always very noticeable in the prison’s central tower, but now as they stood by the door it sounded wild and menacing. It sighed around the prison and moaned through the small windows like a living force, eager to find and destroy them.

Bolitho said, “I hope Neale is safely aboard.” The commandant led the way down the curving stairway, his boots fitting into the worn stones without conscious effort.

Over his shoulder he remarked, “It must be tonight. The ship will not wait.”

Bolitho listened to the rising gale. Especially now, he thought.

Outside the prison gates the contrast to that morning when he and Browne had walked to the hillside was even more impressive. Low scudding clouds, with occasional shafts of silver light from the moon to make the picture stark and savage. Lanterns bobbed around him, and at a shouted command they moved towards the rear of the prison. Ahead of them the commandant strode unerringly with neither moonlight nor lantern to guide him. They were taking almost the same path they had discovered that morning, although in the darkness and buffeted by the wind it might have been anywhere.

He could feel the guards watching him, and recalled the commandant’s last warning. “You will leave my care like officers not thieves. Therefore I will not put the irons on your hands and feet.

But if you try to escape . . .”

The closeness of the guards and long bayonets required no further explanation.

Browne said, “We’re descending now.” The path curved to the right and dipped steeply. As it did so the hiss and moan of the wind faded slightly, cut off by a wall of cliff.

Bolitho stumbled and heard a metallic click behind him. They were that watchful. Ready to shoot him down if he ran for it.

Then he heard the sea, rebellious against the beach, and with only an occasional necklace of foam to betray its direction. He found he was counting the seconds and minutes, as if it was vital to know the exact place where he would leave the land and head for another destination.

Another group of lanterns swayed up the beach and boots squeaked on wet sand.

Bolitho heard a boat’s keel grating in the shallows and wondered where the ship lay at anchor. The shelter afforded by the headland told him that the wind had not only risen but had also shifted considerably. From the east? It seemed likely. You never really knew in Biscay.

The commandant’s face floated out of the darkness in a beam of lantern light.

“Farewell, m’sieu. I am told your Capitaine Neale is safely on board the Ceres. ” He stood back and touched his hat. “Good luck.” The light vanished and with it the commandant.

A new voice shouted harshly, “Dans la chaloupe, vite!” Led, pushed and dragged, they found themselves in the sternsheets of a longboat, and even as they were squeezed between two invisible seamen the hull was pushed into deep water, the oars already thrashing wildly to regain control.

Once clear of the land it was like riding on the back of a por-poise. Up and plunge, the oarsmen working in desperate rhythm, urged on occasionally by the coxswain at the tiller.

It was a rough night, and would get worse. Bolitho thought of Neale and hoped he would find peace in more familiar surroundings, French or not. He could sense the difference around him. The smell of tar and brandy, the sweat of the oarsmen as they fought against their constant enemy.

Ceres. He had heard her name before somewhere. A frigate, one of those used to pierce the British blockade and carry despatches between the various fleets. If the French continued to extend their semaphore system, the frigate’s life would be an easier one.

Browne touched his arm, and he saw the French ship loom out of the darkness, the sea boiling around her stem and anchor cable as if she had just risen from the depths.

After three attempts the boat hooked on to the chains, and Bolitho, followed by Browne, jumped for his life as the boat fell away into another surging trough.

Even so, they arrived on the frigate’s deck soaked to the skin, their coats, stripped of buttons and insignia, hanging around them like rags from a scarecrow.

Bolitho sensed the urgency and the need to get under way; equally he was impressed that the vessel’s captain, pre-warned of his passenger’s rank, took time from his duties to meet him at the entry port.

Then it was done, and Bolitho found himself being led down ladders and beneath low-beamed deckheads to the world he knew so well.

The motion between decks was violent, and he could feel the ship jerking at her cable, eager to get away from the surrounding rocks and seek open water.

As they descended another ladder to the orlop deck, Bolitho heard the clink of a capstan, orders carried away by the wind as the seamen prepared to make sail.

Stooping figures passed through the shadows, and Bolitho saw dark stains on the deck which could only be blood. Not all that recent, but too deep to be scrubbed away. Like any other orlop, he thought grimly. Where the surgeons managed as best they could while the guns thundered overhead and their screaming victims were pinioned to a table for the saw or knife.

He saw Neale in a cot by one of the great frames, and Allday rising to meet him as if their reunion was all that mattered in the world.

Allday said quickly, “She’s the Ceres, thirty-two, sir.” He led the way to some old sea chests which he had covered with canvas and fashioned into seating for them. He added, “She was in a fight with one of our patrols a while back. The cook told me.” He grinned. “He’s Irish. Anyways, sir, she’s on passage to Lorient.” He cocked his head as the wind roared against the side. “Shorthanded they are too. Hope they runs aground, damn them!”

“How’s Captain Neale?”

Allday became serious again. “Sometimes he thinks he’s back in Styx. Keeps giving orders. Other times he’s quiet, no trouble.” More far-off cries and then the deck tilted violently. Bolitho sat on a chest, his back pressed against the timbers, as the anchor broke from the ground and the Ceres began her fight to beat clear.

He noticed that Allday had piled some old canvas in a corner, but enough to hide the manacles and leg irons which in turn were attached to chains and ring-bolts. One more reminder that they were prisoners and would be treated harshly if there was any sort of trouble.

Allday looked at the deckhead, his eyes and ears working like a cat in the dark.

“They’re aweigh, sir. Close-hauled by now, I reckon.” As an afterthought he said, “They have plenty to drink, sir. But no real ale.” He wrinkled his nose with disgust. “Still, what can you expect?”

Bolitho looked at Neale and then at Browne. Both were asleep, each trapped in his own thoughts and so momentarily secure.

Around them the ship groaned and plunged, every timber straining, while the wind endeavoured to break the hold of helm and seamanship. Again and again Bolitho heard the sea thunder against the side, and could imagine it leaping over the gangways and sweeping unwary and tired men in its path like leaves.

He thought of Belinda, of the house beneath Pendennis Castle, of Adam, and his friend Thomas Herrick. He was still trying to determine their faces when he too fell into an exhausted sleep.

When next he opened his eyes he was instantly aware that things had changed. As his mind grappled with his surroundings, he realized he must have been asleep for hours, for he could see creeping fingers of grey light playing down one of the companion ladders.

Allday was sitting bolt upright on his canvas, and Browne too was rubbing his eyes and yawning, as if he thought he was still dreaming.

Bolitho leaned forward and felt the ship moving unsteadily beneath his feet. What had awakened him?

He said, “Go to that ladder, Oliver. Tell me if you can hear anything.”

Allday asked uneasily, “Can’t be there already, can we?”

“No. Offshore gale, and in these waters, it will double the passage.”

He saw Browne cling to the ladder as a voice echoed from the deck above.

“En haut les gabiers! En haut pour ferler les huniers!” Browne hurried over, his body steeply angled to the deck like a man on a hillside.

“They’re reefing topsails, sir.”

Bolitho heard the stumbling feet overhead as the watch off duty ran to obey the last order. It made no sense. Shorthanded, Allday had said, so why wear out men further by reefing now? If only he could see what was happening.

A lantern cast a yellow glow down the ladder, and Bolitho saw a lieutenant and two armed petty officers hurrying towards him.

The lieutenant was young and looked worried. The two old hands wasted no time in snapping the manacles over Bolitho’s wrists and ankles, and then did the same to Browne. As they moved towards Allday, the lieutenant shook his head and gestured towards Neale. Allday, it seemed, was being kept free to continue looking after the injured captain.

Bolitho looked at the iron manacles and said, “I do not understand.”

The ship leaned further to one side, whilst overhead voices yelled back and forth and blocks squealed like pigs at a slaughter. The captain was trying to change tack, but from the violent motion, Bolitho doubted if he had succeeded. Without topsails he . . . Bolitho sat bolt upright until restrained by the chain.

The French captain had wanted to remain unseen, and had taken in his upper sails to help conceal his ship against the tossing backcloth of waves.

Like an echo to his own thoughts he heard a voice shout,

“Tout le monde à son poste! Branle-bas de combat!” Browne stared, wide-eyed. “They’re clearing for action, sir!” Bolitho listened to the increasing jumble of sounds as the frigate’s company began to remove screens and hammocks, and the rumble of gun trucks being manœuvred in readiness for the order to load.

They looked at one another as if unable to believe what was happening.

Then Allday said fervently, “It’s one of ours, sir! By God, it must be!”

Shadowy figures bustled past, heads bowed beneath the beams.

Lanterns were lit and hung in a spiralling circle, and more chests were dragged to the centre of the deck and quickly secured with lashings. Light gleamed briefly on long aprons and across the glittering array of instruments as the surgeon’s mates laid out the tools of their trade.

Nobody paid any attention to the three men in the shadows or the swaying cot beside them.

Bolitho tugged at the manacles again. So it was not over after all. It would be a cruel ending to go to the bottom in these manacles after being in battle with a King’s ship.

The deck steadied slightly, and one of the surgeon’s mates laughed. But the sound was without humour. Even he would know that the steadier motion meant that their captain had set more sail, that the ruse to conceal his ship had failed. He was going to fight, and soon these same men would be too busy to care for mere prisoners.

Neale opened his eyes and called in a surprisingly clear voice,

“Sentry! Fetch the master-at-arms!” But nobody turned to stare or wonder.

Bolitho leaned back and tried to adjust his mind. “Allday!”

“Sir?”

“Be ready.”

Allday looked at the lighted door of the sickbay, the absence of any sort of axe or weapon.

But he said hoarsely, “I’ll be ready, sir. Don’t you fret on it.” The waiting got worse, and some of the surgeon’s assistants prowled inside the circle of swinging lanterns as if performing some strange ritual.

“Chargez toutes les pièces!”

It was the order to load, and as if he was responding to a pre-arranged signal, the surgeon left his sickbay and walked slowly towards the lights.

Bolitho licked his lips and wished he had something to drink.

Once again others had decided what the next hours would bring.

HERRICK clung to Benbow’s quarterdeck rail, his teeth bared as he peered into the stinging force of wind and spray. In spite of her bulk, the seventy-four was shipping water over the forecastle and weather gangway as if she was already on her way to the bottom.

Even Herrick, with all his years of hard won experience, had lost count of time and the orders he had shouted above the gale’s onslaught.

He heard Wolfe staggering across the slippery planking, cursing horribly until he joined his captain by the rail.

“Should be damn soon, sir!” His harsh voice seemed puny against the din of wind and waves.

Herrick wiped his streaming face with his hand. His skin felt numb and raw, and he sensed an unusual anger rising to match the weather. Ever since he had left Plymouth with his small but valuable convoy he had been plagued with misfortune. The other seventy-four, Nicator, had lost two men overboard within a day of sailing, and despite his liking and respect for her captain, Valentine Keen, Herrick had nursed a few hard thoughts as he had endeavoured to keep his ships together. Five merchantmen, with two seventy-fours and a solitary frigate to protect them.

Herrick knew that when light eventually cut across the horizon it was very likely there would be no more than two of the ships in sight. The gale had roared out of the eastern horizon like a hurricane, shutting out sea and sky in a crazed world of spray and spindrift, which had left the hands battered and dazed, until with reluctance Herrick had ordered the ships to lie to and ride it out as best they could.

He felt Benbow sway over again, her close-reefed mainsail cracking and booming in protest while she fought her own battle, served by men who whenever they were ordered aloft were convinced they would never return alive.

He wondered if Wolfe was critical of him for not appointing a flag-captain before weighing anchor. The captain in question had been delayed on the road by his carriage losing a wheel. A fast rider had carried the news on ahead to Plymouth, but Herrick had decided to sail without further delay. But why? Was it really because of the need to reach Gibraltar and rid himself of the convoy, or was it because he could not still accept his temporary appointment to commodore, or wished to delay its confirmation for some reason he still did not understand?

Herrick shouted, “According to the master we are some twenty-five miles off the French coast!” He ducked into the wind.

“God knows how old Ben Grubb can be so damn sure!” Wolfe gasped as a solid sheet of spray burst through the nettings and drenched the already sodden watchkeepers and lookouts.

“Don’t worry, sir! We’ll round up the others when the wind eases!”

Herrick pulled himself along the rail. If it eases. He had been given just one frigate, the Ganymede. It was all the admiral could spare. Herrick swore quietly. Same old story. A small twenty-six-gun vessel at that, and she had made a fine beginning by losing her main-topgallant mast within minutes of the gale raking the convoy like a giant’s broadside.

Herrick had signalled her to stand closer inshore. With the gale rising at the time she might find more shelter and be able to rig a jury-mast and avoid further storm damage.

Soon afterwards Herrick had been unable to make any more signals, the wind and then an early darkness had made certain of that.

Wolfe struggled along the rail to join him again.

“The master insists that the wind will back by the forenoon, sir!” He peered at Herrick’s sturdy outline, sensing his stubborn-ness. “Ganymede will have to beat clear if it backs further still!” Herrick swung on him. “God damn it, Mr Wolfe, I know that!” He relented just as quickly. “The convoy’s scattered, but John Company’s Duchess of Cornwall is well able to fend for herself, she’s probably better manned than Benbow, and certainly as well armed.”

He thought of Belinda Laidlaw who was aboard the big Indiaman, as safe as anyone could be in a summer storm in the Bay with the enemy’s coast abeam.

Dulcie had made certain she had a good maid to take passage with her. She would be all right. But it troubled Herrick nonetheless. Women did not belong at sea, even as passengers.

He said, “If only I knew . . . ” He broke off, despising himself for baring his uppermost worry. Richard Bolitho might still be alive and somewhere out there in the darkness in a filthy Frog prison. Or lying helpless and dying in some fisherman’s cottage.

In his heart Herrick knew that was one of his reasons for leaving Plymouth without waiting for his new flag-captain. To reach Gibraltar and return with a minimum of delay. There had been no news of Styx’s loss, not even a rumour about her people.

Maybe they were all dead after all.

Water thundered along the upper deck, cascading over each tethered eighteen-pounder as if breaking across a line of reefs.

Herrick pictured Bolitho, saw him clearly as if he and not Wolfe was his companion.

He said shortly, “I’m going aft, Mr Wolfe. Call me the instant you need me.”

Wolfe said, “Aye, sir.”

He watched Herrick lurch to the companion-way and then shook his head. If that was what friendship did to a man, you could keep it, he thought.

He saw the officer-of-the-watch reeling below the poop, floundering in receding spray like a drowning man, and yelled, “Mr Nash, sir! I’ll trouble you to attend your duties! God damn your eyes, sir! You are like a whore at a wedding, all aback!” The wretched lieutenant disappeared beneath the poop to join the helmsmen and master’s mates by the big double wheel, more afraid of Wolfe than all the perils of seasickness and discomfort.

In the great cabin the sounds of wind and sea were muffled by the ship’s massive timbers. Herrick sank into a chair, a puddle spreading across the chequered canvas from his watchcoat and boots.

He heard his servant come to life in the pantry, and was suddenly reminded of his thirst and hunger. He had taken nothing since noon yesterday. Had wanted nothing.

But it was little Ozzard who brought the food and drink to Herrick’s table. He placed the tray carefully by his elbow, crouching like a small animal as he waited for the deck to fall and then steady itself again.

Herrick eyed him sadly. What was the point of trying to reassure Ozzard when he felt his own sense of loss like a wound?

Ozzard said timidly, “I shall be close by if you want anything more, sir.”

Herrick sipped a goblet of brandy and waited for its heat to drive out the damp and the rawness of salt spray.

The marine sentry interrupted his thoughts. “Midshipman o’

th’ watch, sir!”

Herrick turned wearily as the youth entered the cabin.

“Well, Mr Stirling?”

The midshipman was fourteen years old, and after the first few weeks of being appointed to Benbow, his first ship, was enjoying every minute. Protected by youth, and by the ability to thrive even on the ship’s stale and unimaginative food, he was untouched by the sheer drama in which he was now involved.

“First lieutenant’s respects, sir, and the horizon is lightening.” His eyes moved quickly around the spacious cabin, a palace after the midshipman’s berth on the orlop. Something to write to his parents about, to tell his fellow “young gentlemen” during the watch below.

Herrick felt his head droop with fatigue and snapped, “The wind?”

The youth swallowed hard under the captain’s blue stare.

“Steady from the east’rd, sir. The master thinks it may be dropping.”

“Does he?” Herrick yawned and stretched. “He’s usually right.” He realized that the midshipman was staring at the glittering presentation sword on the bulkhead.

He thought suddenly of Neale when he had been one of Phalarope’s midshipmen, of Adam Pascoe, who craved for a command of his own but was doubtless mourning the loss of his beloved uncle. Of all the other dozens, hundreds of midshipmen he had seen down the years. Some were captains, others had quit the sea to seek their fortunes elsewhere. And there were many who had not even reached young Stirling’s tender years before death or injury had cut them down.

Herrick said quietly, “Take it down if you like, Mr Stirling.” The midshipman, his blue coat smeared with salt and tar stains, crossed to the rack, watched by Herrick and the small, stooped Ozzard. He took down the sword and held it beneath a deckhead lantern, turning it slowly to catch the engraving, the arms and decorations.

He said in a hushed voice, “I never thought, sir, I—mean . . .” He turned, his eyes very bright. “He must have been a fine officer, sir.”

Herrick jerked upright in the chair. “Must have been!” He saw the youth recoil and added hastily, “Yes, Mr Stirling, he was. But better than that, boy, he was a man. The best.”

The midshipman replaced the sword very carefully and said,

“I’m very sorry, sir. I meant no hurt.” Herrick shook his head. “None taken, Mr Stirling. Because others hoped and believed, so too did I. I forgot that Lady Luck can only do so much, miracles are harder to come by.”

“I—I see, sir.”

Stirling backed to the door, his mind grappling with Herrick’s words, not wanting to forget a single second of what had occurred.

Herrick watched him leave. You don’t see at all. But one day, if you are one of the lucky ones, you will understand.

Minutes afterwards the goblet dropped from his fingers and broke in pieces on the deck.

Ozzard stared at the sleeping captain, his hands opening and shutting at his sides. He stooped to gather up the broken glass but then stood away again, his pinched features suddenly hostile.

The captain’s own servant could do it. Ozzard glanced at the pantry door and tried to shut Herrick’s words from his mind. He was wrong. They all were, damn them.

Ozzard went to the pantry and sat down in one corner while the ship shivered and groaned around him.

He was Rear-Admiral Bolitho’s servant, and would be here when he returned, and that was an end to it!

Herrick hurried across the quarterdeck, half blinded by spray as he looked for Wolfe’s tall shape by the nettings.

Wolfe shouted, “There, sir! Hear it?” Herrick licked his lips and ignored the shadowy figures and staring faces. There it was again. No doubt about it.

He said hoarsely, “Gunfire.”

Wolfe nodded. “Light artillery, sir. Probably Ganymede and another craft of the same ilk.”

Herrick strode up the tilting deck, his eyes straining into the feeble grey light and the panorama of tossing wave crests.

“Well, Mr Grubb?”

The master pouted and then nodded his ruined face. “Right bearing, sir. Not likely to be any other King’s ship thereabouts.” Herrick glared at the tossing sea like a trapped animal. “Any of our vessels in sight yet?”

Wolfe replied, “I’ve already warned the masthead lookouts, sir.

But nothing reported so far.”

Herrick heard it again, rolling downwind like staccato thunder. Two ships right enough. Fighting in the gale. Probably stumbled on one another by accident.

Wolfe asked, “Orders, sir?”

“Until we sight Nicator we shall continue to hove to, Mr Wolfe.” He looked away. “Unless . . .” Wolfe grimaced. “That’s a powerful big word, sir.” Herrick squinted, as if by doing so he would see the lay of the French coast as he had so many times on Grubb’s charts. It would take an eternity to beat inshore against this easterly wind, but Ganymede might already be in desperate need of support.

When full daylight broke, just the sight of Benbow’s canvas on the horizon would give them heart and throw uncertainty amongst her attackers.

Captain Keen would know what to do. As soon as he realized that the convoy was scattered he would set-to with his Nicator and chase them into formation again.

But suppose Keen could not collect all the ships and some arrived at Gibraltar unescorted? Herrick had no illusions as to what might happen. His time as commodore would be short-lived, and any sort of promotion would remain as one of Dulcie’s dreams.

And if peace was to be signed between the old enemies, for no matter how short a respite, Herrick knew that when the drums beat to quarters once again his services would be shunned. It had happened to far better men with the background and influence he had never known.

He glanced at Wolfe, at Grubb’s great lump of a figure in his shabby watchcoat, at the youthful Midshipman Stirling who had unknowingly touched his heart with his admiration for Bolitho, a man he had never met. His eyes moved on past them, unblink-ing despite the heavy droplets of spray, as he looked at his command, the Benbow and all her tightly-sealed world of people and memories. His ship. He would certainly lose her too.

Wolfe watched him, knowing it was important to all of them without understanding why.

Grubb, the sailing-master who had played the old Lysander into battle with his tin whistle while all hell had exploded around him, did understand.

He said gruffly, “If we brings ’er about now, sir, and lays ’er on th’ larboard tack . . .”

Herrick turned and faced him. Once the decision was made, the rest was simple.

“I agree.” He looked at his gangling first lieutenant. “Call all hands, Mr Wolfe. We shall make sail at once. Hands aloft, if you please, and loose tops’ls.” He stared abeam as more gunfire followed the wind. “We will go and see what Ganymede has uncovered, eh?”

Herrick walked aft to the poop as calls shrilled and seamen and marines bustled to obey the pipe.

He paused by the wheel as Grubb gestured with a great fist to his master’s mates to be ready to alter course. Young Midshipman Stirling was scribbling on a slate beside the chart table and waiting for a ship’s boy to swing the half-hour glass.

He looked up from his writing as Herrick drew near, and could not restrain a smile.

Herrick eyed him with a calmness he did not feel. “What amuses you, Mr Stirling? May I share it?” Stirling’s smile faded as Grubb glared at him threateningly for disturbing the captain.

Then he said, “You spoke of Lady Luck, sir. Perhaps she is still with us after all?”

Herrick shrugged. “We shall see. In the meantime, take yourself to the foremast crosstrees and carry a glass with you. Let us see if your eyes are as sharp as your wits!” Grubb watched the midshipman run for the weather gangway, a telescope bobbing across his shoulder like a quiver.

“Gawd, sir, I really don’t know! These young varmints ’ave got no respect, no understandin’ of facts an’ responsibilities.” They faced each other gravely, and Herrick said softly, “Not like us, eh, Mr Grubb? Not like us at all.” Grubb grinned broadly as Herrick moved away. Then he saw the nearest helmsman watching him and roared, “Stand by, you idle bugger! Or I’ll be about yew with a pike, so ’elp me Gawd!” Moments later, with her yards braced almost fore and aft, her lee gunports awash as she tilted heavily to the wind, Benbow came slowly about.

Herrick smiled with quiet satisfaction as topmen dashed about the upper yards, whilst on the deck below others ran to assist, to throw their weight on braces and halliards to make their ship turn deliberately towards the land.

It would be a slow and wearing process, with miles of tacking this way and that to gain a cable’s advance.

But as Herrick watched his men, and studied the set of each sail, the strain of each piece of standing rigging, he was glad he had acted against his saner judgement.

“Full an’ bye’ sir!” A master’s mate shouted excitedly, as if he too was sharing Herrick’s mood. “South by east!” Herrick looked across at Wolfe who was directing his men through his long speaking trumpet. With his wings of bright red hair poking beneath his salt-stained hat he looked more like a Viking warrior than a King’s officer, Herrick thought.

Perhaps it would be too late, or all a waste of time. But if they could capture a French ship, or even seize a few of her people, they might learn something of Styx’s survivors. Just a hint, the tiniest shred of information, would make it all worthwhile.

Wolfe lowered his speaking trumpet and called, “We’ll shake out another reef if the wind allows, sir.” Herrick nodded. Wolfe understood now. “Aye. And to hell with the consequences.”

Wolfe raised his eyes to the men working high above him and glanced at the scarlet broad-pendant which streamed from the masthead.

The captain had spoken of consequences. And there was the biggest one of all.

Bolitho pressed his shoulders against the frigate’s timbers and winced as the ship yawed and plunged deeply into another trough.

It was as if the hull would never rise again, and when the keel struck the side of the trough Bolitho felt the blow run through his body as if the vessel had driven hard aground.

He tried again and again to picture what was happening on deck and across the water where another ship was preparing to fight. The Ceres would have the wind-gage, but with such a deep swell running that could hinder as much as help. He heard distant shouts, the occasional rasp of spray-swollen rigging through blocks as the Ceres’ captain worked his ship with every skill he knew to discover some advantage.

Allday made his way to a water cask and took his time filling a mug for Neale. He darted a glance up the nearest ladder and tried to understand what the Frenchmen were saying. The preparations for battle he understood of old, the quick, stooping shadows of powder-monkeys, the squeak of gun tackles, and above all the drumming force of wind into the reefed canvas.

He waited for the deck to settle and then hurried towards the side again. As he clung to the cot and held the mug to Neale’s lips he said, “Still a big sea running, sir. I can hear the water swill-ing about the gun-deck.” He forced a grin. “Give the Frogs somethin’ to sweat on!”

Browne drew his knees up to his chin and examined his manacles with disgust.

“If only we could get away somehow.” Bolitho lifted his eyes to the deckhead as more thuds and the clatter of handspikes told of the gun crews’ difficulties. The wind was driving them away from safety, and they would have to fight whether they wanted to or not.

He looked at the surgeon and his assistants. They were standing or squatting around their makeshift table like patient ghouls.

It was a sight which never failed to unnerve him.

“Listen!”

They strained forward on their chains as a metallic voice penetrated the sounds of sea and wind like a trumpet.

“Rassemblez-vous à la batterie de tribord!” Browne nodded jerkily. “They’re engaging to starboard first, sir!”

Allday gritted his teeth. “Here we go. Up she rises!” The broadside was violent and unexpected in spite of the warning. Bolitho felt the hull buck like a wild thing, saw the deck planking shiver as the guns crashed out in unison, the yells of their crews lost in the squeal of trucks, the urgent commands from aft.

Again. The Ceres seemed to fall steeply to one side as the guns roared out, the sound magnified and compressed into the orlop until Bolitho thought his ears would burst. Dust spurted from the planking, and he saw smoke drifting down the companion ladders like a moorland fog.

Some of the surgeon’s men were flinching and staring at the smoke, others busied themselves with their instruments and buckets.

Browne said huskily, “Two broadsides, sir. Nothing in return.”

Bolitho shook his head, not wishing to comment in case he missed something. He recognized all the sounds as well as Allday, the rammers and sponges, the scampering feet of shot-carriers, disjointed yells from individual gun-captains as they laid on their target.

What sort of ship was she? Large or small?

Once more the broadside flung them about, the guns riding inboard on their tackles like maddened beasts as their crews fought to control them and reload. Firing to leeward would make it difficult in these seas, Bolitho thought. The ports would be almost awash, and it would be hard to obtain full elevation if the other ship kept her wits about her.

There was some haphazard cheering, and then a slower broadside, pairs of guns firing from bow to stern with seconds between each shot.

Allday muttered bitterly, “Our lads must be standing off, sir.

Either that or the Frenchies have dismasted ’em.” Bolitho watched the circle of lanterns around the table swing towards the deckhead and remain there as if held by invisible hands as the ship tilted over and then came slowly upright again.

The captain had changed tack and was running more smoothly now with the wind under his coat-tails, Bolitho decided. He had found his confidence, and was using the full force of the gale to quit the shelter of the land and go for the enemy. Bolitho tried to hide his disappointment. That meant the other ship was crippled or that her captain had found himself outmanœuvred and probably outgunned.

The crash and thunder of iron against the hull was like an avalanche.

Bolitho gasped with pain as he was flung to the full extent of his manacles and chains, his head swimming as the orlop exploded in smoke and noise.

He felt the deck shiver as rigging and spars fell from aloft, and a deeper thunder as if a gun had been overturned. Men were shouting in the din, and other voices screamed pitifully as a second broadside smashed into the hull within minutes of the first.

Partly hidden by smoke, figures slithered and groped down the ladders, and others were dragged bodily into the lanterns’

glow as the surgeon’s mates came to life, roused by the sight and smell of blood.

The deck was swaying over again, and the French crews were returning fire. Balls slammed into the lower hull, and Bolitho heard the clank of a pump as the other ship’s iron smashed home.

Above the table the surgeon’s shadow rose and fell, the lanterns glinting on a knife and then on a saw as he struck at the writhing, naked shape which his men were struggling to hold still.

Another man darted forward, and Bolitho saw the wounded sailor’s arm tossed aside like so much meat.

More sobbing, protesting men were dragged and carried down to the orlop. Time had lost all meaning, and even the early daylight was blanketed now by swirling smoke and the fog of battle.

The surgeon seemed to dominate the place with his merciless energy. Bodies came and went, the more fortunate already unconscious as he went to work while his assistants stripped the next victim for his butcher’s hands.

The gunfire was less controlled now, but louder, and Bolitho guessed that the other ship was very near, the roar of cannon trapped between the two antagonists, the pace so hot that the end must surely be soon.

Browne watched the surgeon, his eyes wide with fascinated horror. He was not a young man, but he moved with the speed of light. Fleshing, sawing, stitching and discarding each of the wounded without even pausing as more shots slammed into the hull and the sea alongside. His hands and apron were bright red.

It was a scene from hell.

Browne said thickly, “If I die, please God let it be on deck, and spare me this murder!”

There were warning cries, a brief chilling silence and then a prolonged thunder as a mast carried away and plunged down to the deck. The hull shook as if trying to free herself from the great mesh of fallen rigging and wildly flapping canvas, and even as the ring of axes echoed through the smoke, Bolitho heard the sharper bangs of swivel guns and muskets and said quickly, “They’re almost up to us!”

Shouts and screams filtered through the sounds of battle, and more wreckage fell across the upper deck, the dragging clatter of broken shrouds reminding Bolitho of Styx’s last moments when she had been dismasted.

Neale struggled up in the cot, his eyes wild as he shouted,

“To me, lads! Stand fast! ” He tried to strike out at Allday but the blow was that of a child.

Allday said harshly, “I’m going to get you out, Cap’n Neale!

So you behave yourself!”

He ducked into some shadows where two wounded seamen lay apparently overlooked by the surgeon’s mates. Allday rolled one of them on to his back. The Frenchman had a wood splinter the size of a dirk in his throat and was staring at Allday in agonized terror. Unable to speak, and barely capable of breathing, he watched Allday as he dragged a cutlass from his belt and thrust it through his own.

The second man was already dead and unarmed, so Allday made to move away. But something held him in spite of his anger and his hatred.

The eyes were staring at him, filling the man’s face, as all the while his life ebbed away. He seemed to be pleading, asking the unknown man with the cutlass to spare him the terrible agony of his wound.

Allday bent down, and after a further hesitation drove the guard of his cutlass into the Frenchman’s jaw.

“Die in peace, mounseer! ”

He rejoined Bolitho and started to prise with the cutlass at the ring-bolt which secured his chain.

“I saw that.” Bolitho watched him, moved by Allday’s rough compassion in spite of the nearness of death for all of them.

Allday said between his teeth, “Might have been me, sir.” Voices, confused and frightened, announced more arrivals on the orlop, but this time it was different. Bolitho saw an outflung arm, the spreading red stain on the man’s side where a heavy ball had smashed through his ribs, but more than that, he saw the captain’s gold epaulettes.

Two soldiers also came down the companion ladder. Bolitho recognized their uniforms as those of a maritime regiment.

They stood apart from all the rest, their hands gripping their bayoneted muskets as they looked at the shackled prisoners, their intentions obvious.

The surgeon cut open the French captain’s shirt and then gestured to his men.

“Il est mort.”

Stricken wounded men peered through the smoke, unable to accept what had happened.

Overhead there was less firing, as if everyone who had survived was still shocked by the loss of their commander.

Then came the slithering impact of the other ship grinding alongside.

The deck swayed steeply, and Bolitho guessed that the other captain had allowed the crippled Ceres to drift down to him, and now with rigging and spars entangled they were held firmly in a last embrace.

“Huzza! Huzza!” The shouts sounded wild and inhuman. “To me, Ganymedes!”

Then the awful clash of steel, the occasional bang of musket and pistol before feet trampled over them as they tried to reload.

To the soldiers it was like a signal. Bolitho saw the nearest one, a corporal, raise his musket, the bayonet glinting in the lanterns as he aimed it straight at Neale’s chest.

“Too late, matey!” Allday bounded up from the side, the big cutlass swinging and hacking the soldier across the mouth like an axe in a log. As the man fell writhing in his own blood, Allday turned towards the second one. The man had also raised his musket but was stricken like a rabbit confronted by a fox after seeing his companion fall.

Allday yelled, “Not so brave now, eh?” Browne swallowed hard as the cutlass slashed the man’s crossbelt apart. The force of the blow made the soldier double over, his cries silenced as the cutlass hacked him across his exposed neck.

Above and seemingly all around the air was rent with shouts, curses and screams. Steel on steel, feet staggering and slipping in blood, bodies thrust and ducked to gain and hold an advantage.

Allday clung to the swaying cot with one hand and threatened any circling figure who came near. A musket ball slammed into the side within inches of Bolitho’s shoulder, and he heard Allday’s blade hiss over his head like a protective scythe.

A corpse fell headlong down the companion ladder, and someone gave a terrible cry before a blade silenced him instantly, as if a great door had been slammed shut.

Hatless, his white breeches smeared with blood, and his eyes blazing like fuses, a British marine stood on the ladder, his levelled bayonet shaking on the end of his musket.

He saw Allday with his bared cutlass and yelled, “Here, lads!

There are more o’ the bastards!” Then he lunged.

Allday had fought alongside the marines in many a boarding party or skirmishes ashore, but never before had he seen the madness of battle from the other side.

The man was crazed with fighting, a kind of lust which had left him a survivor in the fierce struggle from ship to ship.

Allday knew it was pointless to fight the man off until he could explain. More figures were stumbling down the ladder, marines and seamen alike. He would be dead in seconds unless he acted.

“Stand still, you stupid bullock!” Allday’s bellow brought the marine skidding to a halt, “Cut these officers free or I’ll cleave your skull in!”

The marine gaped at him and then began to laugh. There was no sound, but his whole body shook uncontrollably, as if it would never stop.

Then a lieutenant appeared, a bloodied hanger in his hand as he peered around the orlop, sniffing for danger.

He pushed past the marine and stared at Neale and then at the others.

“In God’s name. Get these men on deck. Lively, the captain’s ordered our recall.”

A seaman brought a spike and levered the ring-bolt out of the timber, then hoisted Bolitho and Browne to their feet.

The lieutenant said sharply, “Come along now! No time to dawdle!”

Bolitho loosened the manacles on his wrist, and as two seamen prepared to lift Neale from his cot said quietly, “That is Captain John Neale of the frigate Styx. ” He waited for the lieutenant to turn. “I’m afraid I did not catch your name Mr, er . . . ?” The first madness of battle was already passing, and several of the boarding party even managed to grin at their lieutenant’s discomfort.

The lieutenant snapped, “Nor I yours, sir! ” Browne took a first careful step towards the waiting seamen.

How he managed it he did not know, although Allday later swore he never even blinked.

Browne said coldly, “This is Rear-Admiral Richard Bolitho.

Does that satisfy you, sir? Or is this the day for hurling insults at all your betters?”

The lieutenant sheathed his hanger and flushed. “I—I am indeed sorry, sir.”

Bolitho nodded and walked slowly to the foot of the companion ladder. High above him he could see the hatch which opened on to the gun-deck. It was unnaturally bright, and he guessed the ship had been completely dismasted.

He gripped the ladder hard to control his shaking hands.

To the lieutenant he said, “You did well. I heard you shout Ganymede. ”

The lieutenant wiped his mouth with his sleeve. He was beginning to shiver. Now it was over, later would come the pain of what he had seen and done.

Discipline helped, and he was able to forget his humiliation when he had all but dragged Bolitho to his feet in his eagerness to get back to the ship.

He replied, “Aye, sir. We are part of an escort. Under the broad-pendant of Commodore Herrick.” Bolitho looked at him for several seconds. It was impossible.

He was as mad as the marine.

“Perhaps you know him, sir.” The lieutenant winced under Bolitho’s gaze.

“Very well.”

Bolitho climbed on deck, each step on the ladder standing out with unusual clarity, every sound distinct and extra loud.

He passed through stained and panting boarders, resting on their weapons, grinning and nodding to him as he passed.

Bolitho saw the other ship grappled alongside, a midshipman hurrying aft to inform the captain whom they had discovered in the Ceres before Bolitho arrived.

The captain strode to meet him, his pleasure clear in his voice as he exclaimed, “You are most welcome, sir, and I am grateful that my ship was of service.” He gestured ruefully to the damage to his rigging and decks. “I was outgunned, so I tempted him into a chase. After that . . .” He shrugged. “It was all a question of experience. The French have some fine ships. Fortunately, they do not have our Jacks to man them.”

Bolitho stood on the Ganymede’s deck and took a deep breath.

In a moment he would awake in the carriage or the prison, and then . . .

The captain was saying, “We have sighted two enemy sail, but they are staying their distance. But I fear we must abandon our prize. The wind is shifting.”

“Deck there! Sail on th’ lee bow!”

The captain said sharply, “Recall the boarding party and cast that hulk adrift. She’ll not fight again.” The masthead lookout yelled again, “Ship o’ th’ line, sir! ’Tis the Benbow! ”

Bolitho walked across the deck and knelt beside Neale who had been laid there to await the surgeon’s attention.

Neale stared up at the sky and whispered, “We did it, sir.

Together. ”

His hand lifted from his side and clasped Bolitho’s as firmly as he could.

“It was all I wanted, sir.”

Allday crouched on his other side to shield his eyes from the early sunlight. “Easy, Cap’n Neale. You’re going home now, you see.”

But Bolitho felt the hand go limp in his, and after a moment he bent over to close Neale’s eyes.

“He’s there, Allday. He’s gone home.”

“I STILL can’t believe it, sir.”

Herrick shook his head again, unable to accept what his decision had brought. From the moment he had made signalling contact with the frigate Ganymede he had paced up and down the quarterdeck, cursing the time it took for both ships to draw together, the further, seemingly endless delay as his own coxswain, Tuck, had taken the barge to collect Bolitho.

He had listened enthralled as Bolitho had sat by the stern windows in his torn clothing and had allowed Ozzard to fuss over him like a nursery maid.

And now, with the frigate following in Benbow’s wake, they were standing away from the French coast, the wind no longer an enemy.

Bolitho explained, “Ganymede was at a disadvantage. Her captain tried an old ruse and tempted the Ceres to follow him. He even took some severe damage to give the enemy overconfidence.” He shrugged heavily. It no longer seemed to matter. “Then he luffed, and put two broadsides into her before she knew what was happening. It still could have gone against him, but the last raking cut down Ceres ’ captain, and the rest you know, Thomas.” He had already told Herrick about the new chain of semaphore stations, but even that seemed unimportant set against Neale’s death.

Herrick saw the pain in his eyes and said, “The French ships which were sighted as Benbow showed herself must have been directed to aid Ceres by that same semaphore.” He rubbed his chin. “Well, we know about it now, damn them.” Bolitho stared past him at the empty sword rack. “And they will know we know. The danger is there just the same.”

He thought of the two soldiers who had fallen to Allday’s cutlass. They must have had specific orders to kill the prisoners if the ship was in danger of being seized. It had been that close.

But the arrival of the French ships had made Ceres ’ capture impossible. It would not be long before the French high command knew that their prisoners had escaped, that the secret would be out.

Lieutenant Wolfe entered the cabin and tried not to stare at Bolitho as he was stripped of his shirt and torn breeches by Loveys, the ship’s surgeon, while he lay against the seat and con-sumed his fifth cup of scalding coffee.

Wolfe said, “With respect, sir. Convoy in sight to the sou’-

east. All accounted for.”

Herrick smiled. “Thank you. I’ll come up presently.” As the door closed Bolitho said, “You took a wild risk, Thomas.

Your head would have been on the block if the convoy had been in danger. The fact you thought it safe would have carried as much water as a shrimping net at your court martial.” Herrick grinned. “I felt certain I’d discover something if only I could help Ganymede to take the enemy.” He eyed Bolitho warmly. “I never dreamed . . .”

“Neither did I.”

Bolitho looked up as Ozzard, followed by Allday, entered the cabin with clean clothing and his other dress coat.

He said wearily, “Fetch the old sea-going one, Ozzard. I don’t feel like celebrating.”

Allday stared at Herrick in disbelief. “You’ve not told him, sir?”

“Told me what?” He needed to be alone. To sift his feelings, decide what to do, discover where he had gone wrong.

Herrick looked almost as astonished as Allday. “Damn my eyes, in all the excitement I forgot to explain!” Bolitho listened without a word, as if by inserting a question, or by trying to smooth out the ridges in Herrick’s tale, he might destroy it completely.

As Herrick lapsed into silence he said, “And she is in the convoy, Thomas? Right here, amongst us?” Herrick stammered, “Aye, sir. I was that worried, you see—” Bolitho stood up and took Herrick’s hard hands in his “Bless you, old friend. This morning I believed I had taken enough, more than I could safely hold. But now . . .” He shook his head slowly.

“You have told me something which is stronger than any balm.” He turned away, as if he expected to see the other ships through the stern windows. Belinda had taken passage to Gibraltar.

Danger and discomfort had meant nothing, his likely fate had not shaken her confidence for an instant. And now she was here in the Bay.

Herrick moved towards the door, content and troubled at the same time.

“I’ll leave you. It will be a while before we exchange signals.” He hesitated, unwilling to cast a shadow on the moment. “About Captain Neale . . .”

“We’ll bury him at dusk. His friends and family in England will have their memories of him. As he once was. But I think he’d wish to stay with his men.”

The door closed silently, and Bolitho lay back again and allowed the sun to warm him through the thick glass.

Neale had known from the beginning he was going to die.

Only his occasional bouts of delirium had deceived the rest of them. One thought, one force had kept him going, and that had been freedom. To gain it in company of his friends so that he could die in peace had been paramount. It was all I wanted, he had said. His last words on earth.

Bolitho found he was on his feet without noticing he had moved. He did not even see Browne enter the cabin, or Allday’s sudden concern.

John Neale was gone. He would not die unavenged.