IT WAS unusually cold for mid-September and the cobbled streets of Portsmouth Point shone like metal from the overnight rain.

Vice-Admiral Sir Richard Bolitho paused at a corner and stared back at the George Inn where he had stayed for two days since his arrival from Falmouth. There was the old Blue Posts Inn too, a plume of smoke pouring from a chimney, a reminder of long-lost times when he had begun a voyage as a lowly midshipman.

He sighed and turned to his companion who was waiting for him and as they rounded the corner Bolitho felt the Solent's chill wind like a challenge.

It was morning and yet the narrow streets were all but deserted. For this was 1803 and the fragile peace had been swept away in the first broadside of May. No young man or casual idler loitered here for fear of the dreaded press-gangs. Like a lesson repeating itself with little learned from before, he thought. He saw his nephew watching him, his eyes troubled, and was reminded of a remark made at the George Inn just that morning while he and Adam had played out a last cup of coffee. The man had been a traveller and had been watching the two sea officers in conversation, and later had said that he had originally taken them for brothers.

Bolitho faced his nephew, hating the moment of parting but knowing it was selfishness to detain him further. Adam Bolitho was twenty-three and in his uncle's eyes was little changed from the day he had first joined his ship as a midshipman.

But there was a difference, a marked one. Adam had gone through danger and pain, sometimes at his side, other times not. The line of his mouth and the firmness of his chin showed he had learned well, and the solitary gold epaulette on his left shoulder said all the rest. A commander at twenty-three and now with a ship of his own. The little fourteen-gun brig Firefly lay out there beyond the wall, lost amongst the sprawling anchorage with its big men-of-war, transports and all the life of a naval port at war.