Bolitho smiled. "Thank you." He looked at Allday. "Come, we'll watch him leave, eh?"

Allday took the old sword down from its rack and waited to clip it to Bolitho's belt.

He said quietly, "He'll need a good cox'n of his own afore long, an' that's no error."

They looked at each other and understood.

Keen watched them and forgot all the demands, the signals which awaited attention and which he must discuss with his admiral. Bolitho and Allday were the rock which would stand when all else fell. He was surprised to discover that this realization still moved him deeply.

Several of the hands working about the quarterdeck withdrew as Bolitho and their captain walked to the nettings. Bolitho could feel their eyes even though his back was turned. They would be pondering on his reputation both as their leader and as a man.

The little brig was heeling over to the wind, showing her copper as she tacked between two anchored seventy-fours.

Bolitho took a glass from the signals midshipman. The youth seemed vaguely familiar. He trained the glass across the nettings and for a few moments saw Firefly s commander staring across at him, near enough to touch. He was waving his hat slowly from side to side, then one of the ships shut him from view. Bolitho lowered the glass and the scene fell away into the distance.

He handed the telescope to the midshipman. "Thank you, Mr"Sheaffe, Sir Richard."

Bolitho eyed him curiously. Of course. He should have remembered that Admiral Sir Hayward Sheaffe had made a point of putting one of his sons in Argonaute. It was unlike him to forget such things. Even Keen's comment, "Lose the brat overboard and I'll lose my command to boot!"

He had visited Sheaffe at the Admiralty several times since his return to England. One rank only separated them. It could have been an ocean.

Keen was watching him and as they walked to the opposite side said, "There was no real urgency to come aboard just yet, sir. It may be another week before the full squadron is assembled here."