He saw the lieutenant staring at him and for a terrible moment imagined he had spoken aloud.

But Valancey was merely anxious and stood aside as Bolitho waited for the barge to sway heavily against Argonautes fat flank.

Then he was swarming up the side and through the entry port, his ears cringing to the slap and click of bayoneted muskets presenting arms, and the fifes and drums breaking into Heart of Oak.

There was Keen, his fair hair visible as he doffed his hat and strode to meet him, even as Bolitho's flag broke smartly from the foremast truck.

"Welcome, Sir Richard."

Keen smiled, not realizing that the greeting had caught Bolitho unawares. It sounded like somebody else.

"I am glad to be here." Bolitho nodded to the assembled officers and the watch on deck. If he had still expected to see some sign of the battle he was disappointed. Newly paid deck seams and blacked-down rigging. Neatly furled sails and every upper deck eighteen-pounder with all its tackles and gear perfectly in line as if on parade.

He looked along the deck and through the criss-cross of standing and running rigging. He could see the white shoulder of the figurehead, depicting the handsome youth who had been one of Jason's crew in the mythical Argo. Less than three years old from the day she had slid into the water at Brest. A new ship by any standard, with a full complement of six hundred and twenty souls, officers, seamen and Royal Marines, although he doubted if even the resourceful Keen had gathered anywhere near that total.

They walked aft beneath the poop deck. By making it longer than in English third-rates, the builders had given better and more spacious accommodation to the officers. In battle, however, as in any man-of-war, the deck would be completely cleared from bow to stern so that every gun, large or small, could be worked without obstruction.