An Admiralty messenger opened the door of a small anteroom and said politely, 'If you would be so good as to wait, sir.' He stood aside to allow Captain Richard Bolitho to pass and added, 'Sir John knows you are here.'

Bolitho waited until the door had closed and then walked to a bright fire which was crackling below a tall mantel. He was thankful that the messenger had brought him to this small room and not to one of the larger ones. As he had hurried into the Admiralty from the bitter March wind which was sweeping down Whitehall he had been dreading a confrontation in one of those crowded waiting-rooms, crammed with unemployed officers who watched the comings and goings of more fortunate visitors with something like hatred.

Bolitho had known the feeling, too, even though he had told himself often enough that he was better off than most. For he had come back to England a year ago, to find the country at peace, and the gowns and villages already filling with unwanted soldiers and seamen. With his home in Falmouth, an established estate, and all the hard-earned prize money he had brought with him, he knew he should have been grateful.

He moved away from the fire and stared down at the broad roadway below the window. It had been raining for most of the morning, but now the sky had completely cleared, so that the many puddles and ruts glittered in the harsh light like patches of pale blue silk. Only the steaming nostrils of countless horses which passed this way and that, the hurrying figures bowed into the wind, made a lie of the momentary colour.