Herrick's only sister was a cripple and incapable of doing much but help her mother about the house, so his homecoming was seen in rather different ways from his own sense of rejection. A friend of his father's employer had gained him an appointment as mate in a small brig which earned a living carrying general cargo up and down the east coast and occasionally across the channel to Holland. The owner was a miserly man who kept the brig so shorthanded that there were barely enough men to work ship, let along handle cargo, load lighters and keep the vessel in good repair.

When he had received Bolitho's letter, accompanied by his commission from the Admiralty charging him to report on board Undine, he had been almost too stunned to realise his good fortune. He had not seen Bolitho since that one last visit to his home in Falmouth, and perhaps deep inside he had believed that their friendship, which had strengthened in storm and under bloody broadsides, would be no match for peace.

Their worlds were, after all, too far apart. Bolitho's great stone house had seemed like a palace to Herrick. His background, his ancestry of seafaring officers, put him in a different sphere entirely. Herrick was the first in his family to go to sea, and that was the least of their differences.

But Bolitho had not changed. When they had met on this same quarterdeck a month ago he had known it with that first glance. It was still there, The quiet sadness, which could give way to something like boyish excitement in the twinkling of an eye.

Above all, Bolitho too was pleased to be back, keen to test himself and his new ship whenever a chance offered itself.

A midshipman scuttled over the deck and touched his hat.

'Cutter's returning, sir.'

He was small, pinched with cold. He had been aboard just three weeks.

'Thank you, Mr. Penn. That'll be some new hands, I hope.' He eyed the boy unsympathetically. 'Now smarten yourself, the captain may be returning today.'