Bolitho struggled with the window catch, but it was stuck fast, his mind reeling with anger and shame at what he had just seen.
A voice asked, 'May I help, sir?' It was the messenger again.
Bolitho replied, 'I was going to throw some coins to two crippled soldiers.' He broke off, seeing the mild astonishment in the messenger's eyes.
The man said, 'Bless you, sir, you'd get used to such sights in London.'
'Not me.'
'I was going to tell you, sir, that Sir John will see you now.'
Bolitho followed him into the passageway again, conscious of the sudden dryness in his throat. He remembered so clearly his last visit here, a month ago almost to the day. And that time he had been summoned by letter, and not left fretting and fuming in a waiting-room. It had seemed like a dream, an incredible stroke of good fortune. It still did, despite all the difficulties which had been crammed into so short a time.
He was to assume command immediately of His Britannic Majesty's Ship Undine, of thirty-two guns, then lying in the dockyard at Portsmouth completing a refit.
As he had hurried from the Admiralty on that occasion he had felt the excitement on his face like guilt, aware of the other watching eyes, the envy and resentment.
The task of taking command, of gathering the dockyard's resources to his aid to prepare Undine for sea, had cost him dearly. With the Navy being cut down to a quarter of its wartime strength, he had been surprised to discover that it was harder to obtain spare cordage and spars rather than the reverse. A weary shipwright had confided in him that dockyard officials were more intent on making a profit with private dealers than they were on aiding one small frigate.