He thought too of the girl Bolitho had married. They had even met for the first time aboard this ship. He stared round, finding it hard to believe. Perhaps that was what was lacking. She had been part of the ship, had known danger and terror when the old hull had quivered to the broadsides and the scything winds of death. Bolitho would be thinking that too, he decided. Thinking and remembering, and that was bad.
Allday shook his head and walked towards the door. It was bad simply because they all depended on him more than ever before. A captain had no one to share his sadness and nobody to share his blame should he fail.
He walked past the sentry and climbed through a small hatch. A yam and a glass with the sailmaker might shake him out of his troubled thoughts, he decided. But he doubted it.
2. BROAD PENDANT
Richard Bolitho finished writing his personal log and leaned back wearily in the chair. Even in the sealed cabin the air was chill and damp, and the leather of his desk chair was clammy to the touch. Around him the ship lifted, paused and then staggered forward in a savage corkscrewing motion which made even thinking an effort of will, yet he knew if he returned to the windswept quarterdeck he would find no peace for more than a few minutes.
He stared through the thick glass of the stem windows, although they were so caked with salt and running spray it was only possible to tell day from night. It was close on noon, but could have been any time. The sky was either black and starless, or like now, the colour of slate. And so it had been as one day followed another and while the Hyperion drove further and further to the south-east, deeper into the Bay of Biscay.