He said, `You've a good man there, sir.'

Bolitho followed his glance and smiled. 'Allday has been with me since…: His mind went back over the years without effort, as if every thought and each memory was always lying in wait like a half-forgotten picture. He said abruptly, 'My first coxswain was killed at the Saintes in '82. Allday has been with me ever since.' Just a few words of explanation, yet how much more they meant to Bolitho, just as Allday's familiar shape was a constant reminder. Now the Saintes and the frigate Phalarope were eleven years in the past, and England was at war again.

Leach watched Bolitho's grave face and wondered. During the uneventful voyage from Spithead he had wanted to confide with him, but something had stopped him. He had brought plenty of other passengers to Gibraltar and usually they made a pleasant diversion in the daily routine. Officers for the garrison, couriers and replacements for men killed by accident or design in a war which was already spreading in every direction. But something in Bolitho's impassive, almost withdrawn manner had deterred him from close contact. He looked at him now with a mixture of interest and envy. Bolitho was a senior captain and about to take a step which with any luck at all would place him on the list for flag rank within a few years, maybe only months.

From what Bolitho had said he guessed him to be in his middle or late thirties. He was tall and surprisingly slim, and when he smiled his face became equally youthful. It was said that Bolitho had been away for several years between the wars in the Great South Sea and had come back half dead with fever. It was probably true, he decided. There were deep lines at the comers of his mouth, and beneath the even tan there was a certain fineness to the skin and cheekbones which betrayed such an illness. But the hair which was pulled back to the nape of his neck was black, without even a touch of grey, and the one lock which curled down above his right eye added to his appearance of controlled recklessness.