But while Hyperion had sailed serenely on her peacetime affairs in the Caribbean sunlight and Bolitho had fought wretchedly against a consuming fever in his house at Falmouth, the clouds of war had gathered once more across Europe. The bloody revolution which had seized France from coast to coast had at first been viewed from nervous excitement from across the English Channel, a human reaction of people who watch an old enemy weakened from within without cost to themselves, but as the fury spread and the stories filtered back to England of a new, even more powerful nation emerging from the din of execution squads and mob carnage, those who had known danger and fear in the past accepted the inevitability of yet another war.

Followed by an anxious and protesting Allday, Bolitho had left his bed and had made his way to London. He had always detested the false gaiety of the town, with its sprawling, dirty streets and the contrasting splendour of its great houses, but he had made up his mind that if necessary he would bend his knee and plead for a new ship.

After weeks of fretting and fruitless interviews he had been given the task of recruiting unwilling inhabitants of the Medway towns to fill the ships which were at last being called into commission.

To the senior powers of the Admiralty whose immediate duty it was to expand and equip a depleted fleet Bolitho was a clever choice for the work of recruitment. His exploits as a young frigate captain were still well remembered, and when war came his was the kind of leadership which might win men from the land for the uncertainties and hardhips of a life at sea. Unfortunately Bolitho did not view his appointment with the same enthusiasm. It was somehow characteristic of his make-up that he saw it as a lack of confidence and trust by his superiors whom he suspected of thinking the worst about his recent illness. A sick captain could be a danger. Not just to himself and his ship, but to the vital chain of command, Which once weakened could bring disaster and defeat.