Bolitho stared at each of them and then forgot them. Pulling his sword against his thigh, for once he had witnessed a new captain falling headlong backwards into his barge, he climbed stiffly up through the carved and gilded entry port.

As he removed his hat he was almost overwhelmed by the immediate response which seemed to come from every side, from above and below his bared head. The greeting which had started with the shrill scream of pipes as his face had appeared over the side, burst into a wild crescendo of noise which at first his mind had difficulty in sorting out. The drums and fifes of a small marine band, the slap and snap of muskets being brought to the present and the swish of swords completing the general salute.

He felt hemmed in by the scarlet ranks of marines, the blue and white of assembled officers, and, above all, the packed faces and pigtailed heads of the men who had been hurriedly called from their duties throughout the ship.

He should have been ready, but in his heart he knew he had been so long in frigates that this sudden upsurge of figures had caught him entirely off guard. As his mind accepted this and his eye moved quickly over the nearest rank of shining guns, the freshly holystoned planking and the taut web of rigging and shrouds, he became aware, perhaps for the first time, of his new responsibility.

Up to this instant he had been considering the Hyperion only as a different way of life. Now, as the band fell into sudden silence and a tall, grave-faced lieutenant stepped forward to meet him, he understood his real purpose. The realisation both surprised and humbled him. Here within her fat, onehundred-and-eighty-foot hull the Hyperion contained a whole new world. A strange imprisoned existence in which some six hundred officers and men lived, worked and, if required, died together, yet stayed apart in their own segments of discipline and seniority. It was hardly surprising that many captains of such ships as Hyperion were overwhelmed by their sense of power and self-importance.