Maybe heal the agony in his mind which he never mentioned, but which Allday recognised. Suppose the other eye was somehow wounded m battle* The fear of so many sailors and soldiers. Helpless. Unwanted. Ferguson, the estate's steward who had lost an arm at the Saintes what seemed like a million years back, his rosy-cheeked wife Grace the housekeeper, and all the other servants had been waiting to greet them. Laughter, cheers, and a lot of tears too. But Belinda and the child Elizabeth had not been there. Ferguson said that she had sent a letter to explain her absence. God knew it was common enough for a returning sailor to find his family ignorant of his whereabouts, but it could not have come at a worse moment or hit Bolitho so hard.

Even his young nephew Adam, who now held his own command of the brig Firefly, was not able to console him. He had been ordered back to take on supplies and fresh water.

Hyperion was real enough, though. Allday glared at the stroke oarsman as his blade feathered badly and threw spray over the gunwale. Bloody bargemen. They'd learn a thing or two if he had to teach every hand separately.

The old Hyperion was no stranger, but the people were. Was that what Bolitho wanted? Or what he needed? Allday still did not know.

If Keen had been flag captain – Allday's mouth softened. Or poor Inch even, things would seem less strange.

Captain Haven was a cold fish; even his own coxswain, a nuggety Welshman named Evans, had confided over a wet that his lord and master was without humour, and could not be reached.

Allday glanced again at Bolitho's shoulders. How unlike their own relationship. One ship after the other, different seas, but usually the same enemy. And always Bolitho had treated him as a friend, one of the family as he had once put it. It had been casually said, yet Allday had treasured the remark like a pot of gold.