He looked away, but not before he had seen the powerful shape of Lieutenant James Squire at his station in the eyes of the ship, watching the incoming cable. A born seaman and navigator, and one of the most senior men aboard. He had come up from the lower deck, and had won respect and popularity the hard way. Two midshipmen stood nearby: David Napier and the latest addition to the berth, John Radcliffe, who was about to begin a day, good or bad, which would live in his memory-his first at sea in a King’s ship.

Adam could recall his own. Only the faces seemed blurred or merged by time, save for a few.

Jago murmured, “Morgan brought yer boatcloak, Cap’n.” He was standing by the packed hammock nettings, but hardly raised his voice.

“Still got a lot to learn!” Then the familiar chuckle.

The cabin servant had thought of everything that his captain, any captain, might require under any circumstances. But he doesn’t know me yet. That I would freeze or be soaked to the skin rather than take cover on this day.

Adam glanced down and saw that Maddock, the gunner, had paused by one of the upper deck eighteen-pounders as if to speak with its gun captain. A careful man, perhaps still puzzled by the latest order from the admiral’s headquarters ashore.

There will be no salutes fired today, until …

Adam saw him look up, his hand resting on the gun’s wet breech, head half-turned. He was deaf in one ear, common enough in his trade, but quick enough to acknowledge Adam’s private signal from the quarterdeck.

He had heard the first lieutenant brushing Maddock’s question aside, his mind too full of the business of getting Onward under way: “Sir John Grenville, Admiralty. Today’s his funeral. That’s why!” And Vincent had turned away to deal with another problem.