“Yessir.” The boy was animated now, nodding and smiling. “Mr. Huxley has made things much easier for me.”

Radcliffe was a replacement for Deacon, the senior midshipman, who had left the ship to prepare for the Board, the vital examination which would decide his future, that step from midshipman’s berth to wardroom and a career as a King’s officer. They all joked about it, and poured scorn on the grim-faced senior captains who usually comprised each Board. But only afterwards. Adam had never forgotten. And neither did any one else, if he had any sense.

They would miss Deacon. Keen and quick-witted, he had been in charge of Onward‘s signals crew, the “eyes” of the ship. Adam remembered him when Onward had been beginning her approach to Gibraltar, or on their way home from the Mediterranean, and after their savage clash with, and capture of, the renegade frigate Nautilus. Men had been killed, others wounded, and the ship still bore the scars and reminders. And he recalled pride, too. On that morning with the Rock looming against a clear, empty sky, Deacon had written down Adam’s signal in full before having it run up to the yards. His Britannic Majesty’s Ship Nautilus is rejoining the Fleet. God Save the King.

The midshipman was still waiting beside the old bergere where Adam was seated, body swaying to Onward‘s movement as another offshore gust hissed against the hull.

“My compliments to Mr. Vincent. I shall be joining him on deck directly.”

Vincent would understand. But when Onward had first commissioned and Adam had been appointed in command, they had remained strangers until … Until when?

He heard the screen door close, voices: Midshipman Radcliffe on his way back to the quarterdeck with his captain’s message.

Of one company. This was not the time to think of the missing faces, the dead men and the ones who had been put ashore badly wounded. Some would be over there in Plymouth today, watching and remembering as the anchor broke free of the land.