It suddenly hit him. Captain Bolitho had walked down those same stone stairs. Millions of sea officers must have come and gone that way, to promotion, a new ship, to accept orders or face a court-martial. It was easy to imagine. But yesterday the captain had called him aside on this jetty, to tell him that he was being relieved of his command, and was awaiting fresh orders. Not the first lieutenant, or any of the other officers. He told me first.

He said abruptly, "How's the leg, David?"

The boy looked at him, surprised by the use of his name. Like the captain.

"It's getting better." He walked carefully to the edge of the jetty, his eyes on the gig, the same one which had brought them and their kit ashore.

Yovell was on his feet too, watching Jago, remembering their first meeting last year, when Jago had suggested that he was too old for a seagoing job of any kind. They had become friends since then, although neither would ever understand the other. Except today.

Yovell had been there as Captain Adam Bolitho had gone through the final tasks before departure. Papers to be signed and witnessed by Lieutenant Galbraith before he assumed temporary command, probably the only command he would ever hold, although Yovell knew from the dictated letters that the captain had never stopped requesting it on Galbraith's behalf.

He had seen the other side of things when some post had been brought aboard from a courier brig, letters they might have missed several times in the Mediterranean. But not letters he had been expecting, hoping for. Like the small scrap of paper he kept in his personal log book, from the girl he had met on that last visit to Plymouth.