He had never spoken her name. But Yovell had seen her just once, when he had been at the old Bolitho house in Falmouth, and a courier had come with orders for Unrivalled and her captain. In a little pony-drawn trap, side by side before she had driven away alone. He had seen him kiss his own wrist, where some tears had splashed down. Like lovers, he had thought. Perhaps another dream?

He put his hand on Napier's shoulder and said, "The hardest part."

Who was he speaking to?

He saw the gig turning slowly toward the jetty steps. At another time it might have been manned entirely by captains of the fleet or squadron. But today, only the abandoned hulks were the spectators.

Jago's lip curled. "What a crew! " He almost spat on the cobbles. "Officers! "

The lieutenants Galbraith, Varlo, and young Bellairs, who had been a midshipman when Unrivalled had first commissioned. Luxmore, the captain of marines, Partridge the boatswain, even Old Blanc the carpenter. Midshipmen too, with Deighton at the tiller by the captain's shoulder.

The bowman, another midshipman, shipped his oar and scrambled into the bows with his boat hook but almost pitched headlong.

"Toss your oars! "

In the sudden silence there was cheering, unbroken but faint in the cold offshore breeze.

Yovell felt the boy's shoulder shiver under his hand. He was an imaginative youth; perhaps he was thinking the same. That the cheers might have come from those listless, empty ships.

Captain Adam Bolitho stood up carefully and waited for the gig to come fast against the stairs.

He heard and saw none of it. It was like a confused dream, and yet each phase stood out as a separate picture. Handshakes, faces thrusting through a mist to speak, to call something, a fist reaching out as he had found his way to the entry port. Even the shrill of calls had sounded different, as if he were an onlooker, somewhere else.