He brushed against the hanging coat and added, "Tomorrow you will receive orders from the flag captain. We can discuss it when I return aboard."

He stared at the envelope still crumpled in his hand. He must think clearly. Empty his mind, as he had forced himself to do when everything had seemed finished. Lost. Two people he had come to know so well since he had taken command of Unrivalled, just over two years ago here in Plymouth: he had been her first captain. Galbraith, strong, reliable, concerned. And the boy David Napier who had almost died, the great, jagged splinter jutting from his leg like some obscene weapon. He had been so brave, then and again later under the surgeon's knife when the wound had become poisoned. Perhaps like himself at that age…

His hands felt as though they were shaking, and the clamour in his mind seemed loud enough to fill the cabin.

When he spoke, his voice was very calm. "I am losing Unrivalled. I am being relieved of command."

So quietly said, while that same voice within screamed, It can't be true! Not this ship! Not yet!

Galbraith took a pace toward him, the strong features laid bare with disbelief and then anger, feeling the hurt like his own.

"It must be wrong, sir. Some fool of a clerk at the Admiralty! " He spread his hands. "After everything you've done? Even the officer of the guard was full of it, all about Lord Exmouth's praise for Unrivalled in the Gazetted

Adam reached for his coat but Napier was already holding it, troubled, but still unable to understand what it would mean. Somehow it helped

to steady him.

"Stay with me, David. There are things I must do." He recalled suddenly what Napier had said when Rear-Admiral Thomas Herrick had asked him if he took care of his captain. We take care of each other. So simply said, yet in this impossible, reeling daze it was something to cling to. Little enough.