He said abruptly, "Men. We must get more hands. We can train them." Almost bitterly it came out. "We shall have all the time we need!"

"I've done what I can with the watch bills, sir. A mixture of old and new hands in each part of ship."

Adam said, "I am told that we may attract some experienced hands in Penzance." He looked at the stern windows again, trying to accept it. "One of the big packet companies has been forced to give way to competition. With so many trained seamen tossed on the beach they can pick and choose, it would seem!" He made another attempt. "I have obtained some posters. Usher can deal with it."

He stared at the small empty table by the screen door, where Usher his clerk had always sat, quiet and attentive, making notes and copying letters and orders, a handkerchief always balled in one fist, trying valiantly to stifle the coughs. A nervous man who had once been a purser's assistant, he had seemed totally out of place in the crowded confines of a fighting ship.

His lungs had been diseased, all too common in a man-of-war. As the surgeon had put it, Usher had been dying a day at a time.

"Forgive me." It was as if he had spoken to the little clerk, who had finally died on their passage hack from Gibraltar, within a day's sighting of the Cornish coast.

They had buried him at sea. There were no details of home or relatives. lie stared at the curved beams and the reflection of the black and white checkered deck covering. This ship had been Usher's home, too.

lie thought suddenly, painfully, of the big grey house in Falmouth, people crowding around, kindness, warmth, and curiosity.