He kept seeing Herrick's anxious face. They were almost the same age, and yet Herrick seemed to have grown much older, his brown hair marked here and there like hoar frost. It was hard not to see him as his best friend. He had to think of him as a strength, the flag captain of a squadron which had never acted as a single unit before. A rough task for any man, and for Thomas Herrick. he tried to hold back the sudden" doubts. Herrick's poor beginnings, the son of a clerk, his very honesty which had marked him out as a man who could be trusted under any known circumstances, could hinder his overall judgement. Herrick was a man who would obey any lawful order without question, with no consideration for his own life or ruin. But to assume control of the squadron, if its commodore should die in battle?

It was strange to realise that Lysander's original masters " had fallen at St. Vincent. Her commodore, George Twyford, had been killed in the first broadsides, and her captain, John Dyke, was even now enduring a living hell in, the" naval hospital at Haslar, too cruelly maimed even to feed himself. The same ship had survived them and many more. He looked around the neat cabin with its well-carved chairs and dark mahogany table. He could almost feel them watching him.

He sighed and began to read the despatches.

Bolitho nodded. to the five officers who stood around the cabin table and said, "Please be seated, gentlemen."

He watched them as they eased their chairs towards him, their mixed expressions of pleasure, excitement and curiosity.

It was a very special moment, and he guessed they were all sharing it with him, if for varied reasons.

Farquhar had not changed. Slim and elegant, with the self-assurance he had carried even as a midshipman. Now a post-captain of thirty-two, his ambition shone in his eyes to match his gleaming epaulettes.