And yet, despite the delays and infuriating slackness amongst dockyard men and chandlers, he had seen his ship grow from a disorganized chaos to a living, vital creature.

Frightened men brought aboard by the unrelenting press-gangs, and others gathered by motives as varied as patriotism or merely fleeing into the Navy to avoid a hangman's halter, had been slowly and painstakingly molded into something which, if still far from perfect, could offer hope for the future. The first squall in the Bay as Lysander had crawled south towards Portugal had brought some weakness to light. Too many seasoned hands in one watch, too many landsmen in another. But under Herrick's careful watch, and the efforts of Lysander's remaining backbone of professional warrant officers, they had at least come to terms with the awesome maze of rigging, the rebellious and treacherous folds of canvas which made up their daily lives at sea.

Once at anchor below the Rock, Herrick had waited with growing apprehension for this particular day. More ships had arrived and anchored nearby. The other two seventy-fours, Osiris and Nicator, the frigate Buzzard and the little sloop of war Harebell were no longer separate entities but part of a whole. By order of the Admiralty in London they had become one. The squadron, in which Herrick's ship would hoist the broad pendant of commodore, and over which and through all imaginable circumstances Richard Bolitho would at any moment now be exercising his right of command.

It was strange when Herrick hesitated to consider the matter. It was only four months since he and Bolitho had returned to England from this same sea. After a bloody battle in which Herrick's own ship had been destroyed and a complete French squadron routed or taken, they had gone to the Admiralty together. It still seemed like a dream, a memory of long past.