Bolitho had been junior lieutenant in the frigate Destiny when their paths had first crossed. Sent ashore on the thankless task of drumming up recruits for the ship, and with little hope of much success, he had arrived at a small inn with his party of seamen to set up headquarters, and, more to the point, to find some peace and a moment to refresh himself for the

next attempt to obtain volunteers. Tramping from village to village, inn to inn, the system rarely changed? It usually resulted in a collection of those who were either too young for the harsh demands of a frigate or old sailors who had failed to find fortune or success ashore and merely wanted to return and end their days in surroundings they had originally sworn to forsake forever?

Stockdale had been none of these. He had been a prize-fighter, and stripped to the waist had been standing like a patient ox outside the inn while his sharp-faced barker had called upon all and sundry to risk a battering and win a guinea?

Tired and thirsty, Bolitho had entered the inns momentarily leaving his small party to their own devices. Exactly what had happened next was not quite clear, but on hearing a string of curses, mingled with the loud laughter of the sailors, he had hurried outside to find one of his men pocketing the guineZ and the enraged barker beating Stockdale round the head and shoulders with a length of chain. Whether the victorious seaman, a powerful gunner's mate well used to enforcing authority with brute force, had tripped Stockdale or gained a lucky blow was never discovered. Certainly, Bolitho had never see[

Stockdale beaten in any fight, fair or otherwise, since that day. As he had shouted at his men to fall in line again he had realised that Stockdale had been standing as before, taking the unjust punishment, when with one stroke he could have killed the barker who was tormenting him?