Like most serving officers, Bethune had become accustomed to the exaggerated assurances and the promises of final victory.

Reports arrived daily with news that Wellington 's armies were breaking through one French strongpoint after another; the invincible Napoleon was claimed to be on the run, deserted by all but his faithful marshals and his Old Guard.

What did all those people down there really believe, he wondered. After so many years of war with the familiar enemy, was the prospect of peace still only a dream? He moved back into the room and stared at the painting on one wall, a frigate in action, sails pitted with shot, a full broadside spitting fire at the enemy. It was Bethune's last command. He had confronted two big Spanish frigates, unfortunate odds even for a captain as eager as he had been. After a brisk engagement, he had run one Spaniard ashore and captured the other. Flag rank had followed almost immediately.

He looked at the ornate clock with its simpering cherubs and thought of the one man he admired, perhaps envied, more than any other.

Sir Richard Bolitho was back in England, fresh from that other war with the United States; Bethune had seen the letter the First Lord of the Admiralty had sent to him in Cornwall, recalling him to London. Bolitho had been his captain all those years ago in the sloop-of-war Sparrow. Another war, but they had been fighting Americans even then, a new nation born of revolution.

No reason for the recall had been offered. Surely Sir Richard Bolitho deserved a rest after all he had done? He thought, too, of the lovely Catherine Somervell, who had come to this very office to see him. He often thought of them, together.

And when the impossible had come to pass, and there was peace again, permanent or not, what would happen to Bolitho, and to all the men he had known on his way up the ladder from midshipman's berth to Admiralty? What will happen to me? It was the only life he knew. It was his world.