Bolitho shrugged. "Brave Nelson is dead. So the victory is a hollow one."

There was a tap at the door and Poland stepped into the cabin. The two captains glanced at one another and nodded like old acquaintances, but Bolitho sensed they were completely divided as if by the bars of a smithy's furnace.

"The wind is freshening from the nor'-west, Sir Richard." Poland did not look again at the other man. "Zest's gig is still hooked on to the chains."

Bolitho held out his hand. "I shall see you again, Captain Varian." He relented slightly. "The blockade continues around all enemy ports. It is vital. And though heartened by our victory at Trafalgar, our own forces are weakened by it nonetheless."

The door closed behind them and Bolitho heard the shrill of calls as Varian was piped over the side into his gig.

He moved restlessly about the cabin, remembering one of the meetings he had had with Admiral Sir Owen Godschale at the Admiralty The last one, in fact, when he had outlined the need for urgency The Combined Fleets of France and Spain had been thoroughly beaten, but the war was not won. Already it had been reported that at least three small French squadrons had broken through the tightly-stretched blockade, and had seemingly vanished into the Atlantic. Was this to be Napoleon's new strategy? To raid ports and isolated islands, to prey upon supply ships and trade routes, to give the British squadrons no rest while they the French gathered another fleet?

He could almost smile at Godschale's contemptuous dismissal of the enemy's strength. One group which had outwitted the blockading squadron off Brest had been under the veteran Vice Amiral Leissegues, and his flagship was the 120-gun first-rate Imperial. Hardly small.

The French might even have their eye on Cape Town. It was impossible to guess at the havoc they could create there. They could sever the routes to India and the East Indies as surely as the blade of an axe.