Allday had heard them talking about the man he served and loved as he loved none other. He had wondered what he had really been thinking as Truculent had ploughed through each long day. Something apart. Not their ship. He let his mind explore the thought, like fingers probing a raw wound. Not like the old Hyperion.

October 15th, less than four months ago. Was that all it was? In his heart he could still feel the crash and roar of those terrible broadsides, the screams and the madness, and then-The old pain lanced through his chest and he clutched it with his fist and gasped in great mouthfuls of air, waiting for it to ease. Another sea, a

different battle, but always a reminder of how entwined their lives had become. He could guess what the stiff-faced Poland thought. Men like him could never understand Richard Bolitho. Nor would they.

He massaged his chest and gave a little, private smile. Yes, they had seen and done so much together. ViceAdmiral Sir Richard Bolitho. Even their paths had been spliced by fate. Allday wiped the spray from his face and shook his long pigtail over his collar. Most folk probably believed that Bolitho wanted for nothing. His last exploits had swept the seaports and taverns of England. A ballad had been composed by Charles Dibdin or one of his fellows: "How Hyperion Cleared the Way! " The words of a dying sailor whose hand Bolitho had held on that awful sunlit day, although he had been needed in a hundred other places at once.

But only those who had shared it really knew. The power and the passion of the man behind the gold lace and gleaming epaulettes, who could lead his sailors, be they half-mad, half-deafened by the hellish roar of battle; who could make them cheer even in the face of the Devil and the moment of certain death.

And yet he was the same one who could turn up the noses of London society, and invite gossip in the coffee houses. Allday straightened and sighed. The pain did not return. Yet. They would all be surprised if they knew just how little Bolitho did have, he thought.