'Well, well, we're allies now, eh, damn it. And now the war's over, so 'tis all history, eh what?' The prince looked round beaming, as though he had just carried out a major diplomatic coup and Drinkwater was aware of two officers in the dark green full dress of Russian captains, standing stiffly, their bicorne hats tucked beneath their elbows.

'But you didn't do that in Andromeda, eh?'

'No sir, the razee Patrician ...'

'So what the devil d'you do in the Andromeda, sir? Are you a jobber, or what?'

Despite a supreme effort at self-control, Drinkwater felt himself colouring at the prince's tactless imputation, unaware of the bristling of his fellow officers, manifested by a slight shuffling of feet and a stir as they waited for the presentations to cease and the conversation to become general.

Mercifully, Captain Blackwood was equal to the occasion, 'Captain Drinkwater is a most experienced cruiser commander, sir, he was off Cadiz with me, and Nelson had especially picked him for the Thunderer, but he could not get out from Gibraltar before the action.'

'By God, Drinkwater, that was damned bad luck, what? Picked by Nelson, eh? Wish to God I'd been, instead of being left to rot on shore! By Heaven there's no justice in the sea-service, damned if there is, eh, what?'

The moment of embarrassment passed, the insult turned neatly by Blackwood without the need to reveal Drinkwater's long association with special services, by way of an explanation why so senior a post-captain had yet to tread the quarterdeck of a line-of-battle ship, and why he commanded an obsolescent thirty-two gun frigate that should rightfully have been broken up. Drinkwater moved thankfully aside, leaving young Maude of Jason to His Royal Highness's mercy. As he moved aside, the bubble broke and conversation rose about him like a tide. Perhaps, he thought, taking a glass from a silver tray borne by a pig-tailed and stripe-shirted steward, it had been simmering all the while.