Drinkwater could not sleep. He had dined too well and drunk too deeply; moreover he was of an age now that precluded enjoying a full night's sleep and sometime late in the middle watch he irritably entered the starboard quarter-gallery and squatted inelegantly on the privy.

The dark shapes of the anchored squadron were pin-pricked by points of light, where the poop lanterns glowed and ashore a pair of glims marked the entrance to Calais port. Beneath him Andromeda lifted to a low ground swell and this motion caused her ageing fabric to creak in a mild protest. She was worn out with service. After the pounding she had taken in the action with the Odin she would have been better employed as a hulk, or even broken up. It was ironic that now, at the conclusion of hostilities, and in recognition of her last service attending upon kings and princes, she was fully manned. It was a rare experience for Captain Drinkwater to command one of His Britannic Majesty's cruisers which had a full complement, even after twenty years of war!

He sighed, contemplating the passage of time and feeling not only the ache of his tired body, but a morbid apprehension at his own mortality. He thought often now of death, almost daily since the loss of his friend and sometime lieutenant, James Quilhampton. He felt James's passing acutely and had assumed responsibility for the younger man's widow and child, but the impact upon his own spirit had been severe. He held himself wholly to blame for Quilhampton's death; it was an illogical conclusion. Nathaniel Drinkwater had murdered those whom events cast as enemies of his king and country without remorse, seeing in their deaths the workings of providence, but James's death had been attributable to his following orders, orders that had been given by Nathaniel Drinkwater himself.