Rear-Admiral Drew was nevertheless content with his own lot. There was even the promise of a mistress on a permanent basis now that he had managed to obtain an appointment for her husband, a young captain, in the East Indies.

He stared hard at a huge painting on the opposite wall. It depicted Admiral Vernon's seventy-gun flagship Burford with all flags flying, her broadside battering a Spanish fortress, "The Iron Castle" at Porto Bello, at almost point-blank range. It was how the public, the romantics, liked to imagine a sea-fight, he thought. No blood, no terror of a surgeon's blade, just the majesty of battle.

He permitted himself a small smile. Vernon 's fight had been some half-century ago, but the ships had changed hardly at all since then. No, he decided, his appointment here at the Admiralty was better than any quarterdeck. He would have his mistress, and his elegant London rooms; he would, of course, need to be seen on Sundays in the family pew on his Hampshire estate, with his wife and children.

He returned to the ornate table and sat down without enthusiasm. His clerk had placed his papers in order. The clerk's duty was to interrupt him after a pre-arranged time during each interview. It never stopped.

Soon the French would declare war. One could hardly describe this uneasy pause on the fringe of the Terror as little better anyway. As always England would be unprepared. Ships and men. Ships and men.

His gaze fell on the name on the uppermost sheet. Richard Bolitho Esquire. It looked much-handled, and Drew wished that someone else could take his place today.