`Mother.'

Bolitho went to her and they embraced for a long moment. And still Dancer watched. Richard, his friend, whom he had come to know so well, usually so good at hiding his feelings behind an impassive face and those calm grey eyes. Whose hair was as black as his own was fair, who could show emotion at the death of a friend, but who had become a lion in battle, looked more like her suitor than a son.

She said to Dancer, `How long?'

It was calmly put, but he sensed the edge in her question.

Bolitho replied for him. `Four weeks. Maybe longer if…'

She reached up and touched his hair.

`I know, Dick. That word if. The Navy must have invented it.'

She put her hands through their arms and linked them together.

`But you will be home for Christmas. And you have a friend. That is good. Your father is still away in India.' She sighed. `And I am afraid Felicity is married and with her husband's regiment in Canterbury.'

Bolitho turned and studied her gravely. He had been thinking only of himself. Of his homecoming, his own pride at what he had done. And she had been made to face everything alone, as was too often the case with the women who married into the Bolitho family.

His sister, Felicity, who was now nineteen, had been very happy to receive one of the young officers from the local garrison. While he was away she had married him, and had gone.

Bolitho had guessed that his only brother, Hugh, would be away. He was four years his senior, the apple of his father's eye, and at present a lieutenant aboard a frigate.

He asked awkwardly, `And Nancy? Is she well, Mother?'