that, she was flagship of this small squadron anchored in Spit head's fleet anchorage.

He said sharply, Mr Aggett! Your glass, if you please!' Herrick had always been good at remembering names. It took him longer to know their owners.

The midshipman of the watch scurried across the quarterdeck and handed him the big signals telescope.

Herrick trained it across the starboard nettings, seeing the hazy humps of the Isle of Wight beyond the other anchored ships. He studied each vessel with slow, professional interest.

The other three two-deckers, looking almost bright in the dull glare, their closed gunports presenting a chequered pattern above the choppy wavecrests alongside. Indomitable, Captain Charles Keverne. With each ship Herrick pictured her captain in his mind's eye. Keverne had been Bolitho's first lieutenant in the big prize Euryalus. The Nicator, Captain Valentine Keen. They had served together in another ship on the far side of the earth.

Odin, a smaller two-decker of sixty-four guns. Herrick smiled despite his list of anxieties. Her captain was Francis Inch. He had never imagined that the eager, horse-faced Inch would ever have made post-rank. Any more than he had expected it for himself.

The two frigates, Relentless and Styx, were anchored further astern of the squadron, and the smaller sloop, Lookout, was showing her copper in the watery sunlight as she rolled sickeningly to her cable.

All in all it was a good squadron. Its officers and men lacked experience for the most part, but had the youth to make up for it. Herrick sighed. He was forty-three and senior for his rank, but he was content, although he would not have complained about dropping a few years from his age.

Feet thudded on the quarterdeck and he saw the first lieutenant, Henry Wolfe, striding to meet him.