The New Year of 1782 was only three days old but already the weather had made a decided change for the worse. Steady drizzle, pushed by a freshening southerly wind, explored the narrow streets of Portsmouth Point and made the stout walls of the old fortifications gleam like polished metal. Moving threateningly above the huddled buildings the cloud was unbroken and the colour of lead, so that although it was all but midday the light was feeble and depressing.

Only the sea was really alive. Across the normally sheltered expanse of the Solent the surface quivered and broke with each eager gust, but in the distorted light the wave crests held a strange yellow hue in contrast with the dull grey hump of the Isle of Wight and the rain-shrouded Channel beyond.

Captain Richard Bolitho pushed open the door of the George Inn and stood for a few moments to allow the drowsy heat to enfold him like a blanket. Without a word he handed hiscloak to a servant and tucked his cocked hat beneath his.arm. Through a door to his right he could see a welcoming fire in the coffee room, where a noisy throng of naval officers, interspersed with a few bright scarlet uniforms of the military, were taking their case and keeping their worries and demands of duty beyond the low, rain-slashed windows.

In another room, grouped in contemplative silence around several small tables, other officers studied their playing cards and the faces of their opponents. Few even glanced up at Bolitho's entrance. In Portsmouth, and at the George Inn in particular, after years of war and unrest, only a man out of uniform might have warranted attention.

Bolitho sighed and took a quick glance at himself in a wall mirror. His blue coat and gold lace fitted his tall figure well, and against the white shirt and waistcoat his face looked unusually tanned. Even allowing for a slow voyage back from the West Indies, his body was still unprepared for an English winter, and he forced himself to stand a little longer to clear the aching cold from his limbs.