Sitting in one of the boats Drinkwater continually verified their position, his quadrant horizontal, the images of two spires and a windmill in alternating sequence as he made minute adjustments to the index. His voice cracked with shouting instructions to the other boat, his eyes streamed at the effort of adjusting to look for Jessup's wave before refocusing on the reflected images of his marks. The two boats trailed their grapnels up and down the sea bed for hours before they were successful. What was in the little barrels Drinkwater never discovered for certain. Griffiths merely smiled when he eventually reported their success. It crossed his mind it might, quite simply, be cognac; that Griffiths as a man entrusted with many secrets might have capitalised on the advantages his position offered. After all, thought Drinkwater, it was in the best traditions of naval peculation and there was the matter of a few loose gold coins he had himself acquired when he retook the Algonquin in the last war. Somehow it was reassuring to find Griffiths had some human failings beyond the obvious one of enjoying his liquor. Certainly Kestrel never lacked strong drink and Griffiths never stinted it, claiming with a mordant gleam in his eye, that a good bottle had more to offer a man than a good woman.

'A woman, look you, never lets you speak like a bottle does, boyo. She has the draining of you, not you her, but a bottle leaves your guts warm afterwards…' He finished on a long sigh.

Drinkwater smiled. In his half-century at sea poor Griffiths could only have experienced the fleeting affection of drabs. Hugging his own knowledge of Elizabeth to him Nathaniel had felt indulgent. But he had not refused the cognac that made its appearance after the day off St Valery.

Certainly Griffiths was unmoved by the presence of women which always sent a wave of lust through the cutter when they transferred fugitives from French fishing boats.