'Well, Mr Drinkwater?' Earl Howe's rich voice drew Drinkwater's attention to the heavy features of the admiral commanding the Channel Fleet. He must make his mind up.

'I would be honoured to accept, my lords.'

Lord Dungarth nodded with satisfaction. 'I am much pleased, Nathaniel, much pleased. I was sorry that you lost your promotion when Hope died.'

'Thank you my lord, I have to admit to it being a bitter blow.' He smiled back trying to bridge the years since he and Dungarth had last met. He wondered if he had changed as much as John Devaux, former first lieutenant of the frigate Cyclops. It was more than the succession to a title that had affected the earl; that alone could not have swamped the ebullient dash of the man. It might have produced his lordship's new introspection but not the hint of implacability that coloured his remarks. That seemed to stem from his mysterious new duties.

A month later Drinkwater had received his orders and the acting commission. His farewell to his wife had affected him deeply. Whatever her own misgivings in respect of his transfer from buoy yachts to an armed cutter, Elizabeth kept them to herself. It was not in her nature to divert his purpose, for she had loved him for his exuberance and watched it wither with regret when the navy had failed him. But she could not disguise the tears that accompanied their parting.

His arrival on board the cutter had been as secret as anyone could have wished. A late October fog had shrouded the Tilbury marshes as he searched for a boat, stumbling among the black stakes that rose out of the mud oozing along the high water mark. Patches of bladder wrack and straw, pieces of rotten wood and the detritus of civilisation ran along the edge of the unseen Thames. Somewhere in the region of Hope he had found a man and a boat and they had pushed out over the glass-smooth grey river, passing a mooring buoy that sheered and gurgled in the tide. A cormorant had started from the white stained staves and overhead a pale sun had broken through slowly to consume the nacreous vapour.