'Very well, Mr Fraser, you may send the men to quarters. In silence, if you will.'

Ballantyne turned and, to avoid his eyes, Drinkwater raised his glass again, studying the curious rig of the closing junk to larboard. He did not want the rat-a-tat-tat of the marine drummer's snare alarming the unpredictable Chinese, despite

Admiral Drury's assurances that a bold front would secure him a safe anchorage with the Indiamen above the Second Bar.

'Sir,' implored Ballantyne, 'I most earnestly entreat you not to compromise my father.'

Hissed at by Comley's mates who were deprived of their pipes at the hatchways, the watch below were pouring up from the berth-deck to take their stations at the quarterdeck guns with the low slap-slap of their bare feet.

'And I entreat you, Mr Ballantyne, to attend to your duty. You are a King's officer now.' Drinkwater looked quickly at Fraser, but the first lieutenant appeared to derive no satisfaction from his rebuke to the newcomer. Chastened, Ballantyne turned away. There were always problems arriving off a foreign coast, Drinkwater reflected, matters of propriety, of the correct number of guns to fire in a salute; of the number to expect in return and of the action to be taken if one did not receive them. He had gathered enough from Drury and Ballantyne himself to realise the delicacy of the balance maintained by the Honourable East India Company and the satellite shipping houses of Calcutta, Madras and Bombay in their relationship with the Celestial Empire of the Son of Heaven.

'The Emperor in Peking, sir, regards King George as a vassal chieftain,' Ballantyne had explained, highly amused, 'such is his ignorance ...'

Drinkwater raised his telescope and studied the junk to the west of them. There would be no exchange of gun-salutes, Drury had said, not until he had concluded his negotiations with the Viceroy.