He saw Neale with his taciturn first lieutenant leaning at the weather side of the quarterdeck, their hair plastered across their faces, their eyes everywhere as they searched for flaws in the patterns of sail-handling and quickness to respond to orders. Later on such failings could lose lives, even the ship. Neale had grown well with his profession, although it was not difficult to see him

as the thirteen-year-old midshipman Bolitho had once discovered under his command. He saw Bolitho and hurried to greet him.

“I shall be shortening sail presently, sir!” He had to shout above the hiss and surge of sea alongside. “But we’ve made a good run today!”

Bolitho walked to the nettings and held on firmly as the ship plunged forward and down, her tapering jib-boom slicing at the drifting spray like a lance. No wonder Adam yearned so much for a command of his own. As I once did. Bolitho looked up at the bulging canvas, the spread legs of some seamen working out

along the swaying length of the main-yard. It was what he missed most. The ability to hold and tame the power of a ship like Styx, to match his skill with rudder and sail against her own wanton desire to be free.

Neale watched him and asked, “I hope we are not disturbing you, sir?”

Bolitho shook his head. It was a tonic, one to drive the anxieties away, to make nonsense of anything beyond here and now.

“Deck there!” The masthead lookout’s voice was shredded by the wind. “Land on th’ weather bow!”

Neale grinned impetuously and snatched a telescope from its rack by the wheel. He trained it over the nettings and then handed it to Bolitho.

“There, sir. France.”

Bolitho waited for the deck to lurch up again from a long line of white horses and then steadied the glass on the bearing. It was getting dark already, but not so much that he could not see the dull purple blur of land. Ushant, with Brest somewhere beyond. Names carved into the heart of any sailor who had sweated out the months in a blockading squadron.