Allday stood up and turned beside the cannon, his head bowed between the beams.

“But she’s not like the others!”

Bolitho bit back the sharp retort as quickly as it had formed. Why take it out on Allday? Like the midshipman on the quarterdeck who had unwittingly broken the news, he was not to blame.

Bolitho said quietly, “No, Allday, she’s not. I won’t deny it. But it rests between us. You know how sailors love to create mystery when there is none. We’ll need all our wits about us in the next month or so without lower deck gossip. We cannot afford to look back.”

Allday sighed. The sound seemed to rise right up from his shoes.

“I expect you’re right, sir.” He tried to shake himself free of it. “Anyway, I must get you ready for the wardroom. It’ll be something for ’em to remember.” But his usual humour evaded him.

Bolitho walked to the cabin door. “Well, let’s be about it then, shall we?”

Allday followed him, deep in thought. Nineteen years ago it was. When Bolitho had not been much older than his nephew, Mr Pascoe. There had been plenty of danger and cut-and-thrust since then, and all the while they had stayed together. A pressed seaman and a youthful captain who had somehow turned a ship blackened by every sort of tyranny into one to win the hearts and pride of her company. Now she was coming back down the years, like a phantom ship. To help or to haunt, he wondered?

He saw Bolitho standing by the stern windows watching the light dying across the frothing water beneath the frigate’s counter.

He cares all right. Most likely more than I do.

Under shortened canvas the frigate turned on to her new course and pointed her bowsprit towards the Bay, and a rendezvous.

3. Return of a Veteran

CAPTAIN John Neale of the frigate Styx broke off his morning discussion with his first lieutenant and waited for Bolitho to leave the companion-way. This was their seventh day out of Plymouth, and Neale was still surprised at his admiral’s unflagging energy.