Bolitho waited for the glasses to be refilled and tried to contain his new excitement. The Styx ’s stern cabin looked snug and pleased with itself in the glow of the deckhead lanterns, and although the hull groaned and shuddered around them, Bolitho knew that the sea was calmer, that true to the sailing-master’s prediction the wind had backed to the north-west.

He looked around the small group, and although it was black beyond the stern windows he could picture the other two frigates following in line astern while their captains awaited his pleasure. Only Rapid ’s young commander was absent, prowling somewhere to the north-east in readiness to dash down and alert his consorts if the French attempted a breakout under cover of darkness.

How would the parents and families feel if they could see their offspring on this night, he wondered? The bluff, red-faced Duncan of Sparrowhawk, relating with some relish, and to Neale’s obvious amusement, a recent entanglement with a magistrate’s wife in Bristol. Emes of the Phalarope, alert and very self-contained, watching and listening. Browne leaning over the fat shoulders of Smith, Neale’s clerk, and murmuring about some item or other.

Aboard the three frigates of Bolitho’s small force the first lieutenants would in turn be wondering at the outcome of this meeting. What would it mean to each of them personally? Promotion, death, even a command if their lord and master should fail.

The clerk straightened his shoulders and silently withdrew from the cabin.

Bolitho listened to the sluice of water around the rudder, the faint tap, tap, tap of halliards, and a restless step of a watchkeeper overhead. A ship. A living thing.

“Gentlemen. Your health.”

Bolitho sat down at the table and turned over a chart. The three ships were standing inshore towards the Loire Estuary, but that was nothing unusual. British ships, in company or alone, had done it a thousand times to keep the French fleet guessing and to sever their precious lines of supply and communication.