The door closed and they were alone again. He might have been a ghost.

Bolitho spread his hands. ‘Maybe I was wrong to let him speak like that. Because he knew my father, I suppose. But the rest…’

Dancer made a cautioning gesture.

‘It cost him something to come here. He was afraid. More than afraid.’ He seemed to be listening. ‘One thing I do know. Captain Greville is on the Board, here and now.’ He regarded Bolitho steadily, his eyes very blue, like the sky which had begun the day. ‘So be warned, my friend.’

The door swung open.

‘Follow me, if you please.’

Bolitho walked out of the cabin, trying to remember exactly what the unknown seaman had said.

But he kept hearing his father’s voice instead, seeing him. It was the closest they had been for a long, long time.

The young midshipman trotted briskly ahead of them, as if he were afraid they might try to break the silence he had maintained. Perhaps it was policy in the flagship to keep candidates from any contact that might prepare or warn them against what lay in store. It was certainly true that they had seen no other ‘young gentlemen’ here for the same rendezvous.

Up another ladder and past one of the long messdecks. Scrubbed tables and benches between each pair of guns: home to the men who worked and fought the ship, and the guns were always here from the moment when the pipe called them to lash up and stow their hammocks, to Sunset and pipe down. The constant reminder that this was no safe dwelling but a man-of-war.

Dancer was close behind him, and Bolitho wondered if he remembered these surroundings as intensely after so many months. Like his own first ship, the noise and the smells, men always in close contact, cooking or stale food, damp clothing, damp everything. Most of the hands were at work, but there were still plenty of figures between decks, and he saw a glance here and there, casual or disinterested; it was hard to distinguish in the gloom. The gunports that lined either beam were sealed, a wise precaution against the January chill and the keen air from the Sound; as in Gorgon, only the galley fires provided any heat, and they would be kept as low as possible to avoid wasting fuel. The purser would make sure of that.