Dancer said in an odd voice, ‘You’ll never know,’ but the smile was back. ‘Bless you!’

‘Mister Midshipman Dancer?’

They were both on their feet, unconsciously, and the screen door was being held partly open by the cabin servant, as if he were guarding it.

There was no time for words; perhaps there were none to say. They touched hands, like two friends passing in the street, and Bolitho was alone.

He wanted to sit down, to gather his thoughts, perhaps in one of those comfortable chairs, as some act of defiance. Instead, he stood directly beneath the skylight and stared up at the mizzen shrouds and the empty sky, and very slowly, an inch at a time, made his mind and body relax, come to terms with this moment. They had even joked about it. Looked sometimes at the lieutenants and wondered if they had ever had qualms, and, in some cases, how they had passed. And again the face and the words of the seaman kept coming back. He should have stopped him there and then. They were all told often enough never to listen to gossip or condone it. In the crowded world of a man-of-war, it could end in face-to-face confrontation, insubordination, or worse.

He concentrated on the screen door. The great cabin was part of, but so completely separate from, this vast three-decker. Here the captain could entertain his particular friends and favoured subordinates, even the most junior if it suited him. Bolitho himself had been invited into the captain’s quarters aboard Gorgon on two occasions, once on the King’s birthday, when as the youngest present he had been required to give the Loyal Toast, and another to wait upon some female guests, and ensure that they did not stumble on the ladders between decks or entangle their gowns while entering or leaving the boats alongside.

He thought of Dancer again. Always so at ease with women, outwardly anyway. It was not something false, or done for effect; Bolitho had known plenty like that. Martyn Dancer was of a different breed, something he had noticed even when they had first met. His father was a wealthy, worldly man, of influence and authority, who had made it plain from the outset that he was opposed to his son’s choice of career. Throwing his wits to the wind, as he had put it more than once.