“And the others?”

“No sign of the three seamen, but he was carrying the midshipman on his back.” He shrugged wearily. “But he was already dead.”

“Who was it?”

“Mr Lelean, sir.”

Bolitho rubbed his eyes to hold the dragging tiredness and strain away. Lelean? Lelean? Which one was he?

Then he remembered. Keverne leaning over the quarterdeck rail to relay his instructions to the gundecks. Three apprehensive midshipmen. One upturned face had been covered with pimples. Lelean. He had been fifteen years old.

“Ask Mr Calvert to report to me.” He looked at Giffard’s red face. “I will see him alone.”

Allday arrived with a large glass jug filled to the brim with dark red wine. It was very bitter, but at that moment tasted better than any admiral’s claret.

Allday said, “Mr Calvert’s here, Captain!”

“Show him in, and then wait outside.” He watched Allday leave, his shoulders set in stiff disapproval.

Calvert was swaying from exhaustion, and as he stood staring listlessly at Bolitho he looked almost ready to fall.

“Easy, Mr Calvert. Take some of this wine. It will refresh you.”

Calvert shook his head. “I would rather speak, sir.” He shuddered. “I cannot think of anything else.”

In a strange flat voice, broken only occasionally by deep shudders, he told his story.

From the moment he had been landed from a boat things had started to go wrong. The three seamen had deliberately misunderstood his every order, probably testing for themselves the lieutenant’s incompetence which was common gossip throughout the ship.

Lelean, the midshipman, had attempted to restore discipline, but had been unnerved by Calvert’s inability to take charge of three ordinary seamen.

They had made their way inland, pausing frequently while one seaman or the other complained of sore feet, exhaustion and other trivial excuses to rest. Calvert had grappled with the vague map and had tried to gauge their distance from Giffard’s pickets.

He said brokenly, “I got lost. Lelean was trying to help me, but he was just a boy. When I told him I did not know where we were he stood up to me and said that I ought to know.” He moved his hands vaguely. “Then there was the attack. Lelean was hit by a musket ball and two of the seamen killed outright. The third ran off and I never saw him again.”

Bolitho watched his agonised face, seeing the sudden terror in the darkness, the swiftness of death. Probably tribesmen, lurking like jackals for pickings after the fight between Spaniard and Englishman.

Calvert was saying, “I carried Lelean for miles. Sometimes we hid in the scrub, listening to the others talking. Laughing.” His voice broke in a sob. “And all the time Lelean kept repeating how he trusted me to get him to safety.” He looked at Bolitho, his eyes blurred and unseeing. “He actually relied on me!”

Bolitho stood up and poured a goblet of wine. As he thrust it into Calvert’s hand he asked quietly, “Where were you when the marines found you?”