In his stern cabin Bolitho rested on the bench seat and watched the Valorous outlined against the fading shoreline. It was little more than a blur, a rolling bank of purple, above which the darker smoke of Djafou stained the blue sky in one great sprawling pall.

He thought of Lucey and Lelean, of Witrand and so many others who had been left there forever. Only Draffen had sailed with the squadron, his corpse carefully sealed in a cask of spirits for a more fitting burial whenever the ship might touch England again.

He leaned against the sill, his ears catching the familiar strains of rigging and shrouds, his aching shoulder positioned to avoid the slow plunge and quiver of the hull around him.

Once again he had avoided the fate of others. He touched his shoulder and winced. It would soon be time to have the dressing changed, when he would again hold his breath for fear the wound had worsened.

Then he thought of Catherine Pareja and that last night together in the tower. The simplicity and desperate need as they had lain quite still listening to the murmur of waves on the rocks below the walls. Had he not been so badly wounded would he still have behaved like that? Would he have allowed it to happen? Even as he remembered their quiet embrace, he knew the answer, and was ashamed.

* * *

Spargo, the Euryalus’s surgeon, proffered one of his square, hairy hands and said, “Here, sir, take a good grip.”

Bolitho stood up from his desk and glanced at Keverne. “He is a hard taskmaster.” He smiled to hide his anxiety. “I fear we are not giving him enough to do.”

Then he took Spargo’s hand in his own, feeling the cramp tugging at his arm as he exerted all the grip he could muster.

It had been three days since the squadron had left Djafou, and every few hours during that time Spargo had come to attend to the dressings, to probe and examine the wound until Bolitho had imagined he would never be free of its torment.

Spargo released his fingers. “Not too bad, sir.” He spoke with grudging satisfaction, which Bolitho had discovered earlier to be true praise for another man’s work. “But we shall have to see.” As ever, his sheet anchor was a warning. Just in case.

Keverne relaxed slightly. “I will leave you now, sir. That concludes the ship’s affairs for today.”

Bolitho eased his arm back into the sling and walked to the windows. A good half-mile astern he watched Valorous taking in her royals, the seamen like black dots on her yards as they fought with the salt-hardened canvas. It was nearly noon. Three days of battling with unusually perverse winds and every eye watching the dazzling horizon for a sail. Any sail.

The squadron’s position was now about forty miles south-south-west of Cartagena, and had there been an enemy of any sort in view, Broughton’s ships would have been ready and well placed to intercept. As he glanced briefly across the papers on his desk which Keverne had been discussing, he heard the crisp tap of shoes overhead where Broughton paced the poop in solitary detachment, fretting over the failure to find an enemy, or to throw any light on his movements. Bolitho could pity him, for he knew there were already other pressures mounting which could not be postponed much longer.