She had once been named Tornade, flagship of the French admiral Lequiller who had broken the British blockade to cross the Atlantic as far west as the Caribbean, there to cause havoc and destruction until finally run to earth by an inferior British squadron in the Bay of Biscay. She had struck her colours to Bolitho’s own ship, the old Hyperion, but not before she had pounded the worn two-decker almost into a floating wreck.

The Lords of the Admiralty had decided to rename Bolitho’s great prize, mostly it seemed because Lequiller had outwitted them on more than one occasion. It was strange, Bolitho had thought, that those who controlled His Majesty’s Navy from the heights of Admiralty seemed to know so little of ships and men that such changes were thought necessary.

Only the Euryalus’s new figurehead was English. It had been carved with great care by Jethro Miller at St Austell in Cornwall, as a gift from the people of Falmouth to one of their most popular sons. Miller had been Hyperion’s carpenter and had lost a leg in that last terrible battle. But he still retained his skill, and the figurehead which stared with cold blue eyes from the bows with shield and upraised sword had somehow given the Euryalus a small change of personality. It bore little resemblance perhaps to the hero of the Siege of Troy, but it was enough to strike fear into the heart of any enemy who might see it and know what was about to follow.

For the great three-decker was a force to be reckoned with. Built at Brest by one of the best French yards, she had all the modern refinements and improvements to hull design and sail plan that any captain could wish.

From figurehead to taffrail she measured two hundred and twenty-five feet, and within her two thousand ton bulk she carried not only a hundred guns, including a lower battery of massive thirty-two-pounders, but a company of some eight hundred officers, seamen and marines. She could, when handled properly, act and speak with authority and devastating effect.

When she had commissioned, Bolitho had been made to take every man he could get to crew her constant demands and requirements. Pale-skinned debtors and petty thieves from the jails, a few trained men from other ships laid up for repairs, as well as the usual mixture of characters brought in by the dreaded press-gangs. For they had been hard times, and an ever-demanding fleet had already sifted and poached through every port and village in search of men, and with growing fears of a French invasion no captain could allow himself the luxury of choice when it came to gathering hands to fight his ship.

There had been volunteers too, mostly Cornishmen, who knew Bolitho’s name and reputation even, although many of them had never laid eyes on him in their lives.

It should have been a great step forward for Bolitho, as he had told himself often enough. The Euryalus was a fine ship, and a new one. Not only that, she represented an open acknowledgement of his past record as well as the obvious stepping stone to advancement. It was something dreamed about by every ambitious sea officer, and in a Service where promotion often depended on the death of an officer’s superior, the Euryalus must have been watched with both admiration and envy by those less fortunate.