Up on the poop, shaded by a small awning, he could see Draffen’s stocky figure pacing back and forth, up and down, his shoes clumping noisily on the sun-dried planking.

Keverne crossed to Bolitho and said wearily, “It matches your own calculation, sir.” Like the other officers he had discarded coat and hat, and his shirt was clinging to his body like another skin. He sounded too tired for either admiration or surprise at his findings.

It had been an uneventful night, with the squadron sailing well and keeping their allotted stations. At dawn Broughton had come on deck, something so unusual as to give Bolitho a warning of the day’s importance.

As the signals had soared aloft for the new course, and preparations for cleaning ship and preparing breakfast had begun, Broughton had remarked sourly, “We are supposed to be contacted by one of Sir Hugo’s friends this forenoon. By God, I hate to have to rely on some damned amateur!”

He did not say if he was describing Draffen or his agent, and the look on his face decided Bolitho against even tactful questioning.

Draffen’s earlier confidence had visibly faded as the searing morning had dragged on. Any sudden shout from one of the ship’s company made him pause in his walk and stand stockstill until he had found the cry to be meaningless.

Bolitho said, “Well, Mr Keverne, there is nothing we can do at present.”

Two hours earlier the masthead lookout had hailed the deck, and as every eye had been raised to his tiny, swaying perch some two hundred feet above their heads, he had reported sighting land.

In spite of his hatred for any sort of height, Bolitho had made himself climb up the dizzy, vibrating ratlines, past the maintop, on and up until he had joined the pigtailed seaman who had made the report.

With his legs wrapped tightly around the crosstrees he had forced himself to ignore the deck far below him and had concentrated on opening his telescope, aware the whole time that the lookout was whistling between his teeth and not even bothering to hold on.

The sight was almost worth the anguish and embarrassment of the climb. There, far to the south, was a long, uneven ridge of mountains, ice blue in the harsh sunlight, disconnected from the land by sea mist, and strangely beautiful. The African coast. The mountains, he had estimated, were nearly thirty miles distant, but seemed unreachable and without reality.

Now, once again there was no sight of land, and away on either beam the sea danced and glittered in millions of blinding reflections, so that seamen working aloft and along the braced yards fumbled and groped with each precarious movement, their eyes too dulled by glare to be trusted.

The other ships had become more separated, so that the line was well stretched, the Tanais being some two miles ahead of Euryalus.

Broughton had conceded that if they were to be sighted by some small sailing vessel carrying Draffen’s agent it was prudent to extend the formation. And if seen by less friendly eyes it would be well to make the squadron appear as large as possible. Far away to leeward the sloop’s topsails shone like burnished steel as she pushed busily downwind like a terrier sniffing out a rabbit.