In his late twenties, tall and straight, he had swarthy, almost gypsy, good looks. With dark flashing eyes and extremely white teeth, he was a man ladies would be quick to appreciate, Bolitho thought.

Bolitho dismissed him from his mind as the admiral appeared beneath the poop, carrying his hat and blinking his pale eyes in the sunlight.

He stood for several moments watching as the barge was hoisted up and outboard, the tackles squeaking while Tebbutt, the thick-armed boatswain, barked his orders from the starboard gangway.

Bolitho watched him narrowly. The admiral was making every last moment count. Hoarding these small shipboard pictures in his mind.

He heard a familiar voice at his elbow and turned to see Allday, his coxswain, studying him impassively.

Allday showed his teeth. “Good, Captain.” He glanced at the admiral. “Will I take Sir Charles across now?”

Bolitho did not reply at once. How often he had taken Allday for granted. Familiar, loyal and completely invaluable, it was hard to imagine life without him. He was broader now than the lithe topman he had once seen brought aboard his beloved frigate Phalarope as a pressed man so many years back. There were streaks of grey in his thick hair, and his homely, tanned face was more seasoned, like a ship’s timber. But he was really the same as ever, and Bolitho was suddenly grateful for it.

“I will ask him directly, Allday.”

He turned sharply as Keverne said, “Guardboat approaching, sir.”

Bolitho looked across the glittering water and saw an armed cutter moving purposefully towards the anchored three-decker. It was then that he noticed that not a single craft of any kind had made an attempt to leave harbour and follow the guardboat’s example. He felt a twinge of anxiety. What could be wrong? Some sort of terrible fever abroad in the port? It was certainly not the sight of the Euryalus this time. Otherwise the guns in the castle would have announced their own displeasure.

He took a glass from its rack and trained it on the cutter. The tan sails and intent faces of several seamen swam across the lens, and then he saw a naval captain, an empty sleeve pinned across his coat, sitting squarely in the sternsheets, his eyes fixed on the Euryalus. The sight of the uniform and empty sleeve brought a fresh pang to Bolitho’s thoughts. It could have been his dead father returned to the living.

The admiral asked testily, “What is the trouble?”

“Just some formality, Sir Charles.” Bolitho looked at Keverne. “Man the side, if you please.”

Captain Giffard of the marines drew his sword and marched importantly to the entry port, and watched as his men mustered in a tight scarlet squad to receive the ship’s first visitor. Boatswain’s mates and sideboys completed the party, and Bolitho walked down the quarterdeck ladder to join Keverne and the officer of the watch.

The cutter’s sails vanished, and as the bowman hooked on to the chains, and the calls trilled in salute, the one-armed captain clambered awkwardly through the port and doffed his cocked hat to the quarterdeck, where the admiral watched the scene with neither emotion nor visible interest. Perhaps he already felt excluded, Bolitho thought.