He glanced sideways at Herrick and said abruptly, “You have been aboard for two years, I believe?” He watched the guard drop behind the lieutenant’s eyes. He had an open, homely face, yet there was this reserve, this caution, which seemed to symbolise for Bolitho the attitude of the whole ship. It was as if they were all cowed to a point where they neither trusted nor hoped. He added, “According to the log you were officer of the watch when the trouble started?”

Herrick bit his lip. “Yes, sir. We were beating up from Lorient. It was during the middle watch and quiet for the time of year.”

Bolitho watched the uncertainty crossing the man’s face and felt a touch of pity. It was never easy to be the junior lieutenant in a ship-of-war. Promotion was slow and hard without either luck or influence. He thought of his own first chance, how easily it might have gone against him. One piece of luck had followed hard upon another. As a lieutenant in a ship of the line, at the very time of the American rebellion, he had been sent away in charge of a prize-crew in a captured brig. While heading towards Antigua he had fallen upon a privateer and had fooled her captain into believing that his brig was still an ally. A rush of boarders, a swift and savage clash of steel, and the second ship had been his. Upon arrival at Antigua he had been welcomed by the Commander-in-Chief like a hero. Victories had been scarce, and reverses only too many.

So at the age of twenty-four he had been given command of the Sparrow. Again luck had guided his footsteps. The sloop’s original commander had died of fever, and her first lieutenant was too junior for the coveted post.

He forced the sympathy to the back of his mind. “How many men were in the mutiny?”

Herrick replied bitterly, “No more than ten. They were trying to release a seaman called Fisher. Captain Pomfret had had him flogged for insubordination the previous day. He had been complaining about the foul food.”

Bolitho nodded. “That is not uncommon.”

“But Captain Pomfret was not satisfied!” The words burst from his lips in an angry flood. “He had him lashed to the bowsprit, without allowing the surgeon even to treat his back!” He shuddered. “In the Bay of Biscay, with frost on the rigging, and he left him lashed there like so much meat!” He controlled himself with an effort and muttered, “I am sorry, sir. I keep thinking about it.”

Bolitho thought back to Pomfret’s neat, matter-of-fact recording in the log. The protesting seaman had rushed the quarterdeck and overpowered the quartermaster and master’s mate at pistol point. Only Herrick, a man who obviously agreed with everything the seamen had offered as a grievance, stood between them and a full-scale mutiny. Somehow or other he had cowed them with words. He had ordered them back to the forecastle and they had obeyed because they trusted him. The next day Pomfret’s vengeance had broken over the ship in a wave of ferocity. Twenty floggings, and two men hanged. He would not wait until the Phalarope rejoined the fleet, nor would he wait for higher authority to gauge his actions. Herrick’s bitterness was well founded, or was it? On the face of it, Pomfret was within his rights. Perhaps Herrick should have shot down the mutineers, or even have foreseen the coming danger. He could have summoned the afterguard, given his life if necessary. Bolitho chilled at the thought of what might have happened if Herrick too had been overcome while he tried to reason with the desperate seamen. The sleeping officers would have been slaughtered, the ship thrown into chaos in enemy waters. It did not bear thinking about.