“This morning we fought and beat a French frigate!” He saw some of the men nudging each other and grinning like children. “But more important to me is the fact that we fought as a single unit, as a King’s ship should, and must, fight!” A few of the older seamen nodded soberly, and Bolitho tried to steel himself for what he had to tell them.

It was no use just telling men to fight. They had to be led. It was an act of mutual trust. He cleared his throat. “When you see an enemy ship abeam and the balls begin to fly overhead, you all fight for many reasons.” He looked around their tanned and expectant faces. “You fight out of comradeship, to protect each other, and avenge well-loved friends who have already laid down their lives. Or you fight out of fear, a fear which breeds a power of hatred for the enemy who is always faceless yet ever present. And above all we fight for our ship!” He waved his arm around him. “This is our ship, and will remain so, as long as we have the will to live and die for what is right!”

Some of the men started to cheer again, but he held up his hand, his eyes suddenly sad. “But this short fight today was only a beginning. I cannot tell you how our small deeds will fit into the great pattern of battle, for I do not know. I only know that it is our common duty to fight today, and to fight as we have never done before!”

He had their full attention now, and he hated himself for the truth which had to be told. “This morning we had luck on our side. But before this day dies we will need much more than that.”

As he paused the air seemed to give a sullen shudder, which as every man turned to stare across the captured ship alongside extended into a low, menacing rumble, like thunder across distant hills.

Bolitho continued steadily, “Over there, lads, lies the enemy!”

He watched each man in turn, his heart suddenly dreading what was to come. He had brought them all to this. For no matter what reason, or how justified his efforts might be seen by others, he had committed his ship and his men to the inevitable.

He felt a sudden gust of warm wind at his neck, and as he watched, the low, writhing bank of morning mist began to move clear. One minute the two frigates with the sinking wreck of the Witch of Looe between them made up their own small world. To one beam lay the sun-tinted mist, and to the other the open sea, where night had already crossed the hard horizon, and the topsails of the labouring Cassius showed above its edge, gleaming in the sunlight like a pink shell. Then, as the mist rolled away that small world broke up for ever.

Shrouded in haze to the south-east Bolitho could see the low wedge of Dominica, while away to the north the scattered islands which were called the Saintes. But between these two there was no horizon. It was a sight so vast and so terrible that nobody said a word. From side to side, as far as the eye could reach, the blue water was topped with an unbroken line of ships. There seemed to be no gap between each towering crop of sails, and as the growing sunlight reflected across the apparently motionless panorama of armed might, Bolitho was reminded of an old painting he had seen as a child. The armoured knights at Agincourt, their great horses bedecked in standards and gleaming mail, the proud pennants and banners streaming from lances as they gathered to charge the flimsy line of English archers.