Herrick breathed out noisily. For one brief instant he had imagined it might be a Frenchman. Even out here, alone and unaided, it was not impossible. But the French rarely sailed fast or far by night. Usually they lay to and rode out the darkness. This was no enemy.

As if to open his thoughts Betts yelled, “I know that rig, sir! She’s an English ship right enough!”

“Very well, keep on reporting!” Herrick lowered the speaking trumpet and peered back along the quarterdeck. Even in minutes the place had taken more shape and reality. The deck was pale and grey, and he could see the helmsmen again as familiar faces.

There might be new orders in the other frigate. Maybe the American war was already over and they would return to Brest or England. In his heart Herrick felt a sudden twinge of disappointment. At first the prospect of another long commission in the unhappy Phalarope had appalled him. Now, with the thought that he might never see the West Indies at all, he was not so sure.

Neale slithered straight down a backstay, disdaining shrouds and ratlines, and ran panting to the quarterdeck.

Herrick made up his mind. “My respects to the captain, Mr Neale, and tell him we have sighted a King’s ship. She’ll be up to us in an hour, maybe much less. He will wish to prepare himself.”

Neale hurried down the hatchway and Herrick stared across the tumbling waste of water. Bolitho would be even more concerned, he thought. If the Phalarope was ordered home now, all his plans and promises would be without meaning. He would have lost his private battle before he had had time to begin.

There was a soft step beside him and Bolitho said. “Now, Mr Herrick, what about this ship?”

4

THE SIGNAL

BOLITHO steadied his glasses against the weather rigging and waited for the other ship to leap into focus. In the time it had taken him to walk from his cabin to the quarterdeck and listen to Herrick’s excited report, the dawn sun had slowly clawed its way over the horizon so that already the endless waste of tossing whitecaps was touched with pale gold, the shadows gone from the short, steep waves.

The other vessel made a fine sight in the strengthening light, he thought, with her tall pyramids of full sails and the unbroken curtain of spray bursting around the high bow. She was moving fast, her topmast glittering in the weak sunlight like crucifixes.

Over his shoulder he called, “You have a good lookout, Mr Herrick! He is to be complimented for such an early sighting.”

Even for a trained seaman it was not easy to pick out a ship from the shadows of night and dawn and identify her. She was English right enough, and there was a certain familiarity about her.

Vaguely in the background he could hear the boatswain’s mates calling the hands, the shrill twitter of pipes.

“All hands! All hands! Show a leg!”