“Do you have any objections, Mr Vibart?” Bolitho eyed him calmly.

“It is not my responsibility, sir.” Vibart dropped his gaze before Bolitho’s cool stare.

Herrick said quickly, “It is a great risk, if I may say so, sir.”

“As is everything worthwhile, Mr Herrick.” Bolitho straightened his back and added briskly: “My compliments to Mr Proby. Tell him to wear ship and steer north-east. We will be sailing close to the wind so it will be nightfall before we reach Mola Island. Before that time there is much to be arranged, gentlemen!”

He looked around their faces and continued, “Put a prize-crew aboard the lugger, and ask Mr Okes to search for the recognition signals. It is my guess that this island will be heavily guarded. The lugger will be too useful to spare for finding the admiral.”

Vibart said sulkily, “The admiral will not be too pleased by your acting like this, sir.”

“And my conscience would never rest if I allowed my own prestige to come before this obvious duty, Mr Vibart!”

His eyes moved to Herrick and Farquhar. “This will be a good opportunity for each of you.” He paused and looked around the cabin. “For the ship, too.”

He waited until the cabin had emptied and then walked to the windows again. For one more minute he allowed the nagging doubts to play havoc with his thoughts. He had acted impetuously and without pausing to consider the possible consequences. Skill and ability were only half the battle. There always had to be a good amount of luck. And if he was mistaken now, there would not be that amount of luck in the whole world.

He saw Ferguson watching from the desk like a mesmerised rabbit and realised that he had forgotten all about his being there. But the story he might repeat on the berth deck might do good for the ship’s dwindling morale, he thought vaguely. If the Phalarope was lucky this time it would make all the difference.

And if not? He shrugged. There would be few survivors to dispute the matter.

Above his head he heard the afterguard tramping with the braces and felt the deck canting slightly as the frigate went about. Momentarily framed in the stern windows he saw the small lugger swinging round to keep station on the quarter, and wondered how many men had already cursed the keen-eyed lookout for sighting her.

Aloud he remarked, “You will have something to tell your wife now, Ferguson. She will be proud of you perhaps?”

* * *

Bolitho heaved himself from the cutter’s sternsheets and allowed groping hands to pull him unceremoniously up and over the lugger’s low bulwark. For several seconds he stood swaying on the unfamiliar deck to allow his eyes to get accustomed to the gloom and the packed figures around him.

Already the cutter had shoved off, and apart from the gleam of white spray around the oars it was lost in the enfolding darkness. Bolitho tried to see where the Phalarope now lay, but she, too, was well hidden, with not one glimmer of light to betray her presence. He tried to hold on to the mental picture of the chart and of the island which now lay somewhere across the lugger’s blunt bows.