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of disproportionate self-confidence so that Drinkwater had difficulty in recognising the frightened boy who had once sobbed in the blackness of Cyclops’s cockpit. Appleby too, had changed. The years had not been kind to him. The once portly surgeon had the loose flesh of penury, something of the old buoyancy was missing, eroded by years of loneliness and hard living, but beneath the ravages of time there were glimpses of the old Appleby, pedagoguish, prolix but astute as ever.
    ‘Bound to be war,’ he had said in answer to Drinkwater’s worried questioning, while White eagerly agreed. ‘And it will be a collision of mighty forces which England will be hard put to defeat. Oh, you can scoff, Mr White, but you siblings that thirst for glory chase moonbeams.’
    ‘He’s still a boy,’ Appleby had muttered when the lieutenant had gone to relieve himself. ‘But God help his men when he’s made post, which will not be long if this war comes soon. I hope their lordships give him a tolerant, experienced and understanding first lieutenant.’
    ‘He’s certainly changed,’ agreed Drinkwater, ‘it seems he’s been spoiled.’
    ‘Promotion too rapid, cully. It works for a few, but not all.’
    No, the dinner had not been a success.
    Yet it was not entirely the bickering of his old friends that had failed to make it so. It was the approach of war that stirred unease in Nathaniel. The faint, inescapable thrill of coming excitement mixed with the fear he had already felt on the beach at Beaubigny caused his pulse to race, even now.
    If war came was this tiny cutter the place to be? What chance had he of promotion? He must not think of competing with White, that was impossible. In any case Kestrel was a fine little ship.
    Providence had brought him here and he must submit to his fate. It had not been entirely unkind to him so far. He contemplated the shelf of books, his own journals and the notebooks left him by Mr Blackmore, late sailing master of Cyclops. He had been touched by that bequest. The mahogany box containing his quadrant was lashed in a corner and his Dollond glass nestled in the pocket of his coat, hung on the door peg with the French sword. A collection of purchases, gifts and loot; the sum total of his possessions. Not much after thirty years of existence. Then his eye fell on the watercolour of the Algonquin off St Mawes, painted for him by his wife.
    A knock at the door recalled him to the present. ‘What is it?’
    ‘Boat, zur.’
    He threw his legs over the rim of the cot. ‘Lieutenant Griffiths?’
    ‘Aye zur.’
    ‘Very well, I’ll be up directly’ He slipped into his shoes and drew on the plain blue coat. Opening the door he jammed his hat on his head and leapt for the ladder, clearing the companionway with a bound and sucking gratefully at the raw, frosty air.
    Griffiths brought orders from the port admiral. That afternoon Kestrel took the tide into the Barn Pool and warped alongside the mast hulk Chichester. The following morning the dockyard officials came aboard and consulted Griffiths. By the time the hands were piped to dinner Kestrel’s standing rigging had been sent down and by nightfall her lower mast had been drawn out of her by the hulk’s sheers. Next day the carpenters were busy altering her carlings to take the new mast.
    ‘We’re to fit a longer topmast,’ Griffiths explained, ‘to set a square t’gallant above the topsail, see.’ He swallowed the madeira and looked at Drinkwater. ‘I don’t think we’ll be playing cat and mouse again, bach, not after that episode at Beaubigny. We’re going to look a regular man o’war cutter when the artificers have finished, and become a bloody nursemaid to the fleet. Now, to other matters. The clerk of the cheque will see the men are paid before Christmas. But they’re to have only half of their due until after, see. Give ‘em the lot and they’ll be leaving their brains in the gutters along with their guts and we’ll have to beg