Alexander Kent - COLOURS ALOFT!

She looked at Keen's anxious face and said, "You, sir?" It was little more than a whisper. "It was you?"

She had a soft, West Country voice. It was impossible to imagine her standing trial and being transported in that filthy vessel with the other prisoners.

"Yes." Around him the ship kept up her continuous chorus of creaks and groans with the occasional boom of water beyond the massive timbers as the keel crashed into a trough. But Keen was conscious only of stillness, as if all time had suddenly stopped.

He heard himself ask, "What's your name?"

She glanced quickly at the surgeon, who nodded encouragingly.

"Carwithen." She clutched the sheet tighter as Tuson readjusted the dressings on her back. "Where are you from?"

"Dorset, sir, from Lyme." Her small chin lifted briefly and he saw it tremble. "But I'm Cornish really."

Tuson grunted, "Thought so." He straightened his back. "Now lie still, and don't open the cut again. I'll have some food brought down." He turned to the door and beckoned to his waiting assistant.

She looked at Keen once more and said in a hoarse whisper, "You really are the captain, sir?"

Keen knew that her guard was about to break. He had grown up with two younger sisters and knew the first signs. God alone knew, she had suffered enough.

He moved to the door, pausing as the hull dipped and then reluctantly lifted her eighteen hundred tons for the next challenge. The girl did not take her eyes from his face. "What will you have done with me, sir?"

Her eyes were shining. He must not be here when the tears broke through.

Instead he asked bluntly, "What's your first name?"

She seemed caught off balance. "Zenoria."

He backed away. "Well, Zenoria, do as the surgeon directs. I will ensure that no harm comes to you."

He passed the sentry without even seeing him.

What had he done? How could he promise her anything, and why should he? He did not even know her.

As he hurried up the first companion ladder he already knew the answers to both questions. It was madness. I must be mad.

It seemed to mock him and he was suddenly grateful to see the sky once again.

Lieutenant Hector Stayt leaned over the table and placed another copy of Bolitho's orders for his signature. They would be passed to all the other captains when they finally anchored at Gibraltar. That would be in two days' time if the wind remained in their favour. It had been a long, empty week since the incident aboard Orontes, but now, as the small squadron steered to the south-east with the Spanish coastline from Cadiz to Algeciras barely visible to the most keen-eyed lookout, the passage was almost over.

Bolitho glanced over Yovell's round handwriting before putting his own signature at the bottom. The same orders but each would be interpreted differently by the captains who read them. Once in the Mediterranean there would be neither time nor opportunity to get to know his officers nor they him.

He thought of Keen and his visits to their unexpected passenger. The French builders had allowed an extra chart space abaft the master's cabin, and this had been made as comfortable as possible for the girl Zenoria Carwithen. A cot, a mirror, some clean sheets from the wardroom had somehow transformed it. Ozzard had even managed to discover a spare officer's commode in the hold and had installed it for her use. They must not get too fond of the idea of having her aboard, he thought. Once at the Rock…

Stayt said, "I did hear something about that girl, Sir Richard."

It was not the first time the flag-lieutenant had seemed to read Bolitho's thoughts. It was unnerving and irritating.

"And?" Bolitho looked up from the table.

Stayt sounded almost indifferent now that he had his admiral's attention.

"Oh, she was mixed up in a riot of some kind, I understand. It was near to my father's property. Someone was murdered before the military arrived." He gave a thin smile. "Late as usual."

Bolitho looked past him at the swords on their rack. One so bright and gleaming, the other almost shabby by comparison.

Stayt took his silence for interest. "Her father was hanged."

Bolitho dragged out his watch and opened the guard. "Time to exercise the squadron's signals, Mr Stayt. I'll be up directly."

Stayt left. He had a springy walk; it seemed to show his great self-confidence.

Bolitho frowned. Conceit anyway.

Yovell moved to the table and gathered up the papers. He glanced at Bolitho over his small gold spectacles and said, "It wasn't quite like that, Sir Richard."

Bolitho looked at him. "Tell me. I'd like to hear it. From you."

Yovell smiled sadly. "Carwithen was a printer, sir. A fine one, I'm told. Some of the farmworkers asked him to print some handbills, a sort of protest it was, about two landowners who had been keeping them short of money and chattels. Carwithen was a bit of a firebrand by all accounts, believed in speaking his mind, especially when others were being wronged." He flushed but Bolitho nodded.

"Speak as you will, man."

It was strange that Yovell should know. He lived at the Bolitho house when he was ashore, but he was a Devonian, a "foreigner" as far as local folk were concerned. Yet he always seemed to know about the people around him.

"Carwithen's wife had died previous to that, so they sent the girl out of the county."

"To Dorset?"

"Aye sir, that were it."

So something else must have happened since the "riot" as Stayt had described it.

He heard the trill of calls from the quarterdeck as the signalling party were mustered under Stayt's eagle eye. Signals, especially in battle, should be few, short and precise.

Bolitho made up his mind and said, "Fetch Allday."

Allday glanced questioningly at the secretary as they entered, but Yovell merely shrugged his sloping shoulders. "Sir?"

"Go with Yovell and fetch that girl aft." He saw their surprise. "Now, if you please."

Keen would be busy on deck watching the other ships as they acknowledged and obeyed the signals from the flag.

Allday's jaw looked stubborn.

"If you thinks it's wise, sir-"

Bolitho eyed him firmly. "I do."

He saw Ozzard lifting his coat from a chair but shook his head. Any sort of liaison would be destroyed before it had begun if she found herself confronted by a vice-admiral.

From what Keen and Tuson had said she seemed to be an intelligent girl, and her father's influence had obviously gained her some education.

He was interfering, but he had seen Keen's face whenever he had mentioned the girl. Bolitho had not forgotten what it was like; he must act before the girl was taken from the ship.

He was totally unprepared for what happened next.

Yovell opened the screen door and the girl walked hesitantly towards the stern cabin. Against Allday's powerful figure she looked small, but her head was up, and only her eyes moved as she paused below the skylight.

She was dressed in a white shirt and breeches of one of the midshipmen, and her long brown hair was pulled back to the nape of her neck with a ribbon, so that she almost looked as if she belonged in the gunroom. But her feet were bare, small like her hands, and Yovell explained hastily, "Even the young gentlemen didn't have shoes small enough for her."

Bolitho said, "Sit down. I wish to talk with you."

He saw the stiff way she held her shoulder. Tuson had said her back would be scarred for life. And that had been from just one stroke.

"I should like to know-" He saw her eyes level on his; they were dark brown, misty. No wonder Keen was under some kind of magic. "-what brought you to these circumstances."

Yovell murmured, "Tell, Sir Richard, lass, he'll not eat you."

She started with alarm, her lips parting as she exclaimed, "Sir Richard!"