Honour This Day by Alexander Kent

money.”
    â€œAye, sir.” Haven sounded tense. Angry with himself for not thinking of the obvious. He could scarcely blame Parris for that.
    Bolitho glanced around as the shadows nearby took on shape and personality. Two young midshipmen, both in their first ship, the officer-of-the-watch, and below the break in the poop he saw the tall, powerful figure of Penhaligon the master. If he was satisfied with their progress you would never know, Bolitho thought.
    â€œDeck there! Upholder in sight!”
    Bolitho guessed the voice was that of Rimer, master’s mate of the watch. He was a small, bronzed man with features so creased that he looked like some seafarer from a bygone age. The other vessel was little more than a blur in the faint daylight, but Rimer’s experience and keen eye told him all he needed to know.
    Bolitho said, “Mr Jenour, get aloft with a glass.” He turned aside as the young lieutenant hurried to the shrouds. “I trust you climb as fast as you ride?”
    He saw the flash of teeth as Jenour grinned back at him. Then he was gone, his arms and legs working with all the ease of a nimble maintopman.
    Haven crossed the deck and looked up at Jenour’s white breeches. “It will be light enough soon, sir.”
    Bolitho nodded. “Then we shall know.”
    He bunched his fists together under his coat-tails as Jenour’s voice pealed down.
    â€œSignal from Upholder, sir! Thor in company! ”
    Bolitho tried not to show excitement or surprise. Imrie had done it.
    â€œAcknowledge!” He had to cup his hands to shout above the slap of canvas and rigging. There was no further signal from Upholder. It meant nothing had gone wrong so far, and that the ungainly lighter was still safely in tow.
    He said, “When the others are in sight, Captain Haven, signal them to proceed while we are all of one mind. There is no time for another conference. Even now there is a chance we might be discovered before we are all in position.”
    He walked to the nettings again. There was no point in showing doubt or uncertainty to Haven. He looked aloft as more and more of the rigging and spars took shape in the sunlight. It was strange that he had never mastered his dislike of heights. As a midshipman he had faced each dash aloft to help shorten or make more sail as a separate challenge. At night in particular, with the yards heeling over towards the bursting spray and the deck little more than a blur far beneath his feet, he had felt an enduring terror.
    He saw some Royal Marines on the mizzen top, their scarlet coats very bright while they leaned over the barricade to watch for the brig Upholder. Bolitho would have dearly liked to climb up past them without caring, as Jenour had done. He touched his left eyelid, then blinked at the reflected sunlight. Deceptively clear, but the worry was always there.
    He looked along the upper deck, the gun crews standing down to go about their normal tasks as the first tension disappeared with the night.
    So many miles. Too many memories. During the night when he had lain awake in his cot listening to the sluice and creak of the sea around the rudder he had recalled another time when Hyperion had sailed this far, while he had been her captain. They had slipped past the Isles of Pascua in the darkness and Bolitho could remember exactly that dawn attack on the French ships anchored there. And it was nine years ago. The same ship. But was he still the same man?
    He glanced up at the mizzen top and was suddenly angry with himself.
    â€œHand me that glass, if you please.” He took it from a startled midshipman and walked purposefully to the weather shrouds. He could feel Haven watching him, saw Parris trying not to stare from the larboard gangway where he was in discussion with Sam Lintott, the boatswain. Probably telling him when to rig the gratings so that punishment could be carried out as ordered.
    Then he saw Allday squinting up from the