A HERO REMEMBERED

Lieutenant Leigh Galbraith strode aft along the frigate's main deck and into the shadows of the poop. He was careful not to hurry, or to show any unusual concern which might create rumour amongst the groups of seamen and marines working at their various forenoon tasks.

Galbraith was tall and powerfully built, and had learned the hard way to accustom himself to low deckhead beams in one of His Britannic Majesty's ships of war. He was Unrivalled's first lieutenant, the one officer who was expected to maintain order and discipline as well as oversee the training of a new ship's company. To assure his captain that she was in all respects an efficient unit of the fleet, even to assume command at any time should some disaster befall him.

The first lieutenant was twenty-nine years old, and had been in the navy since the tender age of twelve like many of his contemporaries. It was all he had known, all he had ever wanted, and when he had been promoted to acting commander and given a ship of his own he had thought himself the luckiest man alive. A senior officer had assured him that as soon as convenient he would take the next step, make the impossible leap to full captain, something which had once seemed like a dream.

He paused by an open gunport and leaned on one of the frigate's thirty eighteen-pounders, and stared at the harbour and the other anchored ships. Carrick Roads, Falmouth, glittering in the May sunshine. He tried to contain the returning bitterness, the anger. He might have had a command like this fine ship. Could. Might. He felt the gun's barrel warm under his fingers, as if it had been fired. Like all those other times. At Camperdown with Duncan, and at Copenhagen following Nelson's flag. He had been commended for his coolness under fire, his ability to contain a dangerous situation when his ship was locked in battle with an enemy. His last captain had put his name forward for a command. That had been the brig Vixen, one of the fleet's workhorses, expected with limited resources to perform the deeds of a frigate.

Just before he had been appointed to Unrivalled he had seen his old command lying like a neglected wreck, awaiting disposal or worse. The war with France was over, Napoleon had abdicated and been sent into exile on Elba. The impossible had happened, and with the conflict in North America being brought thankfully to a close by Britain and the United States alike, the prospect of peace was hard to accept. Galbraith was no different; he had never known anything but war. With ships being paid off, and men discharged with unseemly haste with neither prospects nor experience of anything but the sea, he was lucky to have this appointment. More than he deserved, some said behind his back.

He had been pulled around the ship an hour earlier in the jolly-boat, to study the trim as she lay motionless above her own reflection. She had been in commission for five months, and with her rigging and shrouds blacked-down, each sail neatly furled to its yard, she was a perfect picture of the shipbuilder's art. Even her figurehead, the naked body of a beautiful woman arched beneath the beak-head, hands clasped behind her head, breasts thrust out in a daring challenge, was breathtaking. Unrivalled was the first to carry that name on the Navy List, the first of the bigger frigates which had been hastily laid down to meet the American threat, which had cost them dearly in a war neither side could win. A war which was already becoming a part of history.

Galbraith plucked his uniform coat away from his chest and tried to push the resentment aside. He was lucky. The navy was all he knew, all he wanted. He must remember that at all times.

He heard the Royal Marine sentry's heels click together as he approached the screen door to the aftermost cabins.

"First lieutenant, sir!"

Galbraith gave him a nod, but the sentry's eyes did not waver beneath the brim of his leather hat.

A servant opened the door and stood aside as Galbraith entered the captain's quarters. Any man would be proud, honoured to have her. When Galbraith had stood watching with the assembled ship's company and guests as the ship's new captain, her first captain, had unrolled his commission to read himself in and so assume command, he had tried to banish all envy and accept the man he was to serve.

After five months, all the training and the drills, the struggle to recruit more landmen to fill the gaps once the pressed hands had been discharged, he realised that Captain Adam Bolitho was still a stranger. In a ship of the line it might be expected, especially with a new company, but in frigates and smaller vessels like his Vixen it was rare.

He watched him warily. Slim, hair so dark it could have been black, and when he turned away from the stern windows and the reflected green of the land, the same restlessness Galbraith had noticed at their first meeting. Like most sea officers, he knew a lot about the Bolitho family, Sir Richard in particular. The whole country did, or seemed to, and had been stunned by the news of his death in the Mediterranean. Killed by a marksman in the enemy's rigging, the very day Napoleon had stepped ashore in France after escaping from Elba. The day peace had become another memory.

Of this man, Sir Richard Bolitho's nephew, he had heard only tidbits, although nothing remained secret for long in the fleet. The best frigate captain, some said; brave to a point of recklessness, others described him. He had been given his first command, a brig like Galbraith's, at the age of twenty-three; and later lost his frigate Anemone fighting a vastly superior American force. Taken prisoner, he had escaped, to become flag captain to the man who was now Flag Officer, Plymouth.

Adam was looking at him now, his dark eyes revealing strain, although he was making an effort to smile. A youthful, alert face, one which would be very attractive to women, Galbraith decided. And if some of the gossip was to be believed, that was also true. Galbraith said, "The gig is lowered, sir. The crew will be piped at four bells, unless ..."

Adam Bolitho moved to the table and touched the sword which was lying there. Old in design, straight-bladed, and lighter than the new regulation blades. It was part of the legend, the Bolitho sword, worn by so many of the family. Worn by Richard Bolitho when he had been marked down by the enemy.

Galbraith glanced around the cabin, the eighteen-pounders intruding even here. When cleared for action from bow to stern Unrivalled could present a formidable broadside. He bit his lip. Even if they were so badly undermanned. There were cases of wine waiting to be unpacked and stowed; he had seen them swayed aboard earlier, and knew they had come from the Bolitho house here in Falmouth, which would be the captain's property now. Somehow it did not seem to fit this youthful man with the bright epaulettes. He noticed, too, that the cases were marked with a London address, in St James's Street.

Galbraith clenched his fist. He had been there once. When he had visited London, when his world had started to collapse.

Adam forced his mind into the present. "Thank you, Mr Galbraith. That will suit well." He waited, saw the questions forming in the first lieutenant's eyes. A good man, he thought, firm but not impatient with the new hands, and...