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shoulder. ‘I daresay you would like me to show you where she’s moored?’
    ‘Yes, please, sir.’
    ‘I will, if you wish, take you out to her. My ship is tied up no more than a cable’s length from her mooring. But I think such a journey would be ill advised before we’ve dried you out and fed you.’
    ‘I must retrieve my sea chest.’
    ‘Which is where?’
    ‘I left it at the Angel, the inn where the coach stopped.’
    Looking down, Frears could see that those bright blue eyes were close to despair, brought on by weariness and cold. But this young fellow was biting his lip in a vain attempt to restrain any notion that he might be a charity case. It would have been a bravura performance if he hadn’t been shaking so much.
    ‘Then that, young fellow, is where we will go. They have as good a fire as you will find in Kent, and the food is passing edible, certainly better than anything you will get aboard ship.’
    ‘As long as it is within my reach, sir, I’d be obliged. But if it is not, I would be happy to wait upon your pleasure.’
    Frears was thinking, you would too, boy. You’d wait out in the cold and rain rather than admit to need. And, no doubt, you’d haul your chest through the streets even if you risked collapse. He wasn’t sure if that was admirable or foolish.
    ‘I, young sir,’ he said, finally, ‘will stand you dinner.’
    ‘B–but …’ Horatio stammered.
    ‘And quell your anxieties. I was in your shoes myself not many years back. I remember it well, mostly for the hollow feeling I always seemed to carry in my gut. It will give me pleasure to treat you to a meal, and engage someone to porter your chest. And who knows? One day, when you’re a lieutenant like me, you may be able to return the compliment. Now, what’s your name?’
    ‘Horatio Nelson, sir, but my family call me Horace.’
    ‘Nelson of the Raisonable. It has a pleasing ring to it. I am Lieutenant Frears.’
    ‘Of which ship, sir?’
    ‘Victory.’

    The rain stopped before they reached the Angel where a table was quickly procured in the warm, smoke-filled room that had seemed so unfriendly just a few hours before. Without his hat the lieutenant seemed less imposing than hitherto. He had jug handles for ears, a soft, fleshy face and a permanent worried frown, for which, perhaps there was good cause: Horatio learnt that Frears had just enough interest with influential acquaintances to keep himself in employment, if the ship to which he was assigned wasn’t ready for sea. Victory, built ten years earlier, had never been commissioned, which suited him fine.
    ‘Better to be laid up, young feller, with no yards crossed and an empty sail locker, than stuck on the beach! Any berth has the legs on half-pay.’ He was also the father of four boys, whom he hoped one day would follow him into the Navy.
    Frears had listened with understanding to the youngster’s tale of himself and his family, of his father, a widower who showed little inclination to remarry despite his brood, and the need for a man on a clerical stipend to place his children where they might prosper, taking advantage of a family relationship to get his third son a naval berth.
    The sky had cleared to reveal twinkling stars by the time they hired a wherry from the naval dockyard. Out in the main channel, close to the point where the Medway joined the river Thames, a whole fleet lay moored. Horatio Nelson had never seen a ship-of-the-line close to, so the size of the great warships was astounding. The boat swept him past the Victory as Frears reeled off details about her size, complement when commissioned, and armament. A hundred guns, displacing two and a half thousand tons fully rigged and supplied, she was enormous, towering above the little boat he had hired to bring them out. ‘There’s your vessel, young Nelson,’ Frears said, finger pointing past the oarswomen, square-faced brutes with bad skin and arms like tree trunks. He was indicating a ship just