THE LONG stretch of water named The Hamoaze which separated Plymouth Dockyard from the neighbouring county of Cornwall shone like burnished pewter in the forenoon sunlight. The last day of August, and yet there was already a chill in the air, a hint of misty rain across the Devon countryside. The waterway was alive with shipping of every kind and size, from two lordly ships of the line tugging at their cable in a brisk offshore breeze to collier brigs, deep in the water with their cargoes for the towns on the River Tamar and the dockyard itself. A masting vessel towing a great tangle of spar was following them, using the tide to make a safe passage from the Sound through the narrow strait that guarded the final approach. To any ignorant landman one man-of-war was much the same as another, size being the only comparison, but in a true sailor the frigate anchored closest to the dockyard would rouse an immediate interest. From her tapering jib-boom to her finely-raked counter with her name, Valkyrie, below the stern cabin windows, she was obviously much larger than any other ship classed as a fifth-rate, and but for her long main gun deck she might have passed for a ship of the line.
