Ebb tide

The Sunset Gun

Mr Martin Forester was growing anxious. He pulled out his watch and looked at it, then glanced up at the sky before turning his gaze impatiently towards the shoreline. It was getting late and wanted only six minutes to sunset, but an advancing overcast had obscured the setting sun to cause a premature darkness. He did not like the look of the weather. The ship, although anchored in the lee of the high land half a mile to the south of her, lifted to a low swell rolling along the coast, and the wind was strong enough, even here, to set up a mournful moan in the rigging. Beyond Bull Point to the westward the Atlantic was brewing an unseasonal gale. He felt the vessel, lying with her head to the west, snub to her cable as the flood tide surged past her hull and fought for mastery of her with the wind in her rigging. If the wind got up any more, he knew she would see-saw back and forth, her cable occasionally jumping against the whelps on the windlass gypsy with a judder, until the tide turned and she lay betwixt wind and tide, rolling to the swell. It was not going to be a pleasant night. Not for mid-July, anyway, he concluded, giving vent to his feelings.

'Damn it!' he muttered.

Sensing rather than hearing the mate's agitation, the quartermaster on the port side of the bridge above the paddle-box lowered the long watch-glass and announced helpfully, 'No sign of the boat yet, sir.'

'No,' responded Forester irritably. 'Damned nuisance.' He sighed resignedly and walked across to where Quartermaster Potts stood. 'She won't be back before sunset, so we'll make colours first. Pipe the hands to standby'

'Aye, aye, sir.' Potts replaced the telescope in its rack and moved to the centre of the bridge where the wheel and binnacle stood, relinquishing his post to Forester. The mate was not a bad fellow, Potts thought, but always wanted things to run smoothly, and when there was a delay, as there was this evening, he was apt to become irritable. Potts had been the victim of Mr Forester's short fuse on several occasions and had learned to live with it. He put the call to his lips and blew the piercing summons that would bring the watch on deck.

Standing out over the paddle-box, Forester took another quick glance at his watch and then, composing himself for the few minutes he had yet to wait until the obscured sun dipped below the western horizon, he looked about himself. Being the steamer's mate and a conscientious seaman, he cast an experienced eye over her from his vantage point. The paddle-box that rose over the sponson was not only high above the water but was also outside the line of the ship's rail. With his back outboard he could, in a single sweep, take in the whole ship from her bowsprit to her counter stern.

A seaman emerged from the forward companionway and walked up to stand by the jackstaff. The jack, a curious device of St George's cross quartering four ancient ships whose broadside cannon belched fire, flapped vigorously in the southwesterly breeze that came off the Devon coast, carrying with it the scent of grass and wood-smoke. The foremast yards with their close-furled sails were neatly squared to Mr Forester's exacting standards. The sails on the mainmast astern of the narrow bridge that spanned the vessel from paddle-box to paddle-box were equally tidily stowed. But rising above and dominating the whole after part of the ship was the great black column of the funnel.

Mr Forester hated that funnel. Even now a sulphurous shimmer from its top told of the banked boiler hidden down below and, if he looked across on the starboard quarter, he could see the faint but unmistakable pall of its smoke laid on the grey surface of the sea. With the boiler fires banked, the funnel was quiescent, a malevolent threat which, it seemed to Forester in his more irritable moments, possessed a secret hatred for the mate, for he was engaged in a ceaseless war with the thing. Mr Forester had been bred in a tough school and had spent most of his life under sail. He had, moreover, seen service in the Royal Navy as master's mate and had been in Codrington's flagship, the Asia, at Navarino. He was therefore accustomed to decks being white, not besmirched by soot and smuts. Steam, whatever its advocates might claim, seemed to Forester to have introduced as many problems as it had solved. He sighed and let his gaze roll aft again. Beyond the long after deck with its saloon skylight and the glazed lights which illuminated the staterooms below, rose the huge ensign staff. A seaman stood alongside it, the halliards of the large defaced red ensign ready in his hands. Its snapping fly bore the same device as formed the jack and it was repeated yet again in the flag which stood out like a board from the mainmast truck high above his head, indicating the presence on board the steamer of an Elder Brother of the Trinity House.

Satisfied, Forester turned forward again, distracted by the noise of voices almost immediately below him on the foredeck where the crew closed up round the polished brass barrel of the short six-pounder, one of four carriage-mounted guns borne on the long deck of the Trinity House Steam Vessel Vestal.

'Colour party mustered, sir,' Potts reported, as the gun-captain below the bridge knelt behind his gun's breech, one hand upraised.

'Aye, aye.'

Forester withdrew his watch again. One and a half minutes. He wished the boat had returned and that he could have had the whole deck snugged down with the cutter in her davits before embarking on this ritual. If the wind veered and caught them on a lee shore, they would have to get under weigh, so he wanted to make sure the ship would be fit for the eventuality sooner rather than later.

He stared out over the leaden water with its froth of white caps and watched a fulmar cut its shallow, sweeping dive across the very surface of the waves, its wings immobile. The absolute confidence with which the bird made so close an approach to the turbulent surface never failed to amaze him. Beyond lay the high coast. Lights were appearing in the town of Ilfracombe which nestled beneath the moor in the seclusion of its rocky bay. The strong tide which flooded east offshore would be scarcely felt within the compass of those rocks, he reflected. Then he saw the boat.

It came clear of Chapel Hill, its oars moving in perfect precision, and headed out towards Vestal, the diminutive flag at its bow showing grey in the gathering gloom. As the coxswain cleared the land he applied his helm to offset the eastward sweep of the flood and the cutter began to crab across the tide, exposing her starboard side, though making for the steamer in a direct line, judged to a nicety.

'Damned good coxswain, that Thomas,' Forester murmured approvingly before glancing at his watch again. He nodded at Potts, turned aft, drew himself up and raised two fingers to the forecock of his hat.

The pipe shrilled its high, imperative note and Forester saw the ensign start its slow descent. Behind and below him on the boat-deck the gun-captain applied his match, and the sudden boom of the gun, with its sharp stink of burnt powder, echoed round the bay, reverberating from the cliffs and sending into the air scores of roosting auks and kittiwakes. The smoke swept past Forester as he stood immobile, atop the paddle-box, until, giving an almost imperceptible nod to Potts, the quartermaster blew the descending notes of the 'carry-on'.

Forester relaxed and walked inboard to where the bridge widened on the ship's centreline to provide the compass platform and steering position, behind which stood the handsomely varnished teak chart-house. 'Very well, Potts. Pipe the watch to stand by the boat falls.'

Potts blew the pipe yet again and both men waited as the hands turned up from below. A steam-ship provided power for hoisting the boats, so the job could be accomplished with the deck-watch alone. Now that they worked the three-watch system, it made life much easier for the seamen, though Forester, in his blacker moments, was certain all this ease was not good for any of them. He had a remorseless belief in the imperatives of duty.

'No need for another flag, Potts,' he remarked to the quartermaster, 'now that Cap'n Drew's is up.' Forester nodded at the main truck where the Elder Brother's flag still flew, unstruck at sunset since it was a command flag and remained aloft as long as the officer so honoured was on board.

'There's Drew now, sir,' said Potts as a gold-braided figure appeared on deck below.

'Come up to meet the new fellow,' Forester added conversationally, mellowing now the cutter was almost back.

'Who is 'e, sir, this new fellow?' Potts inquired.

'Captain Sir Nathaniel Drinkwater KCB,' explained Forester, who made it his business to know such things. 'Newly elected to the Court of Trinity House, but a distinguished sea-officer.'

"Ow is 'e distinguished, then, sir? Were 'e at Navarin?' asked Potts mischievously, knowing Mr Forester enjoyed reminding them of his presence at the battle.

'No, he was well-known as a frigate captain in the war. I don't think he ever commanded a ship-of-the-line, though. Spent a lot of time on special service, I believe ... ' A cough interrupted this cosy chat and

Forester turned. 'Ah, Cap'n Poulter, sir, red cutter's approaching, Captain Drew's on deck, and the wind's tending to freshen.'

'Very well, Mr Forester. I had better go down and join Captain Drew.'

Poulter settled his hat and made for the ladder, hesitating at the top and turning his head as though sniffing the air. 'You're right about the wind, Martin,' he added informally, then disappeared to the deck below.

Captain Sir Nathaniel Drinkwater drew his boat cloak more closely round him as the cutter pulled out from the shelter of the bay. He could sense the damp in the air as it made the old wound in his shoulder ache, and there was a discouraging bite to the wind as they came out from under the shelter of the land. He cast an eye over the men at the oars. They were all kitted out in ducks and pea-jackets, long ribbons blowing in the wind from their round hats as they bent in synchronized effort to their oars. Beside him the Vestal's second mate, a young man who had introduced himself as William Quier, directed the coxswain's attention to the influence of the tide.

'Mind the force of the flood now, Thomas,' he said with quiet authority, catching Drinkwater's eye, then looking hurriedly away again towards the ship. Drinkwater followed his gaze. She was an ungainly brute, he thought, her great funnel and huge, grey paddle-boxes dominating the black hull. He supposed by her two masts that she was, technically at least, a brigantine, but the presence of the funnel gave so great a spread to them that she lacked all pretence at the symmetry and elegance he thought of as characterizing the rig. He recalled the brig-rigged Hellebore and her handiness, and could find no indication that Vestal might be manoeuvred with such facility. He grunted, and Quier shot him a quick glance, to be recalled by the boom of the gun at which the young man jumped involuntarily while the men at the oars grinned.

'Sunset gun, sir,' Quier observed unnecessarily.

'Yes, indeed.'

Drinkwater smiled to himself; poor Quier seemed a rather nervous young man and he himself was a damned old fool. He had forgotten the ship ahead of them had a steam engine, even though the confounded thing proclaimed itself by that hideous black column!

'How does she handle, Mr Quier?' Drinkwater asked, nodding at the Vestal. 'I presume you can back one paddle and pull or', he added with a self-deprecating shrug, abandoning the metaphor familiar to men used to pulling boats, 'put it astern, eh?'

'Indeed yes, sir. She handles very well in smooth water. She can be turned in her own length.'

Drinkwater regarded the younger man. 'You can turn a brig in her own length, you know. I suppose a brigantine is not so handy.'

'Not quite, sir, but for either you need a wind.'

'Of course ...' The folly of old age assailed Drinkwater again and he smiled ruefully to himself. There was no point in feeling foolish; one simply had to endure it with the consolation that it would come even to this young man one day. He reassessed Quier. The young man was shy, not nervous. It occurred to Drinkwater that he might be a rather intimidating figure, sitting stiffly in the Vestal's cutter.

But Quier was overcoming his diffidence and was not going to let Drinkwater escape so easily. 'Is this the first steam-ship you have been aboard, sir?'

'No, I made a short passage on the sloop Rhadamanthus — oh, I suppose eight or nine years ago, just after Evans brought her back across the Atlantic, but I'm afraid I don't recall how well we manoeuvred.' Drinkwater paused, recollecting something the second officer had said. 'You mentioned Vestal manoeuvred well in fine weather ...'

'In a smooth sea, yes, sir. She isn't so handy when a chop is running.'

'Oh?'

'It's the paddles, d'you see,' Quier explained, his pleasant face betraying his enthusiasm. 'They function best at a particular draught; if the ship rolls heavily, the deeper paddle has greater effect than the shallower one. When steering a course the inequities tend to cancel each other out, but when manoeuvring, matters aren't so predictable.'

'I see. D'you use the sails to help?'

'You can, sir, but we don't usually have sufficient men to do all that if we are manoeuvring to lift a buoy.'

'No, of course not...'

'And when we set our sails to assist the steam engine, the steady heel, though more comfortable, tends to hold one paddle down all the time.'

'Yes,' Drinkwater nodded, 'yes, I comprehend that.'

'You see, it doesn't usually matter too much, sir, because we can only pick up buoys in reasonably good weather ...'

'Yes, of course,' Drinkwater broke in. Then, seeing Quier's crestfallen look at the interruption, he added, 'A long time ago, Mr Quier, I myself served in the buoy-yachts.'

Quier looked at his passenger in some astonishment. The old man's face was shadowed by the collar of his cloak and the forecock of his hat, but Quier could see that the watery grey eyes were shrewd, despite one curious drooping lid with what looked like a random tattoo mark upon it. The deeply lined mouth curved into a smile, revealing by a slight asymmetry that one at least of the furrows seaming Sir Nathaniel's cheeks was due not to the passage of time, but a sword-cut.

'You are surprised, I believe.'

'Only that I supposed you had always been a naval officer, sir.'

'I was unemployed after the American War.' Drinkwater saw the young man frown. 'Not the recent affair,' he explained, referring to the war which had ended twenty-eight years earlier and during which Mr Quier might just have been born, 'the first American War.' He paused again, adding, 'in which the United States gained its independence.'

Quier's mouth hung open and when he realized his astonishment was as rude as it was obvious, he said hurriedly, 'I see, sir.'

'It was', Drinkwater agreed ruefully, 'a very long time ago.'

'Comin' alongside, sir,' the coxswain muttered, and, as the Vestal suddenly loomed huge and menacing, her stilled paddles ahead of them like the blades of an enormous water-wheel, Quier was obliged to attend to the business of hooking on to the falls.

Helped out of the boat as she swung in the falls and was griped in to the rail, and creaking with what he called 'his rheumaticks', Drinkwater retrieved his cane from Quier and acknowledged the salute of his fellow Elder Brother, Captain Richard Drew.

'Good to have you aboard, Sir Nathaniel, how was your journey?'

'Good to be aboard, Drew. I've been two days on the road from Taunton, damn it, so the ship's a welcome sight.'

'May I introduce Captain Poulter, the vessel's master...'

'Sir Nathaniel...'

'Captain Poulter, how d'ye do? I knew your father; served under him for a while after the first American War. I met him last in 'fourteen when we both served under the late king when he was, as he was pleased to term it, "Admiral of the British fleet".'

'It's good to have you aboard, sir.'

'I understand we're taking a look at the light at Hartland Point tomorrow if the weather serves?'

'That's right,' Drew interrupted, 'I've told Poulter we should be off the point at about half tide to gain the best conditions. There's a small breakwater at the foot of the cliffs. We shall land there.'

'All being well,' Drinkwater added, smiling, sensitive to Poulter's resentment at Drew's authoritarianism.

As if to confirm this perception, Poulter nodded. 'Quite so,' he said.

Quier arrived and informed Poulter that Sir Nathaniel's effects had been placed in the second state-cabin, whereupon the gathering on the deck broke up.

'Come and take a glass, Sir Nathaniel,' Drew invited, 'there's no need for us to keep the deck, eh?' and the Elder Brother led the way below chuckling.

It was now almost dark as Forester chivvied the hands about the deck, and the overcast covered the sky.

Drinkwater was floundering and he beat vainly for air as though his flailing arms could provide what he gasped for if he strove hard enough. He was curiously aware that he was drowning, yet equally convinced that he was dry, and that if he kept his arms moving he would survive. Yet the sensation filled him with terror. Somehow his subconscious mind registered the fact that this was not real, that the drowning was purely a vehicle for fear, and that it was only the fear which could touch him now.

As he grasped this and felt his heart hammer with increasing apprehension, he caught sight of something he dreaded with all the primeval fear of which his imagination was capable. She came upon him with ferocious speed, at first a faint glow in the distance, then with the velocity of recognition. Now she loomed over him and he felt the chill of her presence and her cold ethereal fist reaching for his lurching heart.

He would fain have averted his eyes, but her face, at once as beautiful as it was hideous, compelled his attention. And with her came the noise, a noise of roaring and clattering, of the scream of wind and of things — what things he did not know — tumbling in such confusion that it seemed the whole world had lost its moorings and only the ghastly white lady maintained her terrifying equilibrium, poised above him. Then she descended upon him like a gigantic succubus. He felt his body submit to her in a painful yet oddly delicious sensation while his soul fought for life.

Drinkwater woke in a muck sweat, the perspiration streaming from him and his heart thundering with such violence that he thought it must burst from his body. He imagined he had screamed out in his fright, yet around him all seemed quiet as he recollected his circumstances, making out the unfamiliar shapes of the state-cabin's furniture. As his heartbeat subsided, the last images of the dream faded. He could still conjure into his mind's eye the white lady, but she was receding, like the dying image of a sunlit window on the closed eyelid, identifiable only as an afterglow of perception.

For a moment he thought he had suffered a seizure, such had been the violence of his heartbeat, but it had only been a dream, and an old, almost familiar one. He tried to recall how many times he had had the recurring dream during his long life and remembered only that it had often served as a premonition.

The thought worried him more than the dream's inherent, terrifying images. They were so contradictory as to be easily dismissed, mere eldritch phantasms inhabiting the fearful hours of the lonely night when extraordinary, illogical contradictions possessed the power to frighten. But if it were premonition, what did that signify?

He lay back and felt his mortality. He was an old man. How many summers had he seen? Eighty? Yes, that was it, eighty summers and this his eighty-first...

He sighed. His heart, which had hammered with such insistence, would not beat forever and he had lived longer than so many of his friends. Poor Tregembo, for instance, whom he himself had dispatched with a pistol ball fired out of mercy to end the poor man's fearful suffering; and James Quilhampton, killed in a storm of shot as his cutter, Kestrel, had been raked in the Vikkenfiord ...

How he mourned Quilhampton. Better that Drinkwater himself should have died than poor James, so newly wed after so long a betrothal...

Drinkwater pulled himself together and shook off the last vestiges of the dream. He was no stranger to wakefulness in the night and knew its promptings were more substantial than a damned dream! Wearily he threw his legs clear of the bunk and fumbled for the jordan.

But even after relieving himself he could not sleep. The ship was rolling now, the tide having turned and the wind grown stronger. She hung in equilibrium, tethered to the sea-bed by her anchor and cable which would now be stretched out to the eastward, but with the strong wind in her top-hamper canting her round against its powerful stream.

'Some things', Drinkwater mused, thinking of Vestal's steam-powered sophistication, 'remain always the same.'

The rolling was persistently irritating. He was unused to the fixed mattress in the bunk and found the way his body-weight was pressed first on one side and then on the other a most disconcerting experience. He lay and thought fondly of his wife, knowing now, as he tossed irritably, that she had been correct in thinking him a fool for wanting to go back to sea.

'There is, my dear,' he could hear her saying, 'no fool quite like an old fool. Every dog has his day and surely you have had yours, but I suppose I shall let you have your way.'

It had been no good protesting that, as an Elder Brother of the Trinity House, it was his duty to ensure that the lighthouses, buoys and light-vessels around the coast were property maintained for the benefit of mariners.

'If you had never sent in that report about the deficiencies of the lighthouse on Helgoland they would never have heard of Nathaniel Drinkwater and never have elected you to their blessed fraternity,' Elizabeth had berated him. 'Either that or they wanted your knighthood to adorn their Court...'

'Thank you, Lady Drinkwater,' he had said, aware that her head, for all its customary good sense, had been turned a trifle by the title. God knew, it was little enough by way of compensation for all the loneliness she had suffered over the years, but perhaps, he thought, imagining her lying abed on the opposite side of the country listening to the rising gale, he should have spared her this last anxiety.

When at last he fell asleep it was almost dawn. He stirred briefly as the ship weighed her cable and her paddle-wheels thrashed the sea until they drove her along at nine knots. Then, acknowledging that the responsibility of command was not his, he rolled over and settled himself again. It was a supreme luxury to leave matters in the hands of another.

He woke fully an hour later as Vestal met a particularly heavy sea and shouldered it aside, her hull shuddering with the impact. A moment later the steward appeared, deferentially producing a coffee pot and the news that they had doubled Bull Point and that he might break his fast in the saloon in half an hour.

Drinkwater rose and shaved, bracing himself against the heave of the ship with the reflection that he had never, in three score years, proceeded directly to windward like this. He sipped the strong coffee as he dressed, cursing the need to perch spectacles on his nose in order to settle his neck-linen. Though never a dandy, Drinkwater had always tied his stock with a certain fastidiousness, and the one concession he made to fashion now that in his private life he rarely wore uniform, was a neat cravat. Satisfied, he pulled on a plain blue undress coat over the white pantaloons that he habitually wore, and walked through to the saloon.

Drew looked up and half rose from the table where he was hacking at cold mutton. 'Give you good day, sir.'

'And you, Richard...' The two men shook hands and Drinkwater joined Drew at the table.

'Did you sleep well?'

'Well enough,' Drinkwater replied. He was at least thirty-five years Drew's senior and had no wish to arouse the younger man's impatience with tedious references to a weakening bladder and those damned rheumaticks! Instead he would test the mettle of the man, for he knew Drew had made his name and a competent fortune in the West India trade before he was forty, and had been a member of the fraternity for some years. He was, therefore, Drinkwater's senior aboard Vestal. 'What d'you make of the weather?'

Drew pulled a face. 'Well, it ain't ideal, to be sure, but the worst of it went through during the night and it was short-lived. The swell will soon drop away We've a good chance of making a landing.' Drew smiled blandly and Drinkwater hid his scepticism. The situation reminded him of a terrible day ... but then so many situations reminded him of something these days. He dismissed the memory and forbore from alluding to it lest Drew consider him among those men whose present consists of boasts about their past

'Of course,' Drew expatiated, laying down his knife and fork and sitting back as Vestal gave a lurch, 'if we cannot scramble ashore we shall have to steam across to Lundy and anchor in the lee until there's a moderation.'

When they had finished breakfast, they repaired to the bridge. Vestal's long, elegant bow and bowsprit pointed directly into the wind's eye as she rose and fell, meeting the advancing ridges of water with her powerful forward impetus. Her engine was remarkably quiet, though the splashing of her paddles as they thrashed the water and drove the ship along made a counterpoint to the wind soughing in the rigging. The decks were wet with spray and recent rain, and the sky remained heavily clouded, though there was some break in the overcast to the south-westward.

Mr Quier was studying a pair of luggers on the port bow and clearly had the watch, but Poulter too was on the bridge and crossed to greet them. 'Good morning, gentlemen.'

'Mornin' Poulter,' Drew said, acknowledging his salute.

'Good morning, Captain,' said Drinkwater. 'Not the best of 'em I fear.'

'Alas no, Sir Nathaniel...'

'What d'you give for our chances?'

Poulter pulled the corners of his mouth down and was about to speak when Drew interrupted him. 'Oh, we've a good chance of it. We may have to lie off in the boat and pick our moment, but we shall have a shot at it, eh Sir Nat? You're game for it, ain't you?'

Drinkwater disliked being called 'Nat' by anyone not a close friend, and Drew's overbearing familiarity was as irritating as it might be dangerous. He looked at Poulter and replied, 'Of course I'm game, Drew, though I'd not want to risk the boat's crew contrary to Captain Poulter's judgement.'

The gratitude on Poulter's face was plain and Drinkwater sensed that these men had been at odds before he came aboard. Poulter's task was no easy one and Drew's presence on board was analogous to that of a fractious admiral, for while he must carry out the wishes, instructions and orders of the members of the Trinity Board embarked, the safety of the ship and her people remained the master's responsibility. Drinkwater recalled the dilemma with startling clarity, remembering Poulter's father in the same position many years earlier when he himself had held young Quier's post.

'Yes, yes, of course,' Drew was saying testily, 'of course, we'll see. But we can prepare the boat, nonetheless,' and he stumped off across the bridge. 'Here, sir! Mr Quier, sir! The loan of your glass if you please!'

Quier spun round and offered the glass with a hasty gesture, and Drinkwater met Poulter's gaze. Propriety would keep Poulter's mouth shut as it ought to secure Drinkwater's, but he was an old man and age had its privileges. 'You have been having a difficult time I think, Captain, have you not?'

Poulter nodded resignedly. 'There is an assumption, Sir Nathaniel,' he said with ill-concealed obliquity and bending to Drinkwater's ear, 'that we know all about the lighthouse service. For myself, I'm used to it, but poor Quier has suffered rather.'

Drinkwater nodded. 'I gathered as much. He seemed a little nervous of me last evening.'

Poulter smiled. 'You come with a formidable reputation, Sir Nathaniel. Quier's a fine seaman, but unfortunately he was overridden in the boat at Flatholm a day or two ago ... It serves ill in front of the men.'

'Of course. I shall endeavour to take advantage of my grey hairs, though he seems determined to have a shot at the landing.'

'Yes. The business at Flatholm was unfortunate in that Captain Drew was proved right...'

'And thus considers himself a greater expert than formerly, while Quier feels a touch humiliated, eh?'

Poulter nodded. 'Indeed. Quier was not at fault, merely a trifle cautious...'

'Because, no doubt, Captain Drew was in the boat beside him?'

'Exactly so.'

'Well, we shall have to see what we can do to moderate matters,' Drinkwater said.

'I hope you won't mistake my meaning, Sir Nathaniel, but...'

'Think no more of it, Poulter,' Drinkwater replied reassuringly and then, seeing Drew lower the glass and turn towards them again, he called out, 'Well, what d'you make of it?'

'It's not so bad,' Drew answered, leaning against the cant of the deck and waving the telescope at the headland that lay like a grey dragon sprawling along the southern horizon on their port bow. Its extremity dipped to the sea, and just above the declivity stood the squat lighthouse of Hartland Point, revealed in a sudden patch of brightness that banished the monotone and threw up the fissured rock, patches of vegetation and the white structure of the lighthouse and its dwellings.

'See, the sun's coming out!' Drew threw the remark out with a flourish.

A few moments later sunlight spread across the sea, transforming the grey waste into a sparkling vista of tumbling waves through which, it suddenly seemed, Vestal's passage was an exuberant progress. As if to emphasize the change of atmosphere, a school of bottle-nosed dolphins appeared on the starboard bow, racing in to close the plunging steam-ship and gambol about her bow under the dipping white figurehead.

'And the wind is dropping,' added Poulter with a rueful nod.

'I believe you may be right, Captain Poulter,' Drinkwater agreed, turning to judge the matter from the snap and flutter of the flag at the masthead. And let us hope it continues to do so.'

They had lowered the boat in the Vestal's lee. Poulter had set the fore-topsail to ease the roll of the ship as she fell off the wind, and the slowed revolution of the paddles kept a little headway on the ship, laying a trail of smooth water alongside her after hull, beneath the davits.

The boat had been skilfully lowered and they had swiftly drawn away from the ship, the men bending to their oars with a will. Once clear of the protection of the Vestal's hull, both wind and sea drove at their stern as they pulled in towards the land. Hartland Point rose massive above them as they approached, and Drinkwater stared at the surge of the sea as it spent itself against the great buttress of rock. He sought the breakwater and saw a short length of hewn stone forming a small enclosure, but it seemed that the turmoil of the sea within it was no better man outside, and this was worsening.

Off the intrusion of the headland, the tide sped up and they felt the force of it oppose the wind to throw up a vicious sea, dangerous to Vestal's cutter. Drinkwater could see that this sudden steepening of the waves surprised Drew. He caught his fellow Elder Brother's eye.

'There's an ebb tide in here,' Drew called, raising his voice in some wonder above the sound of the wind and the sea which was no longer making a regular, subdued hiss, but fell in a noisily slopping roar of unstable water.

'It's an eddy under the headland,' Drinkwater replied, 'it's not uncommon.'

'Sir, I think ...' Quier began, catching Drinkwater's eye.

'I agree, Mr Quier,' he nodded and looked again at Drew, 'there's no chance of a landing. We should put about.'

Drew was clearly reluctant and turned to stare again at the towering mass of rock. They could see two lighthouse keepers and one of their wives standing on the path that wound tortuously down the cliff face. One of the men was waving his arms to and fro across his breast in a gesture of warning and the apron of the woman fluttered in the wind.

'I suppose', said Drew offensively, 'you ain't as handy on your legs as you might once have been.'

'If that is put forward as a reason for abandoning our attempt, Captain Drew, I shall overlook the impropriety of the remark ...' Drinkwater retorted, aware of a sharp intake of breath from an incredulous Quier beside him. 'I prefer, however, to consider that common prudence dictates our actions.' He gave Drew a withering glance and turned to Quier. 'Put up the helm, Mr Quier, and let us return to the ship. Quier turned to the coxswain and, the relief plain on both their faces, the boat began to turn as the coxswain called, 'Put yer backs into it now, me lads!'

Drinkwater ignored Drew's spluttering protest and turned to cast one last glance at the forbidding cliffs, only to feel an imperious tap upon his knee. Drew was leaning forward. 'Sir, I am the senior!' he hissed, his face red with fury. 'I shall give the order!'

'Sir,' Drinkwater replied in a low voice, "tis seniority in a Pizzy Club, pray do not make too much of it, I beg you.'

Drew's mouth twisted with anger and he reluctantly sat upright, visibly fuming, his sensibilities outraged. Drinkwater, incredulous at the man's stupidity, turned his attention to the now distant Vestal. The men at the oars were going to have to work hard to regain the safety of her, for she alternately dipped into the trough of the seas so that only the trucks of her masts and the pall of her funnel smoke were visible, then rose and sat on the elevated horizon like an elaborate toy.

The boat's bow dropped into a trough and threw up a sheet of spray that whipped aft. 'God blast it!' snarled Drew. Then the stern fell while the bow climbed into the sky and breasted the tumbling wave. The men grunted unconsciously as the man at stroke oar set the pace. Drinkwater could see the oar-looms bowing with their effort.

He shivered. It had grown suddenly chilly. He looked up to see that the sun had once more disappeared behind a thickening cloud, and the joy went out of the day.

Aboard Vestal Forester, peering attentively through the long glass, had seen the boat turn. He lowered the large telescope and reported the fact to Poulter.

'Thank the Lord for small mercies,' Poulter said, relieved. 'D'you keep an eye upon it if you please, Mr Forester, while I run down towards them.'

'Aye, aye, sir.'

Poulter leaned over the forward rail and called to some seamen on the foredeck. 'D'you hear there! I'm running off before the wind for a few moments. Hands to the braces and square the foreyards!'

The hail of acknowledgement came back to them as Poulter rang for half speed ahead on the telegraph, ordered Potts to put the helm up, and watched as Vestal paid off before the wind.

Forester's glass described a slow traverse as the ship swung and then he was staring ahead. A moment later Poulter called, 'Very well, Mr Forester, I can see the boat perfectly now, thank you.' Forester lowered the glass and glanced forward as the men on the foredeck belayed the swung braces.

'Harrison!' he shouted. 'Pass word for the hands to stand by the boat falls!'

'Usual drill, Mr Forester.' Poulter's tone was abstracted as he concentrated on closing the cutter.

'Aye, aye, sir.' The Vestal's mate shipped the telescope on its rack. Casting a final look at the boat ahead, he dropped smartly down the port ladder to the main deck to muster the men at the boat falls and supervise her recovery.

Drinkwater saw Vestal swing and head towards them. Here was a real facility, he thought admiringly, the quick response of the steam propulsion to the will of the vessel's commander; a minimum of effort, hardly a hand disturbed in the process, and while his hypothetical brig could as easily have swung and run downwind, it could not have been accomplished without the co-ordinated presence of at least a score of men. Drinkwater, who had hitherto considered the newfangled steam engine best left to young men, felt a faint, inquiring interest in the thing. Perhaps, he thought, he ought to have a proper look round the engine-room. There was a Mr Jones on board who rejoiced in the rank of 'first engineer' and who was to be infrequently glimpsed on deck in his overalls, like an old-fashioned gunner in a man-of-war whose felt slippers and pallid complexion betrayed his normal habitat far below in the powder magazine.

Captain Poulter watched the boat breast a wave and dive into the trough where he lost sight of it for a moment. Vestal was running before the wind, her paddles thrashing as her hull scended to the succession of seas passing under her, yawing slightly in her course.

'Watch your helm now, Quartermaster,' he said, and Potts mumbled the automatic 'Aye, aye' as he struggled to hold the ship steady on her course.

Poulter stood watching the boat and the sea, gauging the shortening distance. In a few moments he would turn Vestal smartly to starboard, reversing the starboard paddle and bringing the ship round to a heading of south-south-east, off the wind but not quite across it, to reduce the rolling effect of the seas. He was aware that as the ship moved closer inshore, the state of the sea worsened, for the cumulative effect of the presence of the land, throwing back the advancing waves which met their inward-bound successors, created a nasty chop.

If he judged the matter to a nicety, he could tuck the plunging boat neatly under his lee and almost pluck her out of the water. Forester and his men were well practised at hooking on the falls, while Quier and Coxswain Thomas were a competent pair. All in all, it ought to impress the objectionable Captain Richard Drew! As for poor Sir Nathaniel, Poulter marvelled at the old man's pluck.

He looked at the foredeck. Forester, being the good mate he was, had a few hands on the foredeck ready to tend the topsail braces as the ship was brought to. Poulter looked again at the boat, missed her, then saw her much closer and right ahead.

He moved smartly to the engine telegraph and rang for the paddles to be stopped. The jangle of bells seemed oddly short, as though First Engineer Jones had had his hand on the thing. Perhaps he had, Poulter thought, pleased with his ship and her personnel. A man could take pride in such things. He took two steps to the bridge rail and peered over the dodger. He had lost sight of the boat again, then she appeared almost under the bow and Poulter's self-satisfaction vanished. Vestal's paddles were still thrashing round, the wash of them now hideously loud in Poulter's receptive ears. His mouth was dry and his heart hammered painfully as he jumped for the telegraph and swung the handle in the violent double-ring of an emergency order. The heavy brass lever offered him no resistance. Instantly Poulter knew what had gone wrong: the long chain connecting the bridge instrument with the repeater in the engine-room had broken somewhere in the narrow pipe that connected him with the first engineer down below.

Just as the realization struck him, Poulter heard the cry of alarm from the foredeck.

'Hard a-starboard!' he roared at the quartermaster, then rushed to the rail. The two men posted forward to handle the braces were pointing and shouting, looking back up at the bridge, their faces white with alarm.

'Oh, my God!'

It was then that Poulter realized he had compounded matters, that he was in part author of the disaster he was now powerless to avert. In his moment's inattention, Poulter had not noticed the ship slew to port, nor observed Potts' frantic attempt to counter the violent skewing effect of a large sea which had run up under Vestal's port quarter with fatal timing. As a result, as the ship's head had fallen off to port, she had brought the boat across to her starboard bow. Poulter's attempt to throw her unstoppable bulk away from the boat consequently resulted in the exact contrary.

Even as he watched, too late to do anything, Poulter's ship ran down her own boat.

Drinkwater had seen Vestal's head fall to port and thought the sheer deliberate, perhaps the first indication of a turn. But the sudden steadying of her aspect, growing in apparent size with the speed of her approach, turned her from a welcome haven to a terrifying threat. For a few seconds those in the stern staring forward processed the implications of the evidence before their eyes. Drinkwater heard Quier swear under his breath, joined by the coxswain in a louder tone.

'Bloody hell!'

Drew's cry completed this crescendo of comprehension while his look of stark fear caused the oarsmen to break stroke as each man jerked round to stare over their shoulders. Quier leant for the tiller even as Thomas hauled it over. But it was too late, and in those last few attenuated seconds men thought only of themselves and began to dive over the port side of the boat in a terrified attempt to escape the huge, dark mass approaching them.

Only Drinkwater sat immobile. In that second of understanding and nervous reaction, as the combined weight of all those in the boat moving to escape destruction from that terrible, overwhelming bow caused her to capsize, he knew the meaning of his dream. The presentiment of death was confirmed, for he saw above him, in the pallid shape of the Vestal's figurehead, the white lady of his recurrent nightmare. Hers was not the petrifying face of Medusa, nor the fearsome image of a terrifying harpy; she bore instead the implacable expression of indifference.

As he was pitched out of the boat into the sudden, shocking chill of the sea, Drinkwater felt the utter numbness of the inevitable. For a ghastly moment of piteous regret, he thought of his wife. He heard her cry and then a figure loomed briefly near him, open-mouthed in a rictus of terror, and was as suddenly gone. He glimpsed the sky, pitiless in its lowering overcast, as his body was swept aside by the moving mass of the ship. As suddenly he was tugged back again. The ship's black side with its copper sheathing rushed past him.

Suddenly loud in his ears, he heard the familiar clanking of the dream, a crescendo of noise which filled him with fear and abruptly resolved itself into the thrash of the great starboard paddle-wheel and the adjusting of its floats by the eccentric drive-rods radiating from its centre.

Then he was trampled beneath it.

It battered him.

It shoved him down until his whole head ached from the pressure and he bled from the lacerations of its indifferent mechanism.

Finally, it hurled him astern, three fathoms below the surface of the sea, as his bursting lungs reacted and his terrified mind thought that he would never see Elizabeth again.