Coulter did what any decent man would. He swore a string of curses at Phillips, and bent to help the wounded lighterman, gathering as much cloth as he could into his fist and holding it on the wound while Orme-who had followed Coulter-took off his jacket, then his shirt, folded the shirt into a pad, and held it, stopping the blood as much as possible.

The bargees had pulled Phillips out of the water, already opening the distance between them and the drifting lighter with the ferry alongside it. Whether they meant to or not, their weight and speed meant that they could not stop easily. Phillips would be around the curve of the river beyond the Isle of Dogs in fifteen or twenty minutes.

Monk looked at the lighterman. His face was ashen, but if he reached medical help he might still be saved. That was what Phillips was counting on. He had never intended to kill him.

The ferryman was stunned, not knowing what to do.

“Take him to the nearest doctor,” Monk ordered. “You, get rowing as fast as you can. Coulter, look after him. Orme, put your jacket on and come with me.”

“Yes, sir!” Orme snatched up his jacket, and stood ready.

The ferryman took up the oars.

Orme and Coulter very gently and awkwardly picked up the injured man and laid him in the bottom of the ferry, Coulter holding the pad over his wound all the time.

Monk went to the fallen oar of the low, flat-bottomed lighter, and gripped it with both hands, balancing his weight. The moment Orme was on board Monk began to pull away. It came to him more naturally than he had expected. He knew, from flashes of memory and things he had been told, that he had grown up in Northumberland around boats, mostly fishing and in bad weather lifeboats. The way of the sea was ingrained in his experience, some inner sense of discipline. One can rebel against man and laws, but only a fool rebels against the sea, and he does it only once.