He swore, rinsed his razor and bent unsteadily to his task. The face that stared back at him was drawn with anxiety. The receding hair exposed his high forehead and the streaks of grey at his temples were prominent, even in the half-light of the candle-lit cabin. He still wore a queue, an unfashionable defiance behind, for what nature deprived him of in front. But though his eyes were tired and their lids dotted with powder burns like random ink-spots, though the scar that puckered down one side of his face joined the distortion of his features necessary to the task of shaving, and though he was gaunt from the effects of ague and quinsy, there was about the line of the mouth a determination that marked him for one of the most experienced frigate commanders in the Royal Navy.

Ungraced by much political interest, only his long-standing friendship with Lord Dungarth could be said to have aided his career; but even that had not been without effort on his own part. Dungarth had ensured that all Drinkwater's skills had been fully exploited by his Secret Department, that great coup from beneath the raft at Tilsit, when the two Emperors' conversation had been overheard verbatim, had repaid any debt of advancement his lordship might conceive to be owing.

Drinkwater wiped his chin and called for Tregembo, indicating he had finished with bowl and razor. He tied his stock and drew on soft leather hessian boots. Winding a muffler around his neck he put on his undress uniform coat and a heavy boat-cloak. Tregembo fussed about the cabin, moving quietly in respect of the captain's ominous silence. Picking up his hat Drinkwater jammed it on his head and went on deck.

In the high southern latitude dawn was early. The eastern horizon was suffused with a light still too weak to penetrate the cloud rolling to leeward from the west. On the starboard bow an inky darkness blurred the meeting of sea and sky, and the perceptible horizon was reduced to the crest of the great waves that loomed out of the gloom and roared down upon them, driven by the interminable winds of the Southern Ocean.