By superior sailing… how that phrase haunted him, that sudden failure in performance that had endangered the ship now as it had done before. His patience snapped.

'Call all hands, damn it! All hands, d'you hear there!'

The squealing pipes made little impact on the gale, but the thin noise roused the ship as Quilhampton continued to shout at his men.

'Clewlines and buntlines! Haul taut!'

Drinkwater caught sight of the rise and fall of starters, of a scuffle forward of the boats and a man thrust out of the huddle round the mast.

'Leggo top bowline, there! Lively there! Leggo halliards! Clew down! Clew down, God damn you, clew down!'

'I think we have trouble forrard, Mr Q…'

'Aye, sir… no, there goes the yard… lay aloft and furl… aloft and furl!'

Men from the watches below were coming on deck and filling the waist with a worse confusion as another crack from aloft met the violence of a heavy leeward roll. Above the shouting and the orders, the wind screamed with renewed venom and the heeling deck bucked and canted beneath their slithering feet. Green water poured aboard and sluiced aft, streaming over the men at the pin-rails and knocking several off their feet.

'Aloft and furl! Mr Comley, damn you, forrard, sir, and hustle the men!'

Perhaps it was the disgruntled look which the boatswain Comley threw at Quilhampton, perhaps the passing of an ague-fit which stimulated Drinkwater to intervene, but he could stand chaos no better than inefficiency and such chaos and inefficiency threatened them all in that wild sea. He began to move forward, along the starboard gangway towards the forechains.