'Sir! Sir!'

Midshipman Frey threw open the door of the captain's cabin with a precipitate lack of formality. The only reply to his urgent summons from the darkness within was the continuous creaking of the frigate as she laboured in the heavy sea.

'Sir! For God's sake wake up, sir!'

The ship staggered as a huge wave broke against her weather bow and sluiced over the rail into her waist. It found its way below by a hundred different routes. Outside the swinging door the marine sentry swore, fighting the impossibility of remaining upright. Frey stumbled against the leg of a chair overset by the violence of the ship's movement. He found the cabin suddenly illuminated as a surge of white water hissed up under the counter and reflected the pale moonlight through the stern windows. Mullender, the captain's steward, would catch it for not dropping the sashes if one of the windows was stove in, the boy thought irrelevantly as he shoved the chair aside and groped to starboard where, over the aftermost 18-pounder gun, the captain's cot swung.