'Sir! Please wake up!'

Frey hesitated. Pale in the gloom, Captain Nathaniel Drinkwater's legs stuck incongruously out of the cot. Still in breeches and stockings they seemed appendages not consonant with the dignity of a post-captain in the Royal Navy. Frey reached out nervously then drew back hurriedly as the legs began to flail of their own accord, responding to the squealing of the pipes at the hatchways and the sudden cry for all hands taken up by the sentries at their unstable posts about the ship.

'Eh? What the devil is it? Is that you, Mr Frey?'

The cot ceased its jumping and Captain Drinkwater's face, haggard with fatigue, peered at the midshipman. 'Why was I not called before?'

'I had been calling you for some time…'

'What's amiss?' The captain's tone was sharp.

'Mr Quilhampton's respects…'

'What is it?'

'We've to tack, sir. Immediately, sir. Mr Quilhampton apprehends we are embayed!'

'God's bones!' The sleep drained from Drinkwater's face with the dawning of comprehension. Beyond the bulkhead the ship had come to urgent life with the dull thunder of a hundred pairs of feet being driven on deck by the bosun's mates.

'My hat and cloak, Mr Frey. On deck at once, d'you hear me!' Drinkwater forced his feet into his buckled shoes and tugged on his coat, stumbling to leeward as the frigate lurched again. He shoved past the midshipman and swore as his shin connected with the overset chair-leg. He swore a second time as he bumped into the marine sentry sliding across the deck in an attempt to avoid part of the larboard watch tumbling up from the berth-deck below via the after-ladder.