Captain and sailing master took over the head-wheel, the displaced quartermasters moving across the deck to assist the gunners to haul the main-yard.

'Ease down the helm, Mr Hill!' Drinkwater could feel the vibration of the hull as it rushed through the water, transmitted up from the rudder through the stock and tiller via the tiller ropes which creaked with the strain upon them. The ship lay over as she began to turn into the wind. A sea hit her larboard bow and threw her back a point. Drinkwater watched the angled compass card serenely illuminated by the yellow oil lamp, quietly obeying the timeless laws of natural science amid the elemental turmoil of the wind and sea.

Drinkwater raised his voice: 'Fo'c's'le there! Cut free the anchor! Let the cable run!'

Rogers took up the cry, bawling the first part forward and the latter part below to the party at the gun-port and by the cable-compressors. Drinkwater was dimly aware of a flurry of activity on the fo'c's'le and the hail that the anchor was gone. Behind him one of the two remaining helmsmen muttered, 'Shit or bust, mateys!'

'I hope it holds,' said Hill.

'It'll hold, Mr Hill. 'Tis sand and rock. The rock may part the cable in a moment or two but she'll hold long enough.' He wished he possessed the confidence he expressed. He could feel the cable rumbling through the port, there was no doubt about that strange sensation coming up through the thin soles of his shoes. Rogers was crouched at the companionway and suddenly straightened.

'Half cable veered, sir!'

Sixty fathoms of thirteen-inch hemp. Not enough, not yet. Drinkwater counted to three, then: 'Nip her!'

'I believe,' said Drinkwater to cover the extremity of his fear that in the next few seconds the anchor might break out or the cable part, 'I believe at this point when staying, both the French and the Spanish invoke God as a matter of routine.'