Acting Lieutenant Nathaniel Drinkwater huddled in his tarpaulin as the spume whipped aft, catching his face and agonising his cheek muscles in the wind-ache that followed.

He ran over the projected passage in his mind yet again, vaguely aware that an error now would blight any chances of his hoped-for promotion. Then he dismissed the thought to concentrate on the matter in hand. From Dover to their destination was sixty-five miles, parallel with the French coast, a coast made terrible by tales of bloody revolution. In the present conditions they would make their landfall at low water. That, Drinkwater had been impressed, was of the utmost importance. He was mystified by the insistence laid upon the point by Lieutenant Griffiths. Although the south-westerly wind allowed them to make good a direct course Griffiths had put her on the larboard tack an hour earlier to deceive any observers on Gris Nez. The cape was now disappearing astern into the murk of a wintry night.

Drinkwater shivered again, as much with apprehension as with cold; he walked over to the binnacle. In the yellow lamplight the gently oscillating card showed a mean heading of north-west by west. Allowing for the variation of the magnetic and true meridians that was a course of west by north. He nodded with satisfaction, ignoring the subdued sound of conversation and the chink of glasses coming up the companionway. The behaviour of his enigmatic commander and their equally mysterious 'passenger' failed to shake his self-confidence.

He walked back to the binnacle and called forward, summoning the hands to tack ship. A faint sound of laughter came up from below. After his interview, Griffiths had withdrawn, giving the minimum of orders, apparently watching his new subordinate. At first Drinkwater thought he was being snubbed, but swiftly realised it was simply characteristic of the lieutenant And the man who had boarded at Deal had not looked like a spy. Round, red faced and jolly he was clearly well-known to Griffiths and released from the Welshman an unexpected jocularity. Drinkwater could not imagine what they had to laugh about.