Captain Nathaniel Drinkwater gave up trying to sleep. His cot rocked and jerked so violently on its lanyards that his body was never still. He kicked the twisted blankets aside with a sudden spurt of furious annoyance.

His Britannic Majesty's frigate Patrician pitched violently, her bow flung into the air as if her twelve hundred tons were of no consequence, for all her massive timbers. Drinkwater was driven to consider her fabric as a sum of many small and separate parts which, God alone knew, were now subjected to stresses and strains beyond the computation of his tired brain. All that he could consider at that moment was a vivid image of his ship flying to pieces from the pounding she was now under­going. There was something alarmingly new about this present motion, and the thought led him to conclude that he must have been dozing. Anger had been born out of this interruption of his rest. The knock at the cabin door only increased his resentment.

'Yes?' His voice was sharp and strained.

'Captain, sir, if you please, Mr Fraser's compliments and would you step on deck, sir?'

Midshipman Belchambers's face was grey with fatigue and fright, reminding Drinkwater that he was not alone in his exhaustion.