He reached the quarterdeck surprised that it was full daylight. Fraser stood clinging to the starboard hammock cranes.

'What is it, Mr Fraser?'

The first lieutenant shook his head, concern etched in his drawn expression.

'I cannot tell precisely, sir ... the confusion of the sea ... 'tis the worst thing I've seen.'

Drinkwater was suddenly attentive and looked about him, the stupor of exhaustion flung away. Was it a matter of Scots caution, or did a shoal lurk beneath this monstrous confusion of water? He could not tell; his charts were totally inadequate and he had no precise knowledge of their whereabouts. For four days they had run before the storm without a stitch of canvas set and their topgallant masts struck. Two men had been killed getting the heavy lower yards lashed a-portlast so that Patrician offered as little top-hamper as possible to the fury of the wind. The decks were cluttered with lowered spars, yet the big frigate still steered downwind with the speed of a cantering horse.

On the second night of the storm the lower masts had glowed with St Elmo's fire, the corposant running hither and thither in the rigging until their baffled compass had, in the hours that followed, circled gently in a kind of bewilderment that confused Drinkwater. He had lost his old sailing master, killed in the action with the Russian line-of-battle ship Suvorov, and had no one to turn to for advice, as Fraser had now turned to him.

For those four days they had run square to leeward with great seas heaping up astern, their foaming crests breaking and running after the fleeing ship.