Under false colours

For a while they struggled in silence, Littlewood ducking and staring aloft, and bellowing out the occasional word to his mate who at the foot of the foremast stood holding a halliard ready to render it on its pin. From time to time, with a look over his shoulder, Littlewood eased a spoke to keep Galliwasp off before the wind, but no words were necessary since Drinkwater understood instinctively. There was no danger of their being pooped, for the wind prevented the high-breaking seas from rearing over the ship's stern. Their greatest worry was the strain being imposed on the gear aloft.

Drinkwater, still shaken from his own exertions, was content for a moment to let Littlewood fret over the Galliwasp. He stared dully at the swinging compass card, still lit by the guttering flame of the binnacle oil lamp. He felt Littlewood's tug on the wheel and responded. Then, suddenly realizing that something was wrong he looked up.

'What the devil ...?' Littlewood craned round anxiously.

There was a sudden, unexpected lull, the booming of the wind ceased and dropped in register, and Drinkwater shot another look at the compass card.

'We've swung her head three points in the last few — ' he began, but the explanation was already upon them.

'Up helm!' roared Littlewood, thrusting the wheel over. Then the backing wind was upon them, striking them with the violence of an axe blow to the skull, stopping the ship dead, catching her aback and tearing the half furled canvas of the reefed foretopsail out of its gaskets and hurling the frayed mess at the men who sought to tame it.

The first casualty was a topman, an able seaman flung from the yard, who vanished into the sea with a scream. It seemed to Drinkwater that the shriek lasted until after the dismasting, that the renewed boom of the wind reasserted itself only after the scream had finished, and it was the falling of a man who, as a last act, tore at the stays and plucked the masts out of the Galliwasp in a gigantic act of protest. It was a stupid fancy, confounded by the facts that confronted them an instant later: the man lost and the barque's three masts lying in ruins around them.

There was a hiatus of shock, and then came the voices of men, some shouting in pain, others bawling for assistance, a few asserting their authority. Drinkwater fought his way through a tangle of rigging, aware that the wheel was smashed by a falling spar and that Captain Littlewood had been less fortunate than himself and was trapped by the yard that had dashed the wheel to pieces. Beneath their feet the barque began to roll as the tangle of wreckage, much of it falling over the side, dragged them beam-on to the wind. And its sudden shift now threw up a confused sea, buffeting the disabled ship and increasing the difficulties of her company.

'Captain Littlewood,' Drinkwater called, as he struggled to free the master, 'are you hurt, sir?'

'Only a trifle ... but I cannot move ...'

Drinkwater stood up and bellowed 'Mr Munsden!' and was relieved to hear the second mate's voice in reply. 'Can you lay your hands on a handspike or a capstan bar. Captain Littlewood is held fast here!'

They eased the weight on Littlewood after a struggle, raising the fallen yard from across his belly and dragging him out. Periodically seas crashed aboard, sluicing through the chaotic raffle of ropes, spars and torn sails like a river in spate choked by fallen trees. Elsewhere about the littered deck, other groups of men were helping to free their comrades. As Littlewood struggled to his feet they were aware that they no longer had to shout in each other's ears to make themselves heard: the storm, having done its worst, was content to subside to a mere gale again. Littlewood ordered a muster of his crew; in addition to the lost topman, two others were found dead, one was missing and three were badly injured. A dozen others had cuts, bruises and scratches of a less serious nature.

Soaked to the skin, they took stock of their situation. The backing wind was no longer so cold and they began to sweat with the effort of clearing the Galliwasp's deck in an attempt to get her under command again.

When it came, the dawn found them lying helplessly a-hull, rolling constantly in the trough of the sea and making leeway. The wrecked top-hamper overside laid a wide, smooth slick to windward which prevented the waves breaking aboard. The wind continued to drop during the forenoon. With a vigorous plying of axes and knives they cut away the wreckage, salvaging what they could. Captain Littlewood proved as energetic in adversity as when things progressed well. Drinkwater, stripped to his shirt in his efforts to help, recalled Littlewood's personal stake in the ship and her cargo, content for the moment to throw himself into the urgent task of saving themselves.

It was after noon before they had brought a semblance of order to the ship, leaving her trailing downwind of her wrecked jib-boom to act as a sea-anchor and hold her head to wind and sea. The cook relit the galley range and served a steaming burgoo laced with rum and molasses that tasted delicious to the famished and exhausted men.

His mouth full, Littlewood beckoned Drinkwater aft and the two men conferred over their bowls.

'I don't like our situation, Captain Waters. There is four feet of water in the well, and as for our reckoning, well ...' With the back of his right hand, his spoon still clutched in his fist, Littlewood rasped at his unshaven chin. A smear of burgoo remained behind.

'I have been giving that some consideration myself,' said Drinkwater, 'but with this overcast ...' he cast a glance at the lowering grey sky, 'we have little to go on beyond our wits. Let us adjourn below and look at the chart.'

In the stern cabin Littlewood poured them both a glass of rum and unrolled a chart. The nail of the stumpy index finger he laid on their last observed position was torn and bleeding. He drew his finger tip south.

'We'll have made leeway towards the Frisians, then, with the shift of wind, east, towards the estuaries.'

Drinkwater looked from the long curve of islands that fringed the coast of north Holland and Hanover to the extensive shoals that stretched for miles offshore, littering the wide mouths of the Jahde, Weser and Elbe. How far away were those lethal sands with their harsh and forbidding names; the Vogel, the Knecht, the Hogenhorn and the Scharhorn? How far away were the fringe of breakers that would pound them mercilessly to pieces if their keel once struck the miles and miles of shoal they thundered upon?

'We have enough gear salvaged to jury rig her and run before it. With luck we might reach to the norrard.'

Littlewood's torn finger moved north, away from its resting place on the flat island of Neuwerk lying athwart the entrance to the Elbe.

'It offers us our best chance if we avoid the Horn's Reef and Danish letters-of-marque. Of course it's a risk ...' the master drowned his incomplete sentence in a mouthful of rum.

Beyond the island of Sylt lay the port of Esbjerg from which Danish privateers would swoop on the Galliwasp with alacrity. The Danes had not forgiven Great Britain the abduction of their fleet two years earlier, nor the bombardment of their capital, Copenhagen. A British ship falling into their hands could expect little mercy: a British naval officer none whatsoever. One caught in disguise would almost certainly be hanged or shot; Drinkwater had seen such a man, strung up by the Dutch above a battery at Kirkduin.

'D'you have a larger scale chart?' Drinkwater asked, shying away from the hideous image.

'Aye.' Littlewood turned and pulled a chart tube from a locker. From it he drew a roll of charts. Drinkwater waited, feeling the rum warm his belly. 'You are thinking of Helgoland?'

'Yes.'

They spread out the second chart and Drinkwater noted it was an English copy of a survey commissioned by the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce.

'Too risky,' Littlewood said, shaking his head. 'If we are out in our reckoning, or if we miscalculate and are swept past, then our fate is sealed.'

'We could anchor and make a signal of distress. There is often a cutter or a sloop stationed near the island.'

'There is as often as not a damned French custom-house lugger, or worse, a Dutch coastguard cutter; that damned island attracts them like a candle does moths. The fact is, Helgoland is too much of a hazard. I'd rather take my chance to the norrard and hope for the sight of a British cruiser than poke my head into that noose!'

Littlewood's voice rang with the conviction of a man who had made up his mind and would brook no interference. His eyes met those of the still uncommitted Drinkwater and he summoned a final argument to ram