Ebb tide

'I suppose', said Drew offensively, 'you ain't as handy on your legs as you might once have been.'

'If that is put forward as a reason for abandoning our attempt, Captain Drew, I shall overlook the impropriety of the remark ...' Drinkwater retorted, aware of a sharp intake of breath from an incredulous Quier beside him. 'I prefer, however, to consider that common prudence dictates our actions.' He gave Drew a withering glance and turned to Quier. 'Put up the helm, Mr Quier, and let us return to the ship. Quier turned to the coxswain and, the relief plain on both their faces, the boat began to turn as the coxswain called, 'Put yer backs into it now, me lads!'

Drinkwater ignored Drew's spluttering protest and turned to cast one last glance at the forbidding cliffs, only to feel an imperious tap upon his knee. Drew was leaning forward. 'Sir, I am the senior!' he hissed, his face red with fury. 'I shall give the order!'

'Sir,' Drinkwater replied in a low voice, 'tis seniority in a Pizzy Club, pray do not make too much of it, I beg you.'

Drew's mouth twisted with anger and he reluctantly sat upright, visibly fuming, his sensibilities outraged. Drinkwater, incredulous at the man's stupidity, turned his attention to the now distant Vestal. The men at the oars were going to have to work hard to regain the safety of her, for she alternately dipped into the trough of the seas so that only the trucks of her masts and the pall of her funnel smoke were visible, then rose and sat on the elevated horizon like an elaborate toy.

The boat's bow dropped into a trough and threw up a sheet of spray that whipped aft. 'God blast it!' snarled Drew. Then the stern fell while the bow climbed into the sky and breasted the tumbling wave. The men grunted unconsciously as the man at stroke oar set the pace. Drinkwater could see the oar-looms bowing with their effort.

He shivered. It had grown suddenly chilly. He looked up to see that the sun had once more disappeared behind a thickening cloud, and the joy went out of the day.

Aboard Vestal Forester, peering attentively through the long glass, had seen the boat turn. He lowered the large telescope and reported the fact to Poulter.

'Thank the Lord for small mercies,' Poulter said, relieved. 'D'you keep an eye upon it if you please, Mr Forester, while I run down towards them.'

'Aye, aye, sir.'

Poulter leaned over the forward rail and called to some seamen on the foredeck. 'D'you hear there! I'm running off before the wind for a few moments. Hands to the braces and square the foreyards!'

The hail of acknowledgement came back to them as Poulter rang for half speed ahead on the telegraph, ordered Potts to put the helm up, and watched as Vestal paid off before the wind.

Forester's glass described a slow traverse as the ship swung and then he was staring ahead. A moment later Poulter called, 'Very well, Mr Forester, I can see the boat perfectly now, thank you.' Forester lowered the glass and glanced forward as the men on the foredeck belayed the swung braces.

'Harrison!' he shouted. 'Pass word for the hands to stand by the boat falls!'

'Usual drill, Mr Forester.' Poulter's tone was abstracted as he concentrated on closing the cutter.

'Aye, aye, sir.' The Vestal's mate shipped the telescope on its rack. Casting a final look at the boat ahead, he dropped smartly down the port ladder to the main deck to muster the men at the boat falls and supervise her recovery.

Drinkwater saw Vestal swing and head towards them. Here was a real facility, he thought admiringly, the quick response of the steam propulsion to the will of the vessel's commander; a minimum of effort, hardly a hand disturbed in the process, and while his hypothetical brig could as easily have swung and run downwind, it could not have been accomplished without the co-ordinated presence of at least a score of men. Drinkwater, who had hitherto considered the newfangled steam engine best left to young men, felt a faint, inquiring interest in the thing. Perhaps, he thought, he ought to have a proper look round the engine-room. There was a Mr Jones on board who rejoiced in the rank of 'first engineer' and who was to be infrequently glimpsed on deck in his overalls, like an old-fashioned gunner in a man-of-war whose felt slippers and pallid complexion betrayed his normal habitat far below in the powder magazine.

Captain Poulter watched the boat breast a wave and dive into the trough where he lost sight of it for a moment. Vestal was running before the wind, her paddles thrashing as her hull scended to the succession of seas passing under her, yawing slightly in her course.

'Watch your helm now, Quartermaster,' he said, and Potts mumbled the automatic 'Aye, aye' as he struggled to hold the ship steady on her course.

Poulter stood watching the boat and the sea, gauging the shortening distance. In a few moments he would turn Vestal smartly to starboard, reversing the starboard paddle and bringing the ship round to a heading of south-south-east, off the wind but not quite across it, to reduce the rolling effect of the seas. He was aware that as the ship moved closer inshore, the state of the sea worsened, for the cumulative effect of the presence of the land, throwing back the advancing waves which met their inward-bound successors, created a nasty chop.

If he judged the matter to a nicety, he could tuck the plunging boat neatly under his lee and almost pluck her out of the water. Forester and his men were well practised at hooking on the falls, while Quier and Coxswain Thomas were a competent pair. All in all, it ought to impress the objectionable Captain Richard Drew! As for poor Sir Nathaniel, Poulter marvelled at the old man's pluck.

He looked at the foredeck. Forester, being the good mate he was, had a few hands on the foredeck ready to tend the topsail braces as the ship was brought to. Poulter looked again at the boat, missed her, then saw her much closer and right ahead.

He moved smartly to the engine telegraph and rang for the paddles to be stopped. The jangle of bells seemed oddly short, as though First Engineer Jones had had his hand on the thing. Perhaps he had, Poulter thought, pleased with his ship and her personnel. A man could take pride in such things. He took two steps to the bridge rail and peered over the dodger. He had lost sight of the boat again, then she appeared almost under the bow and Poulter's self-satisfaction vanished. Vestal's paddles were still thrashing round, the wash of them now hideously loud in Poulter's receptive ears. His mouth was dry and his heart hammered painfully as he jumped for the telegraph and swung the handle in the violent double-ring of an emergency order. The heavy brass lever offered him no resistance. Instantly Poulter knew what had gone wrong: the long chain connecting the bridge instrument with the repeater in the engine-room had broken somewhere in the narrow pipe that connected him with the first engineer down below.

Just as the realization struck him, Poulter heard the cry of alarm from the foredeck.

'Hard a-starboard!' he roared at the quartermaster, then rushed to the rail. The two men posted forward to handle the braces were pointing and shouting, looking back up at the bridge, their faces white with alarm.

'Oh, my God!'

It was then that Poulter realized he had compounded matters, that he was in part author of the disaster he was now powerless to avert. In his moment's inattention, Poulter had not noticed the ship slew to port, nor observed Potts' frantic attempt to counter the violent skewing effect of a large sea which had run up under Vestal's port quarter with fatal timing. As a result, as the ship's head had fallen off to port, she had brought the boat across to her starboard bow. Poulter's attempt to throw her unstoppable bulk away from the boat consequently resulted in the exact contrary.

Even as he watched, too late to do anything, Poulter's ship ran down her own boat.

Drinkwater had seen Vestal's head fall to port and thought the sheer deliberate, perhaps the first indication of a turn. But the sudden steadying of her aspect, growing in apparent size with the speed of her approach, turned her from a welcome haven to a terrifying threat. For a few seconds those in the stern staring forward processed the implications of the evidence before their eyes. Drinkwater heard Quier swear under his breath, joined by the coxswain in a louder tone.

'Bloody hell!'

Drew's cry completed this crescendo of comprehension while his look of stark fear caused the oarsmen to