Chapter oneI, Dray Prescot, First Lieutenant of His Britannic Majesty’s seventy-four gun ship Roscommon, leaped for the struggling form of Mr Midshipman Simpkins entangled in rigging as the main topmast collapsed upon him.
The ship writhed in the gale and the deck went up and down like the swinging hips of those beautiful girl dancers of Tahiti. Simpkins screamed on and on, a thin kitten mewling snatched away in the maelstrom of noises. The physical force of the wind battered our senses, ripped the breath from our mouths, clenched with the pressure of a torturer’s tongs upon our brains.
There was no time for all that. Skidding on the water-running deck I nearly missed him. He was a fresh pimply-faced youngster scared out of his wits. Savagely I wrenched myself about, grabbed for him. His
