Free Under False Colours by Richard Woodman

condition of the sea. It was no longer a dark mass delineated by streaks of spume and the roar of breaking crests tumbling to leeward. No longer did the sea rise to the force of the gale. Now it was beaten; the white breakers were shorn as the sound of the wind grew from the scream of a gale to the booming of a storm.
    Beside him the mast creaked and with a sound like a gunshot the foretopsail blew out and the flogging of canvas began again, transmitted to the mainmast via the stays, a shuddering that seemed fair to bring all three of the barque's masts down. Below him Littlewood was bawling more orders and his men were laying in from the main topsail yard. Their faces, what he could see of them, were wild, fierce with desperation, excoriated by anxiety and the onslaught of salt spray which scoured the flesh and made looking to windward impossible. For an indecisive moment Drinkwater cast about him, conscious only of the vast power of the storm and the strain on the Galliwasp , but as Littlewood's men struggled over the edge of the top to go forward and try and secure the foretopsail, he recalled Quilhampton and tried again to make out the gun-brig in the surrounding darkness.
    Littlewood was keeping his ship's head before the wind but Drinkwater was unable to see anything more than a small circular welter of seething white water, a tiny circumscribed world in which only they existed. He was aware too, that he was having difficulty breathing, that he could no longer cling to his perilous perch and retain the strength to descend the mast. Fearful of his own weakness as much as the wind's violence, he fought his way over the edge of the top, pressed into the futtock shrouds and impeded by the updraught of the wind. Like a fly in a web he struggled until he regained the comparative safety of the deck.
    Littlewood had all hands mustered now, transformed by the catalyst of crisis into an inferno of energy. Unlike the complex arrangements on a man-of-war, with its chains of command extending from the quarterdeck into the nethermost regions of the ship, a merchantman's master was at once in supreme command but on an occasion such as this, driven of necessity to perform many duties himself. His mates and petty officers were also strained in the extremity of their situation, tailing on to ropes, heaving and belaying as they fought to subdue the flogging foretopsail and to brace the yards. Littlewood himself was struggling at the helm and Drinkwater crossed the deck to grab the opposite spokes and help him.
    'Obliged,' shouted Littlewood. 'We've three feet of water in the well ... Did you see ... ease her a point, Captain ... did you see anything of the brig?'
    'Nothing.'
    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,