Julian Stockwin - Seaflower

Under his feet Kydd sensed a sudden rupture, a rending crack - and he fell to the deck, the wheel spinning uselessly above him. Stunned, he heard Capple shout something about the helm before his wits returned and he realised the tiller-ropes must have parted. The ship began to fall away, but Auberon's voice came instantly, bullying over the dull roar of the storm down the main hatchway. Tlelieving tackles — get going, y' lubbers!'

A bigger pitch than usual forced the bows at an angle to the sea and a comber crowded aboard in a mad welter of white, crashing, invading. From up the hatchway came an indistinct shouting. Quist emerged, grabbed Kydd's shoulder and hurled him down the ladder, yelling that the tiller had broken in the rudder-head. Capple clattered down behind him.

They raced to the wardroom where a group of men stood staring at a wreckage of broken timber, blocks and a mess of rope. The whites of their eyes showed as the huge rudder thudded sideways, uncontrolled against the counter, and a thump of white spray shot up the rudder casing. The deck canted steeply, then reared up the other way, sending men stumbling and gear sliding. Kydd hesitated — but Capple thrust forward. 'Clear that shitde for'ard,' he roared, his finger stabbing towards two of the nearest men, who jerked into action. He pushed through the others to look at the rudder. 'Get th' fuckin' chocks,' he snapped at Kydd.

The carpenter appeared, panting. 'Chocks,' he agreed quickly, and together, the deck bucking like a horse, he and Kydd eased the first shaped piece of timber into the octagonal opening down which the massive rudder creaked and groaned. 'Th' easy bit,' grunted the carpenter. 'Hold it there, cully, an' I'll scrag ye if y' lets it go.'

Kydd held the timber wedge as if his life depended on it. Through the opening he could see the terrifying white-torn confusion of seas hurtling up, tilting, then dropping like a stone. The rudder stock swung over ponderously, thumping and grinding into the rough chock under his hand with an appalling creaking. Capple and the carpenter tried to stuff the remaining chock into the other side, but the rudder spat it out and swung back to thud against the ship's stern. Kydd knew to keep his chock steady in place, but his hands were perilously close to where he knew the rudder stock would return. It narrowly missed crushing his fingers, and this time the other chock slammed in, true.

'Out of it!' gasped the carpenter, and Kydd pulled aside as he swung a big iron-bound mallet in accurate, crashing hits. Miraculously, the rudder had now been jammed into its central position. On deck they could use a trysail aft to bring the bows back on course. The immediate danger was over.

'Spare tiller, Chips?' Capple asked.

'Aye,' said the carpenter, and inspected the immobile rudder head where the tiller had broken off inside. 'Second mortice,' he said decisively.

With relief, Kydd saw that the spare tiller could be fitted in a lower mortice and, without being told, he had the men hastily ranging the tiller-rope and relieving tackles. When the spare tiller had been shipped, these tackles were clapped on, and they had a fully working rudder once more. It was amazing how quickly a neat, seamanlike scene could turn into a picture of utter despair — bedraggled ropes and anonymous timbers and wreckage — and how quickly return to a shipshape condition merely by getting to the heart of the circumstance and doing what was needed. He had seen Capple do just that and acknowledged the lesson.

On deck again, and at the wheel, Kydd saw that the winds had grown marginally less frantic, were definitely more in the west. There was no change in the vista of white-streaked water, horizontal clouds of spume flying over the surface. Huge waves crested, tumbled and were blown downwind to spindrift. The master paced down the deck past Kydd, who flashed him a grin.

Quist stopped, as if surprised in his thoughts. 'Good lad,' he said, against the wind noise, 'an' if it stays as is, we're thrown clear o' the blow betimes.' He smiled amiably and paced on.

So, it was only a matter of time. The old ship-of-the-line plunged on before the relentless wind. The hours passed. Kydd remembered Quist's words earlier. He mentally faced into the westerly wind and worked out that at nine points on his right hand, the centre of the storm was passing somewhere out there in the wildness to the north.

He was relieved at noon, and took the lee helm again for the last dog-watch with Capple, wind to the south-west. By now his eyes were red-sore with salt and his body ached for rest; it seemed to Kydd a malicious cruelty of the fates when the dread cry passed aft, TLand hooo — I see breakers aheeeaaad!’

Lookouts forward had sighted land in their path. Large or small it was an appalling hazard for a vessel barely under control, flying before the wind as she was. Images of the death of his lovely Artemis crept remorselessly into Kydd's skull. He shook his head and beat them back. Now Trajan needed him.

'Wear ship - we wear this instant!' Auberon bawled.

Kydd and Capple threw up the helm, and the vessel answered grudgingly. It would be difficult to wear around with only the reefed course and staysails, but it would have to be done. The storm jib was thrown out at just the right moment and, with violent rolling, Trajan turned about.

'Lie to, Mr Quist,' Auberon ordered, as the Captain appeared, driven by the sudden change in motion.

Tying to, sir,' Auberon reported, while Bomford studied the ugly dark line extending across the horizon. 'We'll never claw off, you know,' he said quietly, gazing at the endless barrier of land ahead. Trajan lay over crazily as the low sails took the wind from nearly abeam.

Bomford staggered but continued to observe, then snapped his glass shut. 'Clear away both bowers. We anchor!'

The veering crew in the cable tiers needed no telling; the cables would go to their fullest extent, and in the stink and dread of the near darkness in the bowels of the vessel they readied the cable. At the cathead in the bow the conditions for the seamen working to free the anchor for casting were frightful too. Kydd's heart wrung at the white fury of the seas coming inboard, receding to reveal the black figures of men resuming their fight.

First one anchor let go, then the other. The dead weight of the hempen cables, even before the great anchors could touch the sea-bed, heaved Trajan's bows around, head to sea. The effect was immediate. Taking the seas directly on the bow, she pitched like a frightened stallion, at one moment her bare bowsprit stabbing the sky, then a fearful onrush of seas down her sides, before a heart-stopping drop downwards, ending in a mighty crunch and explosion of spray at her bows.

Kydd stood ineffective: Trajan was now held by her anchor cables, meeting the hurricane head-on, and therefore his duty at the helm held no more purpose. It gave him time to look back at the line of land, which was nearer than he had thought. The constant mist of spume on the sea's surface had obscured the lower half of the band of hard black, and he quailed.

A perceptible yank and quiver: untold fathoms below, the iron claws of an anchor had come to rest in the sea-bed. The motion changed: the high soaring of the bows was the same, but after the lurch downwards, in the hesitation before the swoop up, the ship snubbed to her cable — a disorienting arrest of the wild movement for a big ship.

'Off yer go, then, cock, get somethin' ter eat, an' I'll see yer in an hour,' Capple said. Kydd flashed him a grateful smile. He had not had anything since daybreak: with both hands on the wheel there was no way he could bolt the dry rations on offer.