But his eyes were on the wave which followed. Dead in the water, the boat was helpless, and this one would finish the job. He yelled a warning to Lindy below, but knew that she would never hear him. He kneeled and hugged the binnacle, bracing for the shock.

When it came it slammed him loose, but he had nowhere to fall but against the cockpit seat. He caught his shoulder-blade on its edge, but hardly noticed the pain.

For the boat had sternway now, and her rudder was taking the brunt. Sickened with her anguish, he felt Linda Lee shudder. The line he had lashed to the wheel sprung taut, drumming spray into his eyes. He fumbled for his knife to slash it. He was too late. The lashing held, but he heard the cable, under the lazarette, snap with a twang like a giant guitar. The lashing went slack and he heard her gudgeons groan below. She backed down on her rudder, hard-over, squealing in agony.

The huge emergency tiller was lashed near the cockpit. He cut its bindings and fumbled to jam it in the rudder-head before the next wave gathered. He got it half-in, braced his boots on the starboard combing, grabbed the oaken tiller with both hands, and hauled to port.

He could hardly budge the weight of her rudder, but slowly her bow fell off. He found himself cringing. If the next wave hit now, the tiller would sweep him from his seat like a jousting knight. Somehow he hung on.

Slowly, she came downwind, gathering way. She rose to the next wave. He put the wind off the port quarter and skittered down its face.

On the following wave she was surfing. By the next she was flying.

He reached with his knife as high as he could along the luff of the mizzen and slashed the dacron. With another slit in the steel-hard canvas, the foot of the sail disappeared in tatters. The sound of it was like small arms fire. He sawed at the jib-sheet. It snapped in the key of G, and in the white chaos forward he heard the tiny jib flogging itself to death too. In seconds it was a line of ribbons climbing the forestay to point the way.

The pale seas had heightened further. But joining them had eased Linda Lee’s motion, and quieted the wind in her rigging. The eye of the hurricane was still to come, and the other wall after it, reputed to be the worst. They would probably not survive it. They were committed to run, now, and running would keep them in the storm. He saw no way that he could leave the tiller long enough to stream his warps and slow them down.