‘Mackerel obviously not in yet,’ he grated. ‘Going to bear in a bit, find some broken water and try for bass.’

La Corbière groaned, muffling deeper groans from Sam and me. There’s nothing we like better than broken water, of course, but we prefer to brave it with a professional boatman at the helm. In we went, though, and found a stretch of the stuff which looked as though it might serve, although it was unpleasantly close to a razor-edged miniature cliff at the shoreline. Worse was to come.

‘Going to step the mast,’ said George; ‘runs up a scrap of sail, then we can cut this engine, get a bit of quiet.’

I am nothing of a mariner but this appalled me. I looked at Sam. He looked at me.

‘George,’ said Sam gently, ‘are you certain that’s wise? I mean, isn’t this a lee-shore or something?’

‘Rubbish,’ he said. ‘A shore is only a lee-shore if there’s an onshore wind. There is no wind at present but at this time of a warm day we can depend upon some light off-shore airs. And I must remind you, Sam, that there can only be one skipper in a boat: disputing an order can kill people.’

‘Aye, aye,’ said Sam, in a puzzled, insubordinate voice.

I started to remember that I hadn’t heard La Corbière for some minutes, wondered whether a breeze had got up to dissipate the haze, but too late now. George had raised and locked the little mast into its tabernacle and was halfway up it, wrestling with the daft little leg-o’-mutton sail, when the first gust out of the South-East hit us.