Declan began to twist the pole and the hooked end gathered a bunch of shirt. He laid the pole on the hull’s edge and levered the near end down so that my father began to lift clear of the water. Angus was lying in the bay now. He reached forward as my father’s limp form swung in towards the Moonbird and in one swift motion he had a hold of him. He hauled the old man onto the deck.

The water streamed off him and he lay there limp. Again, that crowd of feelings so at odds with each other. The terrible fear of losing him; the end of my central reason for living and, with it, a whisper of curiosity about who I might be now; relief that this mad escapade would end and I could go back to Srinivas and tell him his judgment was awry.

The men turned my father over, slid a cask under his belly and began to roll him, pressing on his back and thumping between his shoulderblades. He coughed and vomited: I took a bucket of water and sloshed the mess away. I admit I threw the rest of it over his face, and not because I thought it would rouse him, sodden as he was.

He shook himself, reached vaguely into the air in front of him and bellowed something; then he drew his feet up under himself, tried to stand, then toppled and fell.

The others wandered off, satisfied that the crisis was averted. They brought the Moonbird around to its original course and returned to their assigned positions: Angus and Declan to their hammocks, Argyle to the watch. I asked the master who had raised the alarm: he thought it had been the doctor, now returned below decks.

My father had sat himself up with his chin raised, a posture I knew to mean that he was trying to orientate himself. Relief was curdling to fury inside me.

‘You were very fortunate,’ I said, as evenly as I could.

He heard the anger beneath my words. Looked pained for a second, confused. ‘I don’t know how I fell in…’

‘I’ll tell you how: you were rinsed! Where is the grog you’re carrying? I’m going to put an end to it.’

Confusion again.

‘I’m not carrying any grog, love. Just, just stay true to it, I beg you. We…find the man an then we’ll, then we’ll…’ He slumped, retched, vomited again.

I turned away. Declan had roped off the gunwale bay: he couldn’t go anywhere; it wasn’t cold above decks. I decided he could spend some time reflecting on his idiocy.