Allday rubbed his skull and asked, “Can’t you sleep, Captain? ’Tis four hours before daylight.”

Bolitho let the coffee explore his stomach and was grateful for it. His mind had defied rest while the Hekla had clawed her way clear of the coast, but now that time was running out he knew he should try to sleep. Calvert was rolled in a blanket in one of the two boxlike cabins, but whether he was asleep or brooding over Lelean’s death it was hard to say. He should have left him in Djafou, he knew it. Just as he was certain that Calvert would have gone out of his mind at being abandoned to his tortured thoughts.

He said, “I will rest in a moment!”

Inch entered the cabin, his tarpaulin coat glistening with salt rime as he staggered towards the coffee jug. He wiped his streaming face and said, “Wind’s veered a piece, sir. Gone round to west nor’ west, as far as I can tell. I’ll go about in an hour.” He hesitated, suddenly aware of his authority. “If that is suitable, sir?”

Bolitho smiled. “You are the captain. I am sure it will be convenient for our purpose. At daylight we may sight Restless.” He forced his mind to stop probing and reexamining his doubts. “But now I will sleep.”

Allday followed Inch towards the companion ladder and muttered, “My God, sir, I thought I yearned for small ships again!”

Inch grinned. “You are getting old!”

The sea thundered over the upper deck, and a goodly portion of it cascaded down the ladder towards them.

Allday swore and replied, “And, with respect, I should like to get older before I die!”

* * *

“Good morning, sir.” Inch touched his hat as Bolitho appeared at the companion and stepped over the coaming.

Bolitho nodded and walked to the lee rail, the sleep already gone from his mind in the keen, damp air. The daylight was as yet only a glimmer, and now that Hekla had gone about to run almost parallel with the coast he guessed they were barely more than two miles offshore. The wind had veered still more and now pushed steadily across the larboard quarter, the spray leaping occasionally above the stout bulwarks to sluice noisily away into the scuppers. He could see the land, although it was little more than purple shadow, and it was strange to accept the fact that due to the slow necessity of clawing away from it to gain the wind’s advantage, Djafou now lay less than thirty miles ahead of Hekla’s blunt bows. Inch had done well, and there was nothing in his long horseface to show he had been on deck for most of the time while his ship had tacked and beaten around one great circle to her present position.

Astern they were being followed by a thick sea mist, so that it gave a false impression of being motionless, an impression made a lie by the flying spray around the bowsprit and the bulging tan sails above the deck.