Bolitho brushed the sweat from his eyes and cursed the painful beating of his heart against his ribs. It was now or never. At any moment they would be seen for what they were and the gesture would have been in vain. While the others watched him with fixed fascination he stood up and sauntered openly towards the gun. Then he seated himself noisily on the deck and folded his arms across his chest as if trying to sleep.

Farquhar said between his teeth, “God, look at him! Surely one of those men will realise who he is?”

But the very openness of Bolitho’s movements seemed to have killed any immediate interest, and while the Andiron rolled from one sickening arc to another the ship’s forecastle remained quiet and undisturbed.

Belsey turned on his side by the hatch coaming and croaked, “Look! There’s an officer coming!”

They watched in stricken silence as the blue and white shape of a ship’s lieutenant made its way slowly forward from the main deck towards the forecastle ladder. The officer had to pause halfway up the ladder as a heavier squall than usual struck the ship’s side with a crash of spray which made the foremast vibrate like a young tree.

Then Stockdale who had turned his gaze back to Bolitho said, “He’s done it!”

As the frigate’s bows lifted and yawed against her anchor cable the nine-pounder began to move. At first the movement was hardly noticeable, then with its small chocks squealing it thundered down the full length of the forecastle to smash with shivering force against the foot of the foremast.

Everyone was yelling and shouting at once. Some of the shouts changed to cries of fear as the gun swung malevolently as if controlled by invisible hands and then charged crazily back across the sloping deck.

The lieutenant called, “You men! Get handspikes and fresh lashings! Lively there, or it’ll smash through the side!”

The anchor watch rose from their concealed positions and ran back from the bows to join the stampede of men at the break of the forecastle. In the centre of the confusion, jubilant and deadly, the long nine-pounder turned its muzzle as if to sniff out new havoc, and then careered squeaking and rumbling towards the opposite side. It crashed against another gun and scattered a shot rack like loose pebbles. The rolling cannon balls added to the pandemonium, and some could be heard thudding on the deck below.

A braver seaman than some leapt across the gun’s breech, his hands already fastening a rope’s eye around the muzzle. But as the gun trundled back again he screamed and fell against the bulwark to receive the twenty-six hundredweight of wood and metal full on his chest.

Bolitho seized Farquhar’s arm and snapped, “Look! They’ve got a wedge under the carriage! We’ve not long now.”

Even as he spoke some of the seamen around the gun turned and stared, their expressions of shock and disbelief changing to cold fury. Bolitho and his two companions slowly retreated towards the bows, the wind and sea at their backs, a converging mass of men driving towards them, all the more terrible because of their complete silence.