He climbed the stern ladder-way and plunged into the roaring confusion of the gun-deck. Daylight shining through jagged gaping holes in the ship's east-pointed bows, made a glittering cloud of the smoke and dust kicked up from the cannon. Roaring Martha had jumped her tackling, and five men were fighting to hold her long enough against the roll of the ship to get her secure again. At any moment, the gun might go running wild across the deck, crushing men and perhaps smashing through the side. ‘There girl, hold fast, hold fast—’ The captain of the gun-crew spoke to the canon as if she were a skittish horse, his hands flinching away from the smoking-hot barrel. One side of his face was bristling with splinters standing out like hedgehog spines.

No one knew Laurence in the smoky red light, he was only another pair of hands. His flight gloves were still in his coat pocket. Wearing them, he clapped on to the metal and pushed her by the mouth of the barrel, his palms stinging even through the thick leather, and with a final thump she heaved over into the channel again. The men tied her down and stood around trembling like well-run horses, panting and sweating.

There was no return fire, no calls passed along from the quarterdeck, no ship in view through the gun port. The ship was griping furiously where he put his hand on the side, a sort of low moaning complaint as if she were trying to go too close to the wind. Water glubbed in a curious way against her sides, a sound wholly unfamiliar, and he knew this ship. He had served on Goliath four years in her midshipman's mess as a boy, as lieutenant for another two and at the Battle of the Nile; he would have said he could recognise every note of her voice.

He put his head out of the porthole and saw the enemy crossing their bows and turning to come about for another pass She was only a frigate: a beautiful trim thirty-six gun ship which could have thrown not half of Goliath's broadside; an absurd combat on the face of it, and he could not understand why they had not turned to rake her across the stern. There was only a little grumbling from the bow-chasers above, not much of a reply to be making, though there was a great deal shouting.