The rain turned to sleet and then to snow. Thick white flakes swirled in on the wind and layered themselves on the captain’s tunic. His hands were losing all sensation and he realised he must return to the deck before the cold weakened his grip on the rigging. But just as he took the first step down, he glimpsed the dark loom of a headland over the bow. White spray burst over jagged rocks at the base of the cliff, barely half a mile ahead.

The captain rapidly swung himself to the deck and hurried aft towards the steersman.

‘Rocks ahead! Hard over!’

The captain threw himself onto the timber handle and strained with the steersman against the pressure of the sea surging past the broad steering paddle overside. Slowly the trireme responded, and the bowsprit began to turn away from the headland. In the glare of the lightning, they could see the glistening dark teeth of the rocks rising from the crashing waves. The roar of their pounding carried even above the howling of the wind. For a moment the bowsprit refused to swing any further towards the open sea and the captain’s heart was seized by dark, cold despair. Then a fluke in the wind carried the bowsprit round, clear of the rocks, barely a hundred feet off the bow.

‘That’s it! Keep her there!’ he screamed at the steersman.

With the small spread of mainsail straining under the pressure of the wind, the trireme surged forward, up and over the wild sea. Past the headland the cliff opened out onto a pebbled shore, behind which the land rose with a scattering of stunted trees. Waves pounded up the beach in great sweeps of white foam.

‘There!’ The captain pointed. ‘We’ll beach her there.’

‘In that surf?’ shouted the steersman. ‘That’s madness!’

‘It’s our only chance! Now, on the tiller, with me!’