Enemy in Sight! by Alexander Kent Page A

there are six midshipmen aboard this ship whose instruc- tion in the arts of navigation was due to commence some fifteen minutes ago to my reckoning.”
    Gossett touched his battered hat, but could not stop grinning. “Aye, aye, sir! I will attend to it immediately!”
    Bolitho stared after him. It was not like Gossett to daydream.
    He recommenced his pacing and returned to his thoughts. No doubt they would all have time for daydreaming under Pelham- Martin’s broad pendant, he decided.

3 D ECEPTION
    A S DAYS dragged into weeks it seemed to Bolitho as if there was no limit to the merciless cruelty of wind and sea, and the whole world appeared to have shrunk to the inner confines of the ship’s hull and the wave-dashed upper deck. Neither was there any let- up in the commodore’s orders. Day after day the three ships tacked back and forth in every conceivable kind of weather which the Bay of Biscay could offer. Short, gusty winds would change to the full force of an Atlantic gale within minutes, and as sea- men struggled aloft again and again to fight the icy, frost-hardened canvas station-keeping became a nightmare. For days on end the three ships might ride out a storm under reefed topsails, and when visibility returned they would be greeted by a whole stream of urgent signals from the Indomitable to regain formation and begin all over again.
    There was no longer any seasickness aboard the Hyperion, and when they were released for brief spells from work on deck the hands slumped into their cramped hammocks like dead men, grateful only for the warmth of the other bodies swinging around them as the ship smashed on through the angry offshore currents and screaming winds.
    But hardly an hour seemed to pass before the pipes were shrilling again and the cry, “All hands! All hands! Aloft and reef tops’ls!” would be passed from hatch to hatch.
    To prevent the ship’s company from giving way completely to despair Bolitho used every available opportunity to keep them occupied. Gun drill was carried out whenever possible, with the starboard side competing against the larboard. The gunners from the lower battery had to take turns on the main deck for as yet the weather had been too rough to open the lower ports.
    When Bolitho made his regular weekly inspections through- out the ship he was moved by the wretched conditions of the men who lived on the lower gundeck beside and between the thirty twenty-four pounders they would service in action. With the ports sealed and the ship rolling heavily it was like a scene from hell. Some three hundred men lived, ate and slept there, and even allowing for one watch being on deck, the atmosphere was sick- ening. The foul stench of bilge mixed with packed humanity and clothing which was never able to dry was more than enough for the most hardened seaman.
    Three weeks after joining Pelham-Martin’s command they lost a man overboard, a young seaman who had been pressed in Devon. He had been working on the forecastle with the bosun’s party when a great wave had reared high above the jib boom and had hurled him clean over the rail like a piece of canvas. For a few moments he had clung, kicking, to the nettings before another bursting wave had torn him away and carried him screaming down the ship’s side.
    It had been blowing a gale at the time and it was impossible to heave to without danger of dismasting the ship. Not that there would have been any point. By the time a boat could have fought its way clear of the side there would have been no chance of find- ing the man in that tossing wilderness. But it made a great impression throughout the ship which even the toughened accep- tance of more seasoned men could not dispel.
    It had been the ship’s first death since leaving Plymouth, and with the weather driving the ship inwards upon her own resources it seemed to hang on the crowded messdecks like a threat. There had been much the same atmosphere