‘It’s a wild night we’ll have of it.’

Andrew was standing beside me, grimly clutching the lee rail with both hands. Each wave that rolled past, as we dipped and rose again, sent a slap of spray over the gunwale that doused us both.

‘There’s little we can do on deck,’ I said. ‘I want to see how my sailor with the broken leg is faring. He may have woken now. Where are your men?’

He grinned. ‘Lying low on the gundeck and trying to keep out of the way of the sailors’ feet. Those who aren’t puking over the side.’

‘Still? I thought they had found their sea legs during the battle.’

‘They had other things on their mind then. A marvellous cure for sea sickness. Besides, we were sailing with the wind then. Not like this.’

Even as he spoke, a larger wave crashed over the gunwale, soaking him from shoulder to hip and calling forth worse language than I had ever heard from his lips. It was cold, too. It might be high summer, but the sea was cold, cold.

‘Come,’ I said, curbing my laughter at his look of disgust, like a night-prowling cat who has had a bucket of slops poured over it. ‘We can surely take refuge in the captain’s cabin. He will be too much occupied with sailing the ship . . . in . . . this.’

I had nearly lost my footing as the ship climbed another great wave, then plunged suddenly down the other side. Staggering, and grabbing a handhold of any spar or rope or rail that offered, we made our way to the stern and the sanctuary of the captain’s cabin.

Someone had lit a lantern here and hung it from one of the low overhead beams that supported the raised poop deck above us. The injured sailor was stirring as we came in, blinking in the light like a confused owl.

‘How are you feeling now?’ I asked, perching on the captain’s bunk on the side away from the broken leg.

‘What happened?’ he said. ‘By the cross, my head hurts.’

‘I’ve some sympathy with that,’ Andrew said..

‘A Spanish cannon ball tore our rigging when you were halfway up the mast,’ I said. ‘You fell and hit your head. And broke your leg.’

He managed to raise his head and shoulders far enough to peer down at his leg splints in bafflement.

‘Don’t you remember?’ I said. ‘You woke before and I gave you to drink, something to ease the pain.’

He shook his head, then groaned and clasped it in his two hands.

‘Is there more of it? My head feels as though it’s being used as a blacksmith’s anvil.’

I got up to prepare more of the poppy juice in wine, but I would not make it so strong this time. Battling as we were against those great waves, we might have more casualties. It was difficult to keep on my feet and I must clutch at the edge of the captain’s table to stop myself falling over.

‘You’re the army captain, an’t you?’ He was squinting at Andrew, as though keeping one eye shut made the pain in his head less.

‘Aye, Captain Joplyn, come from Amsterdam.’

‘I remember that. Picked you up and rowed down the canal. There was Hell’s own wind out on the Channel. By God! The Spanish!’ He started half out of the bed, but was held back by the weight of his splints. ‘What’s become of the bastards?’

‘Run away,’ Andrew said complacently. ‘We shot ’em to pieces. That Hell’s wind, as you call it, was Heaven’s own wind. Drove the bastards away and gave us the weather gage. Those that didn’t founder are hurpling away into the German Ocean.’

The two men grinned at each other. Well, let them glory in the victory. I couldn’t but rejoice that the Spanish, my ancient enemies since childhood, had been driven away, but there kept flashing before my eyes a vision of men being dragged down into the cold green waters to where their limbs would tangle in forests of slimy weed and the crabs come scuttling to pick their bones clean.

‘Here,’ I said briskly, ‘drink this. It will help with the pain. Once we are back in Dover we can make a better job of that leg.’

He drank the wine gratefully and I poured a beaker each for Andrew and me, thinking I would have been glad of the addition of some poppy juice to help me sleep through this violent tossing. It felt as though we were being thrown first to starboard and then to port, while making no progress forward. The cabin was above the waterline, for which I was grateful, for below decks you could hear the cruel sea just on the other side of the thin planks of wood which were all that stood between us and death. Yet even in the cabin we could hear the slap when one of the larger waves crashed high against the side of the ship. These seemed to be coming more frequently.

‘They’ll be baling out,’ the sailor said. ‘With this sea running, she must be taking water over the side. You’re sure we an’t holed?’

Andrew shook his head. ‘It was only the rigging that was damaged, and a small tear in the mainsail.’ He glanced at me. ‘I’d better go and make sure my lads are lending a hand with the baling out. No point in them sitting idle.’

After he was gone, the sailor lay back and looked as though he was dozing. I went over to the window let into the rear of the cabin. There was little enough to see. No lights from other ships showed. Black clouds raced past over the face of the moon, which peered out fearfully from time to time. The lantern hoisted over the poop deck cast a semi-circle of light on the water below the stern, illuminating the swirling wake cutting through the black water and the foam-crested waves which rose and fell behind us. The whole ship was speaking, her timbers groaning, her canvas slapping, her ropes whining through pulleys. The Good Venture was a stout ship, but she hated this treatment as much as I did.

I was still looking out at the demon-dark night when Andrew returned.

‘I’ve managed to find some food,’ he said.

Until that moment I had been ignoring my aching stomach, but now I realised than no one on board ship had eaten for many hours. What Andrew brought was unappetising enough in the normal way of things – rock hard ship’s biscuit, some strips of dried meat of unknown origin, and some small wrinkled apples – but at that moment I believe I could have eaten anything. We sat opposite each other at the captain’s table, greedily tearing at the food with our teeth. At least we showed enough restraint to set a portion aside for the sailor when he woke. After chewing up the apples, cores and all, we washed it down, recklessly, with the last of the captain’s wine. Andrew caught my eye and winked.

‘I’m sure he has more, stored away. In any case, we need him to keep a clear head.’

‘What is it like, out there on deck?’ I said.

‘Rough. We’re just off the Goodwin sands, one of the sailors told me.’

I shuddered.

‘I’m going to see for myself.’

I thought, if we were likely to go aground, I wanted to be out there to see it coming.

The sailor groaned and raised his head.

‘Go if you must,’ Andrew said. ‘I’m staying here. There’s rain coming down now. I’ll give the man his food. You’ll not stay long, I’ll warrant you!’

I opened the cabin door, and the wind thrust it against me so that I nearly lost my balance. I had to lower my head like a charging bull to make my way into it, and I struggled to close the door behind me. After the lantern light in the cabin, it took time for my eyes to adjust to the darkness on deck, for the high-riding ship’s lamps cast little light down here. A small stinging rain smarted my face like flung sand, so that I screwed up my eyes as I picked my way carefully forward. The ship climbed each oncoming wave as if it were a mountain, balanced on the top, so that it seemed it must slip backwards. Then it tilted and plunged downwards so that the bows were buried in the trough of sea between one wave and the next. For a painful moment it felt as though the ship would plough directly into the next wave, drowning us all, then slowly it tilted and began to climb again. I was thankful that I had been spared the sight of this while I had been in the cabin. For hours now the ship had ploughed on against these great seas and the wind that tore at her canvas, but steadily she was making her way forward. If we were indeed off the Goodwin Sands, we had not much further to go.