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will give it a twist.

Chapter III
(Wednesday)
    Dick Watchett was busy, and excited. This was his first hurricane; and he looked forward to it. Moreover the Captain—since captains are school-masters as well as everything else—made him in imagination commander of the ship; required him to repeat, from barometer and wind-direction, the same calculations that he had made himself, and say what should be done. It was interesting, but an ordeal (because the Captain’s report on him at the end of the voyage would depend on the answers he made).
    Once that was over, he was like a schoolboy out of school. He hoped that the hurricane would do something spectacular; that the wind would bend solid iron rails with its weight, something tangibly to express its force: something vivid, for letters home. But one could hardly hope for anything really spectacular on so large and well-found a ship as the “Archimedes.” No dismasting. No frozen helmsman lashed to the wheel, with salt spray glittering in his beard. No: for the strong wheel-house was up in the centre of the bridge, far above any waves, and thick panes of glass protected you completely from the weather. Nor was it a viking figure that stood at the wheel: it was a little old Chinese quartermaster, with a face like a wrinkled yellow apple, standing on a little old mat.
    At eight, when Mr. Buxton had gone his rounds, he had taken Dick with him. Going about the deck, against this wind, was exactly like going up hill: the same effort, and the same slant of one’s body towards the ground. The ship might just as well have been standing up on its stern, as facing the wind, when you tried to go forward: and coming aft was like falling downstairs.
    The loud rustling shriek of the gale was giving place to a deafening roaring. The water sloshing about on the fo’c’sle head was atomised by the wind, and blew aft as mist. The water on the rails was blown off in little glittering fans. Even oil from the winches was carried by the spray to the upper deck.
    And over the side one saw, not the familiar sea, but rather whole countrysides of water. The wind picked the skin off the waves, leaving little white pock-marks. Waves broke, and then swallowed their own foam: you could see it far below the surface, engulfed. Suddenly a squall of rain dashed across. The rain-drops bounced on the water, making a surface like the dewy gossamer on a lawn: like wool. It was as if the naked sea were growing hair.
    Instantly it was a great pleasure to Dick that Sukie was not there. Wind was better than women. A ship-load of men, none of them—at any rate for the respite of the storm—in love with anyone: all purely bent on the impending battle with the air. That was best.
    The thought of Sukie brought the taste of corn-whiskey into his mind; and his mind repelled it with vigour. He felt a sudden conviction that he would never again touch alcohol: it was revolting stuff. Not so much as a glass of beer. Nor smoke. It surprised him a little; for he had always taken a normal pleasure in these things. It was like conversion—a physical conversion, not a spiritual one, for there was no morality nor resolution in it. It was just a sudden reversal of his physical appetites, so strong that he could not believe they would ever change again. A loathing of girls, drink, tobacco; and all wrought by the wind.
    Then the exultation which the storm had raised in him whirled up in his head giddily, and he was sea-sick.
II
    At nine o’clock, when the ship was hove-to, the wind-force had been only seven (on the Beaufort scale): and the barometer stood at 29.58. By noon the barometer had dropped to 29.38; and the wind-force was ten. That is a great wind: we don’t often get it as strong as that in England, even when the weather seems to be blowing itself inside out: but it still continued to increase.
    Plainly the storm was neither of the mildness, nor in the position, predicted. It