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would have been much more difficult, perhaps impossible.
    The fo’c’s’lemen had been on deck for over an hour laying out the necessary gear, now they stood by stamping their feet, amid grey clouds of frosted breath. The petty officer in charge of the fo’c’s’le, Petty Officer Stone, straightened up from his task and saluted.
    “ Just about finished here, sir… The sea boat lying off the port bow”.
    Stone, ‘Rocky’ to his few friends, was forty years of age, a saintly age amongst a crew whose average age was twenty. He was well named, his face rock-like, chiselled features above a square jaw. His huge arms were covered in an indistinguishable blue haze of tattoos that gave his skin the appearance of blue veined marble. He had been due for retirement in the September of ‘39, the very month that war had been declared, his retirement had been deferred by a Navy hungry for experienced seamen. If the truth had been known, which it wasn’t, he had been relieved when they’d stopped his discharge he had not been looking forward to a life ashore, the Navy and the sea were all he knew. Experience he certainly had in plenty. He had joined the Navy at fourteen, as a boy seaman, and was proud that he knew more about his trade than any man aboard the ‘Nishga’. The younger officers were glad to have him, not only relying on his prowess as a first rate seaman but also on the tact he used dealing with their inevitable blunders in front of the men. It was, however, tact that was noticeable by its absence in his dealings with the men. That he was a bully there could be no doubt, the lower deck lived in constant fear of his quick wit and his proficient and ready use of nautical adjectives. It was said he could have made the Devil himself blush.
    Grant gave a thumbs-up to the bridge and took up his post in the eye of the ship. The destroyer inched slowly ahead following the fragile sea boat thirty feet below her raked bow.
    T he ‘Nishga’ nosed cautiously around the rocky headland with dawn’s light clipping the snow on the cliff tops above the masthead, forming a halo of blue light along its ragged edge.
     
    *     *     *
     
    O’Neill took the sea boat out of harm’s way while the long warship manoeuvred using her twin engines until, turning in a half circle, her bows pointed back out to sea.
    When O ’Neill saw the eye of the first mooring wire snaking down the destroyer’s side he took the sea boat close in under it. The boat’s crew coiled a few fathoms of it in the bottom of the boat and secured the bight to the boats wooden bollard.
    While the seamen on the ‘Nishga’s’ fo’c’s’le carefully paid it out the sea boat pulled away and ferried the end to the first mooring point. Finally they rowed carefully towards a cold Wilson and the end of the destroyer’s stern mooring wire was passed to him. With the wire safely secured he jumped back into the boat.
    At last, after thirty minutes hard graft the ‘Nishga’ was able to use her powerful winches to warp carefully in towards the weathered rock.
    Seamen, spaced at intervals, along the length of the ship , lowered unwieldy basketwork fenders over the side, positioning them between the sharp rocks and the ship’s vulnerable side.
    Towering fifty feet above the top of the mast the rock overhang gradually cut the ship off from the grey sky. To the men on deck it looked as if the cliff was toppling slowly over to engulf the ship.
    Barr looked at his watch, the one his wife had given him on his last leave; it had taken ninety-four minutes to manoeuvre the ship into her new berth. They would have to do better than that.
     
    *     *     *
     
    Corporal Bushel leant to his left and looked down the crevasse he had just ascended. Fifty feet below he could see Stilson climbing steadily, fifty feet below him Blake, head craned back, watched the progress of his two companions.
    Scattered about Blake ’s feet lay the huge amount of gear they