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I heard the voice of the chaplain wailing, “How vast is thy sea, O Lord, and how small is my boat!”
    It was as close a thing as ever I’d witnessed, much less experienced. If the wind had been another point northerly the sea would have careened us onto our beam ends and into the rocks. The small topsail had provided some control but I still had the tiller hard fast under my arm, trying to avoid the rocky lee shore. I managed to veer us off to windward before a strong gust put our starboard gunwale under, snapping a line and sending two kegs over the side.
    In another breath or two we were safe and sound, though in a fine pickle all the same. The Guernsey was due to sail at any moment and here we were with her gunner and boatswain, plus young Greening, on board the shallop. To make matters worse, we could not take the boat back out, owing to the strength and direction of the wind and the lack of room to tack in the harbour mouth. Mr. Cartwright was thoroughly nettled, as was the chaplain, who had let go of the gun and was now demanding to be returned to the ship.
    I knew, as did the warrant officers, that we would not be going near the Guernsey anytime soon. Captain Palliser could not wait for the weather to improve even if he had a mind to do so. The ship’s bowers were barely holding her now and he would not ride the worsening storm at anchor. A parted cable would mean being driven ashore in the middle of the night and no captain would take that risk for want of two or three men, however useful they might be to his vessel.
    I gave the tiller to Frost and clambered over the cargo to the first lieutenant, intending to tell him as much. But before I could speak, I heard him tell his brother and Reverend Stow that we were as good as stranded in the harbour. We were unlikely to see the Guernsey before Fogo, he said, if indeed then. I was pleased that he had a full appreciation of our situation, since he was largely to blame for it. His brother George merely shrugged at the news, his experience in the army having no doubt accustomed him to sudden changes of plan. The chaplain was not quite so accepting and griped loudly at the suggestion that he would have to make do with nothing more than the clothes on his back. He was a pitiful, if not a comic sight, with his mournful face and dripping wig. He was no soldier and even less a sailor and I could not help but wonder why he’d volunteered for this voyage.
    To add to the chaplain’s misery, it began to rain as we were securing the errant barrels and repacking our kegs. In short order it was coming on with a fury. I instructed the boatswain to rig canopies from the damaged sails while the seamen took to the sweeps and rowed us across the harbour. We soon came alongside a stage where two splitters, their canvas aprons and boots covered in blood and gurry, left the shelter of a storeroom and tied us fast. It was a prosperous fishing room with a good many flakes and stores and a substantial house in a nearby field. The men said it was owned by Mr. Joseph White and managed by his agent, Thomas Street. If Reverend Stow had found the smell of our boat offensive, I could only imagine what he thought of this place. The stench of fish would have stopped a town clock.
    It was now coming on dark and Mr. Cartwright instructed me to go to the house of the local surgeon, that I might learn the condition of the sick midshipman from the Liverpool . I took one of the frigate’s seamen with me as a guide and we crossed the harbour in the jolly boat, landing near a wooden shack that looked in danger of falling over in the wind. I knocked and stood for a time in the rain before a door of rough planks was unlatched and an untidy woman peered out at me. I told her my business and she admitted me reluctantly, insisting that my guide remain outside. This struck me as most inhospitable, until I remembered that the Liverpool sailors had been here for two weeks without an officer.