In Hazard by Richard Hughes Page A

Buxton were on the Bridge together. That was Friday: they had been in the hurricane since Wednesday morning. Early Thursday morning, wasn’t it, they had something to eat—those biscuits? And a little water? As for sleep, they had not had any for two nights; nor even any rest.
    The storm was blowing full pelt again: had been, ever since the birds went.
    The lack of sleep gave a sort of twinge occasionally in the Captain’s brain: as if someone with fine tweezers was plucking at his consciousness, tweaking out a split second every now and then. If this got worse, he was afraid he might reel and fall: and anyhow, each twinge left him feeling a little sick. Buxton must be feeling just as bad. So he turned to Buxton:
    â€œYou’d better get a bit of rest.”
    Buxton went into the wheelhouse, wedged his feet against the binnacle and his back against the bulkhead; held onto the nerveless wheel and let his head fall forward on his chest.
    Ten minutes later Buxton woke, to see a wave towering right over him like a tree. He was already out of the wheelhouse, and running down to the deck: yelling to them to get their life-belts on, for the ship was going.
    Those who in the everlasting noise could not hear him, could see what he meant.
    The boys saw him cutting his trouser-legs off short at the knee, so as to be able to swim better, so they did the same.
    The sea was awful: worse than it had ever been. You could see this was not deep water: free-bottomed waves do not rear so wildly (for a wave is not a thing with a top but no bottom, as you would think by looking at it: the shape and forces of a wave are just as much under as above: and if a wave is hampered beneath, on top it must burst).
    Captain Edwardes ordered the lead to be cast: and it was cast, but the wind blew it out across the water nearly level. Sixty fathoms, it read. But that was nonsense: this was not sixty-fathom water. They were over a bank. Where? He could only guess. Might be Serrana: might be Serranilla: anyhow, how could you tell what the normal level of the water was here? Near the centre of such a vortex, the ocean would be drawn up in a great pucker, with them on top of it. Why, this might even be normally dry land; a cay or island; and they, sailing over without bumping, complaining because it was broken water!
    These waves really had the size and almost the shape of trees—trees galloping about, lashing and thrashing each other to bits, like that game of Kings and Queens which children play with plantains.
    A few such waves, falling on deck with the hatches open again would soon fill her up, and down she would sink. Go on! Cut off your trouser-legs; and put on your life-belts! Then let us see you do your fancy swimming-strokes among these waves! Waves that will drop on you from seventy feet above you, weighing five hundred tons a time! And where do you think you will swim to, in the Name of Christ?
    One wave already had come down on the deck, like a really vast oak crashing. A few more would sink the ship.
    Then came another great wave that landed right on top of the funnel-hole. It must have been still hot down there, for that wave came out again faster than it went in: spouted out again roaring and black with soot. When they saw the steam and soot people started yelling Fire! When he heard them yelling Fire! MacDonald thought some fool had been trying the donkey again, and really done the damage this time. When he heard them yelling Fire! Buxton thought of the drums of alcohol stored in the after-castle; the only badly inflammable cargo they carried, now everything was sodden ... but what nonsense, alcohol would not burn with a lot of smoke and black soot, it would roar sky high with the first spark. What a fool, to think alcohol might burn like that!
    I must be losing my head.
    So then he began paying attention to that most important thing of all, not losing his head: and in no time was clear cold sober again. He looked at the towering