The fat cook was finally ready. They climbed the ladder to the main deck. Bervick looked out the porthole. He could not believe what he saw. A high hill of gray-black water was sweeping down on them.
“Get down,” he shouted to the cook who was below him on the ladder. They were too late. Both were thrown back into the focs’le.
The lights went out and in the darkness there were shouts from the surprised men. Bervick reached into his pocket and lit a match. Mattresses and blankets had been thrown against the port side. The men were clinging to the bunks. The match went out.
Guided by the pale gray light from the porthole above the ladder, Bervick climbed up again and looked out at the deck. The wind had blown the rigging loose from the mast and the ropes twisted in the air; many of them had been blown out to sea.
The ship was pressed close to the sea on the port side. The wheelhouse slapped the water with each new gust of wind. Waves, higher than he had ever seen before, swept over the decks. Water streamed over him from cracks in the deck.
Then Bervick saw that they were being driven toward the shore. The ship was out of control. No one could control her now.
Wind, almost visible in its strength, struck at the ship. One of the booms became loose. Horrified, Bervick watched it swing back and forth.
Quite easily the boom knocked the signal light off the top of the wheelhouse.
For a moment Bervick considered what his chances were of reaching the wheelhouse in this wind. He dismissed the thought.
There was nothing he could do. If they hit the rocks there was little chance of any of them living. A person might last five minutes in the cold water. But the wind and waves would dash one to pieces faster than that.