She was. Owing to a heavy thunderstorm, its centre perhaps a hundred miles or more up stream, the level had risen three feet and was still rising.
Sandgrub, waterborne, was swinging almost broadside on, her keel-plates rasping over the shingle.
Then as the strain on the anchor was taken up, she swung round through eight points, and snubbed heavily at her cable.
“Holding?” shouted Poundall, who was the officer-of-the-watch.
“No, sir; she’s dragging!” replied a voice from the fo’c’sle.
“Then pay out another shackle.”
The additional cable roared through the hawsepipe. The compressor was applied, and again the gunboat brought up with a jerk.
“Holding now?”
One of the hands prodded the ground with a boathook.
“Steady now, sir!”