Chapter 1

November 1805.

The weather had begun to turn foul three days prior to the storm and every one on the island had looked at the massed banks of brilliant white clouds gathering against the dull gun-metal sky beyond and shook their heads grimly. Already then the wind had died and an unearthly silence had settled over the fishing boats all pulled high above the waterline. Along the mud flats the old men and the young stood watching as Old Mother Nature gathered her anger in the long drawn out silence.
Even the gulls were subdued, standing along the break water in indignant ranks, watching the weather.
Finally, as the darkness gathered on the third afternoon, the storm broke.
At first there was not much to see. Silent lines of lightening flickered across the iron distance, but as the weary grey sunlight failed, so the rain began, and as darkness fell, so suddenly the wind came, and with it the over whelming sound of the thunder.
The inshore shipping had long been dragged from the water or tucked into any shelter that could be found, but the sea was not empty for all that. Far out in the storm was the inbound sixty four gun frigate, HMS Anson, returning from convoy duty in the Baltic under Captain Howard.
Under courses and reefed top sails, her deck sloping violently with her chains buried in the heaving swell the Anson ran before the heavy tempest. All along the gangway, the crew stared back with drawn faces at the storm which chased them across the North Sea ever since they had cleared the Skagerrack.
Howard, holding on to the binnacle against the ferocious wind, turned to his first officer, a lean cadaverous Scott with a pock scarred face called McKee and shouted above the howling gale.
McKee saw Howard shouting but the words were carried away and he let go of the rear stays to stagger across the deck.
As he gripped Captain Howard’s arm the entire deck was lit by a great flash of light which arced across the sky, illuminating the men’s faces in a sudden tableau of struggle. McKee looked up in surprise expecting the ship to have been struck, but there was nothing to see but the impregnable darkness of the driving clouds.
Howard grabbed him by the jacket and yelled into his ear.
“The Keel ropes have jammed!”
McKee turned his fear widened eyes at his Captain, feeling his stomach drop as the ship went upon down the next wave into the dark valley. The ship shuddered as her bows met the water and plunged deep, covering the bow sprit in the swirling green, foam flecked sea which rushed aft to cascade into the waist where the men clung to the rat lines and pins.
“God help us!” McKee shivered.
Another flash of light lit the sky, though not so bright as the first, it seemed to pass above and through the clouds, spearing down into the sea ahead of the ship into the huge swell that now began to lift the ship up onto the crest of the next wave. The deck tilted slowly back again, and the sea ran from her, pouring through the scuppers and over flowing over the side to be blown away by the wind.
McKee stared helplessly as two men were dragged by the weight of the sea, from the gangway disappearing instantly into the dark water. He turned his wild eyes to the captain again, opening his mouth to shout a request for an order, but Howard’s face jerked upward in indignant shock and fear, and as McKee turned to see why, the entire deck was lit by a vast golden red light. In abject mortification, McKee saw a great fiery winged shape burst from the clouds to pass over the ship, trailing fire and a smoke darker even than the clouds.
It struck the tops of the main and fore mast and splintered them, severing both them and the storm sails from the ship before passing down into the sea in an explosion of water and fire that turned the ships bows hard to starboard.
Captain Howard had rushed to the capstan following the thing in the sky with incredulous eyes, and McKee turned to the men at the wheel. One was on his knees, already mad with fear, his voice screaming of the devil above the storm, but the others remained firm, looking with concern at him.
The ship was being turned into the path of the next wave, and with out her storm sails and rudder, there was nothing McKee could do but wait for the end.
He shook his head at the wheel men and rushed to the side of the ship. He could already see the next wave building up behind them, and as the deck began to lift he scrambled over the side and dropped heavily into the sea.
Captain Howard turned and realised what was happening. A deeply religious man, he had been shook to his very core at the fiery apparition in the sky and seeing the wave lifting the Anson side on, he fell to his knee’s in supplication.
The ship was lifted at first, but then the wave broke, and the frigate was rolled over as easily as if it had been but a dream.For a moment there was a confusion of water and bodies, and Howard was sensible of the ship rolling over him and some one collided with him, grappling him blindly in the dark sea. Then he was struck by a cannon as it fell from the up turned ship, and Howard knew no more.