parted like violin strings. The mast went overboard with its two big sails in a welter of stainless steel wire and Dacron, and by the time he could push himself groggily to his feet he could hear it banging against the hull. He groped inside the hatch for the flashlight, but in his haste he knocked it out of its clips on the bulkhead and it fell to the cabin sole. The Shoshone was rolling violently now, dead in the water, and there was another crash as the mast swung into her side.

He plunged down the ladder, lost his balance, and was thrown to his hands and knees against the chart table. The flashlight rolled into him. He grabbed at it, but it went clattering away in the darkness. He tried to calm himself; he was losing his head in a situation where wasted minutes could mean disaster. He pushed himself to his feet, switched on the cabin light, and scooped up the flashlight. It was broken. But there was another in one of the drawers of the chart table. He grabbed it out and ran on deck.

He’d already swung the beam of light in a wide arc across the darkness and the piled and breaking sea astern, searching futilely for what he’d hit, before the idiocy of it finally got his attention. What was he after—a license number, witnesses? He shot the light into the churning mess along the starboard side. The mast and the two sails were still fast to the hull by the forestay, the starboard shrouds, and tangle of halyards and sheets, so he wasn’t in any danger of losing them, but the sails were full of water and would have to be lowered before he could even start to get the spars back aboard. They were still banging against the hull with every roll, but the mast itself was hollow and the boom too light to do any immediate damage to the planking. It would have to wait. He turned and plunged down the ladder again, and even as his eyes came below the level of the hatch he felt the icy tingle of gooseflesh between his shoulder blades. A tiny rivulet of water had rolled out of the bilge and was spreading across the cabin sole that had been dry less than a minute ago.

At the forward end of the cabin, beyond the foot of the mast, was the narrow passage into the forepeak, flanked on one side by the enclosed head and on the other by a locker. He shot through it, switched on the light, and looked, expecting to see the whole bow caved in. There was no visible evidence of damage. But everything he could see was above the waterline. The cabin sole extended into this small triangular space in the bows, and on both sides were benches with lockers beneath, the whole area piled with sailbags, spare rope, extra water cans, unopened cases of food, a sea anchor, and a bundled pneumatic raft. Somewhere under all this, the Shoshone was badly holed below the waterline.

He cleared the compartment by the simple expedient of hurling everything behind him into the cabin, banging water cans, sailbags, and cases of canned goods that burst open and scattered when they hit. As he threw the last of it out of the way, he looked behind him and saw there was now at least an inch of water sweeping back and forth across the cabin sole through this confusion of gear.

In the center of the compartment there was a two-by-two-foot hatch in the floorboards. He grasped the recessed ring-bolt and yanked it out. Water rolled up through the opening and went running aft—ominously clear water, fresh from the sea. A small river of it was flowing in somewhere just forward of him. With the light overhead he could see the frames and planking directly below the hatch. They were unbroken. He grabbed the flashlight and lay flat, training the beam forward under the edge of the hatch. Still no damage. But he couldn’t see far enough; the angle was too sharp, unless he put the flashlight in the water.

He was assailed by a savage compulsion to hurry, and realized he had been cursing ceaselessly and monotonously under his breath. He seemed to be moving forever through a nightmare in slow motion. What the hell difference did it make whether he could see the damage from here or not? He knew it was there, and seeing