HOLDING POWER

The wind rattled the inn-sign and it was coming on strong when the landlord’s voice cut through the buzz of smoky conversation in the Mermaid. “Anyone from the big black cutter?” This is not what you want to hear on a rainy night in St Mary’s on the wild Isles of Scilly, because when you are the man in question, you know your genial host is not about to ask where you buy your galvanised shackles.

“Bloke just pitched up says there’s a yacht dragging onto you…”

I never saw my crew guzzle their pints so quickly. We galloped out the door as though the bar was on fire, slithered down the weedy granite wall and dropped into our dinghy like rats down a drainpipe, but we were too late. Out in the anchorage,