But the sea is not an agent of revenge, nor is it cruel; it is indifferent, an elemental, primal force. The seaman turned novelist Joseph Conrad once said, ‘If you want to know the age of the earth, look upon the sea in a storm.’ And the poet Lord Byron described the sea as ‘dark-heaving, boundless, endless, and sublime. The image of Eternity…’ Since the early days of sail countless brave souls who have set forth on the bounding main have not returned. It might be supposed that sea battles have taken the largest toll in human life, but this is not the case. During 20 years of war between 1793 and 1813 approximately 100,000 men in the Royal Navy died – 6.3 per cent from enemy action, 12.2 per cent from shipwreck and other disasters and 81.5 per cent from disease or accident. Fire at sea was particularly feared by sailors. In ships made almost entirely of combustibles – wood, canvas and tarred cordage just waiting for a flame – a small blaze could very quickly become an inferno.
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