Artemis had taken her Zodiac in to shore, tied its stern rope to the back of their fishing boat and tugged it off the beach.

That was Starboard, who was moving along the bank with the stern rope amid a great rustling of bent reeds.

With no proper anchorage on the pebbly riverbed, he ordered Darkqueen made fast by stem, stern and midship ropes to a sycamore and two elms.

The jolly boat nosed at her stern rope like a puppy just broken to leash.

Then he was giving orders for singling op and sailors were letting go all but the head and stern ropes and the springs.

"Make those stern ropes fast to that big oak," Martin called out to them.

When the Ben Asdale had finished discharging her cargo of mackerel, she cast off her stern rope in preparation to move away from the anchored Antarktika.

The third man was a mechanic who might also handle stern ropes.