and
in spite of the Lieutenant for Physical Training--och! No, Bunje,
don't start scrapping--it's too early in the morning, and we'll
wake . . . those . . . poor devils----Eugh! Poof! There! What did I
tell you!"

The two swaying figures, after a few preliminary cannons off sideboard,
arm-chair and deck stanchion, finally collapsed on to the settee. The
sleepers awakened with disgust.

"Confound you, Bunje, you clumsy clown!" roared one. Between them they
seized the Young Doctor, who was a small man, and deposited him on the
deck. "Couldn't you see I was asleep, Pills?" demanded the other
hotly. "You've woken Peter, too. He's had--how many is it,
Peter?--eight morning watches running. I've brooded over him like a
Providence from the fore-top through each weary dawning, so I ought to
know." He yawned drowsily. "Peter saw a horn of the crescent moon
sticking out of a cloud this morning, and turned out the anti-aircraft
guns' crews. Thought it was the bows of a Zeppelin. Skipper was
rather peevish, wasn't he, Peter?"

The Junior Watchkeeper grunted and turned over on to his other side.
"Well, you nearly opened fire on a northern diver in that flat calm at
dawn the other morning." The speaker cocked a drowsy eye on the mess
from under his cap-peak. "Silly ass vowed it was the periscope of an
enemy's submarine coming to the surface."

"Truth is," said the Indiarubber Man, "your nerves are shattered.
Pills, here's a job for you. Give the lads two-penn'orth of bromide
and stop their wine and extras. In the meanwhile," he pulled a small
book out of his pocket, "I have here a dainty _brochure_, entitled,
'_Vox Humana_--Its Ascendancy over Mere Noise'--otherwise, 'Handbook
for Physical Training.' I may say I was partly responsible for its
production."

"I believe you, faith!" said the Fleet Surgeon bitterly, over the top
of the B.M.J.

The Indiarubber Man wheeled round. "P.M.O.! That's not the tone in
which to speak to your Little Ray of Sunshine. It lacked _joie de
vivre_." The speaker beamed on the mess. "I think we are all getting
a little mouldy, if you ask me. In short, we are not the bright boys
we were when war broke out. Supposing now--I say supposing--we
celebrated our return to harbour, and the fact that we haven't bumped a
mine-field, by asking our chummy-ship to dinner to-night, and giving
them a bit of a chuck-up! Which is our chummy-ship, by the way?
Where's the _What Ho!_ lying?