oon as we got into the Bay. The _Corydon_ was
loaded to her summer draught and here was a westerly gale coming on her
bow, and later on her beam. She rolled day and night, shipping big seas
all the time. This rolling washed the bilge water up on the plates in
the stoke hold and lifted them, so that the small Welsh coal, like the
Lehigh stuff you get here, was washed into the limber and choked the
pump suctions. Very soon the bilge began to fill. The old ship was
leaking like a basket any way, and she took a heavy list to port. All my
watch that night, from eight o'clock till twelve, I was on those
bilge-pumps trying to make them draw, while the Chief looked after the
engines. It was no joke, with her listed over like that, the platform
under water and green seas coming down through the skylights. I thought
of my pleasant home at Oakleigh Park then, the quiet autumn streets, the
bright fire in the dining-room and the cosy warm bed. Oh yes, I thought
of it, but not with regret. I was out to win through, and all hell
wouldn't have made me desert!

"At twelve o'clock it was pretty serious. The Chief had the Second out
to help with the pumps and sent me to call the old Third. It was his
watch on the main engines, you see, twelve to four. Our berth was
flooded. There was a couple of inches of water on the floor, and at
every sea the water flew through the leaky joints of the dead-lights,
all over old Croasan. To and fro on the floor my slippers were floating
and a torn magazine swam into the room from the alleyway as I opened the
door. The oil from the lamp was dripping on to the drawer tops, and
every time she gave a deeper roll the light flared. I put the magazine
under it to catch the drip, and as I did so I caught sight of a picture
in it, a picture of two men standing on the deck of a ship in a storm.
Underneath were the words, 'I think she's sinking.' Curious, wasn't it?
That's just what I thought. I turned to old Croasan. He lay in his bunk
just as he had come off watch at six o'clock, his dungarees shining with
grease, his tattooed arms grey with dirt. He looked eighty years old as
he lay there with his bald head against the bottle rack, the pouches
under his eyes marking dark shadows on his creased cheeks. I shook him,
and he opened his eyes for a second. I hardly knew what I was doing, I
was so crazy with sickness and bruises and incessant toil. 'Mr.
Croasan,' I shouted at him. 'Eh!' says he, without opening his eyes