uring the afternoon, and all
through the night the destroyer had been steaming home against a
rapidly rising gale.

Of how she came to be alone and parted from her flotilla the less said
the better. It was due to a variety of circumstances, among them being
a blinding rain squall after dark the evening before, in which the
officer of the watch was unable to see more than twenty yards, and some
temporary trouble with an air pump which necessitated stopping to put
it right.

The sea, as is usual with the wind from the south-west, had risen fast,
and by midnight it was heavy and steep, while the little ship, punching
against it, had pitched, rolled, thumped and thudded as only a
destroyer can. The motion was dizzy and maddening--a combined pitch
and heavy roll which was the very acme of discomfort. Sometimes the
bows fell into the heart of an advancing, white-topped hillock of grey
water with a sickening downward plunge, and the breaking sea came
surging and crashing over the forecastle to dash itself against the
chart-house and bridge with a shock which made the whole ship quiver
and tremble. Then, with

[Transcriber's note: pages 41 and 42 missing from source book.]

edged volumes with unerring accuracy on to his long-suffering head.

The only person who really did not mind the motion at all was the
wireless operator in his little cubby-bole abaft the chart-house. He,
with a pair of telephone receivers clipped on over his ears ready to
catch stray snatches of conversation from invisible ships and distant
shore stations, sat enthroned in a chair bolted to the deck. His den
was hermetically sealed to keep out the water. The smell and the heat
were indescribable; but he was reading a week-old periodical with every
symptom of enjoyment and calmly smoked a foul and very wheezy pipe
filled with the strongest and most evil-smelling ship's tobacco. But
"Buzzer," as he was known to his friends, had the constitution of an ox
and an interior like the exterior of an armadillo. He could stand
anything.

* * * * *

An oil-skinned apparition, dripping with wet, appeared at the
chart-house door. "The orficer of the watch says it's daylight, sir,"
it reported. "There's nothin' in sight, but 'e thinks as 'ow the sea's
goin' down a bit."

The skipper, who had actually been asleep for forty consecutive
minutes, sat up with a grunt, rubbed his eyes, and yawned. Then, in
the dull grey light of