e half a
dozen boats; but close at hand there was nothing save the flotsam and
wreckage from the ship. The submarine, as far as he could tell, had
disappeared; at any rate, he was too low in the water to see her. After
a while the ship's boats, too, pulled out of sight, and for the first
time Vane began to feel afraid. What if the S.O.S. was not answered?
What if only the boats were picked up, and he was never found? . . .

An overwhelming panic seized him and he commenced to shout--a puny little
noise lost in the vastness around him, and drowned by the shrieking of a
countless swarm of gulls, that fought over the prize that had come to
them. Then with a great effort he pulled himself together. He must keep
his head and save his strength--he must. . . . Any boat coming up would
be attracted to the scene of the disaster by the gulls, he repeated to
himself over and over again--and then they would see him.

He took a fresh grip of the chair and swam a few strokes to keep warm.
That was the next point that came into his mind--how long could he last
before, numbed with the cold, his grip on the chair would relax and he
would only have his life-belt to rely on? He must not get cold, he must
swim steadily and quietly to keep up his circulation--always keeping near
the gulls. He argued it out carefully in his mind, unconsciously talking
aloud, and when he had decided what he was going to do he nodded his head
in complete agreement. And then he laughed--a strange, croaking laugh
and apostrophised a gull which was circling above his head. "How damn
funny, old bird," he said still chuckling; "how damn funny. . . ." The
humour of the situation had struck him suddenly. After the long years in
France to be drowned like a bally hen inside a coop! . . .

Undoubtedly a man clinging to a deck chair did look rather like a hen in
a coop--a bedraggled hen, most certainly, very bedraggled. Not at all
the sort of hen that should be dished up at the Carlton or the Savoy for
dinner. A cheap and nasty hen, Vane decided. . . .

A splash of water hit him in the mouth and made him splutter and cough.
"Pull yourself together, man," he cried fiercely; "for God's sake, pull
yourself together!" He realised that his mind had been wandering; he
realised that that way lay Death. He started to swim steadily, keeping
near the main mass of wreckage, and pushing the chair in front of him.
Several times they bumped into things, and once Va