The skipper moved impatiently, made noises in his throat, rose, and both
went out. The mate, who had been chewing and looking at nothing all the
time, chuckled.

The mate pulled off his big boots, and climbed into his bunk. The
steward cleared the table. I had the saloon to myself, and tried to read
from a magazine I extracted from my pillow. The first story was
rollicking of the sea, and I have never seen more silly or such dreary
lies in print. And the others were about women, magazine women, and the
land, that magazine land which is not of this earth. The bench still
heaved, and there was a new smell of sour pickles. I think a jar had
upset in a store cupboard. Perhaps I should feel happier in the
wheel-house. It was certain the wheel-house would not smell of vinegar,
boots, and engine oil. It would have its own disadvantages--it would be
cold and damp--and the wind and seas on the lively deck had to be faced
on the way to it. The difficulty there is in placing the second course
on London's cosy dinner-tables began to surprise me.

Our wooden shelter, the wheel-house, is ten feet above the deck, with
windows through which I could look at the night, and imagine the rest. I
had, to support me, the mono-syllabic skipper and a helmsman with nothing
to say. I saw one of them when, drawing hard on his pipe, its glow
outlined a bodyless face. The wheel chains rattled in their channels.
There was a clang when a sea wrenched the rudder. I clung to a
window-strap, flung back to look upwards through a window which the ship
abruptly placed above my head, then thrown forward to see wreaths of
water speeding below like ghosts. The stars jolted back and forth in
wide arcs. There were explosions at the bows, and the ship trembled and
hesitated. Occasionally the skipper split the darkness with a rocket,
and we gazed round the night for an answer. The night had no answer to