. He was in the highest and most mischievous
humour, raining banter on Davies and mock sympathy on me, laughing at
our huge compass, heaving the lead himself, startling us with
imaginary soundings, and doubting if his men were sober. I offered
entertainment and warmth below, but he declined on the ground that
Davies would be tempted to cut the tow-rope and make us pass the
night on a safe sandbank. Davies took the raillery unmoved. His work
done, he took the tiller and sat bareheaded, intent on the launch,
the course, the details, and chances of the present. I brought up
cigars and we settled ourselves facing him, our backs to the wind and
spray. And so we made the rest of the passage, von Bruening cuddled
against me and the cabin-hatch, alternately shouting a jest to Davies
and talking to me in a light and charming vein, with just that shade
of patronage that the disparity in our ages warranted, about my time
in Germany, places, people, and books I knew, and about life,
especially young men's life, in England, a country he had never
visited, but hoped to; I responding as well as I could, striving to
meet his mood, acquit myself like a man, draw zest instead of
humiliation from the irony of our position, but scarcely able to make
headway against a numbing sense of defeat and incapacity. A queer
thought was haunting me, too, that such skill and judgement as I
possessed was slipping from me as we left the land and faced again
the rigours of this exacting sea. Davies, I very well knew, was under
exactly the opposite spell--a spell which even the reproach of the
tow-rope could not annul. His face, in the glow of the binnacle, was
beginning to wear that same look of contentment and resolve that I
had seen on it that night we had sailed to Kiel from Schlei Fiord.
Heaven knows he had more cause for worry than I--a casual comrade in
an adventure which was peculiarly his, which meant everything on
earth to him; but there he was, washing away perplexity in the salt
wind, drawing counsel and confidence from the unfailing source of all
his inspirations--the sea.

'Looks happy, doesn't he?' said the captain once. I grunted that he
did, ashamed to find how irritated the remark made me.

'You'll remember what I said,' he added in my ear.

'Yes,' I said. 'But I should like to see her. What is she like?'

'Dangerous.' I could well believe it.

The hull of the Blitz loomed up, and a minute later our kedge was
splashing overboard an