ier than when standing beneath stretched
canvas, hove-to as he saw us dash stark naked up the companionway stairs
and clear the rail head-first, but he laid by only while we had our
splash and continued the course southward the moment our hands grasped
the gangway.

"We're cruising, not swimming," he said bluntly, as we reached the deck.
"But I'll say this," he called after us, "you're both in about as fine
condition as men get to be. I'll give _that_ to the Army!" Which was
true, except for the fact that I might have been pronounced overtrained.
Tommy and I were as hard as nails, our skin glowed like satin--but,
better than this, his spirit was quick with the love of living, charged
with a contagion that had already begun to touch my own.

Half an hour later he mumbled through a crumbling biscuit:

"If Pete ever cooked better grub than this it was in a previous
incarnation!"

"Man achieves his greatest triumph but once in life," I admitted. "It's
self-evident."

One loses track of time while sailing in south Florida waters. There is
a lassitude that laughs at clocks; the lotus floats over the waves even
as over the land, and a poetic languor steals into the soul breeding an
indifference to hours and days--wretched things, at best, that were only
meant for slaves! Neither of us realized our passing into Barnes Sound,
and saw only that the _Whim_, sails gracefully drawing, cut the water as
cleanly as a knife.

Another day passed during which we shot at sharks, or trawled, or lay on
deck smoking and occasionally gazing over the side at displays of fish
and flora twenty feet beneath us. But upon the third morning I asked:

"Where are we bound, Gates?"

"Mr. Thomas says Key West, sir, and then Havana."

"Mr. Thomas, indeed," I laughed, for it was exactly like Tommy to take
over the command of a ship, or anything else that struck his fancy.

Before leaving Miami he had received a twenty page letter from the
Bluegrass region of Kentucky which threw him into a state of such
volatile ineptitude that I was well satisfied to let him give what
orders he would, sending us to the world's end for all I cared. In a
very large measure Tommy's happiness was my own, as I knew that mine
would always be dear to him.

During our most trying hours in France, thoughts of this wonderful girl,
whose name was Nell, unfailingly kept his spirits high. In moments of
confidence that come to pals on the eve of battle I saw that some day