sed her lead to half a length ahead of
her two consorts: the Young Doctor's crew held her neck and neck. Then
the Young Doctor cleared his dry throat and spoke with the tongues of
men and fallen angels. He coaxed and encouraged, he adjured and abused
them stroke by stroke towards their goal. The crew, with set, white
faces and staring eyes fixed on each other's backs, responded like
heroes, but Double-O Gerrard was obviously tiring and the First
Lieutenant's breath was coming in sobs. They were pulling themselves
out.

The roar of voices on either side of the course surged in their ears
like the sound of a waterfall. Astern of them was the picket-boat, a
graceful feather of spray falling away on either side of the
stem-piece. A concourse of Wardroom and Gunroom officers had crowded
into her bows, and the Commander, purple with emotion, bellowed
incoherencies through a megaphone.

Then, with one keen glance at the Flagship's crew and one at the
rapidly approaching finishing line, the Young Doctor chose the
psychological moment.

"Stand by!" he croaked. "Now, all together--_spurt!_"

His crew responded with the last ounce of energy in their exhausted
frames. They were blind, deaf and dumb, straining, gasping, forcing
"heart and nerve and sinew" to drive the leaden boat through those last
few yards. Suddenly, far above their heads, rang out the crack of a
rifle, and the next instant another. The crew collapsed as if shot.

For a moment none was capable of speech. Then the First Lieutenant
raised his head from his hands.

"Which is it," he asked, "us or them?"

The Young Doctor was staring up at the masthead of the Flagship. A
tangle of flags appeared above the bridge-screen.

"I can't read 'em," he said. "Which is it? Translate, someone, for
pity's sake."

The crew of the Flagship's boat, lying abreast of them a few yards
away, answered the question. They turned towards their late
adversaries and began clapping. The next moment the Dockyard tug burst
into a triumphant frenzy, and the picket-boat, full of cheering,
clapping mess-mates, slid alongside to take the painter.

The First Lieutenant stretched out a large, blistered hand. "Shake,
Pills," he said.

* * * * *

One race is, after all, very much like another. Yet the afternoon wore
on without any appreciable abatement in the popular enthusiasm. And it
was not without its memorable features. The Bandsmen's Ra