a shock I got the
first time I had a peep at my mug in a glass after havin' small-pox in
Singapore. She wasn't a ship at all, any more'n my face was a face. She
was just a mess, that's all, an' clinkin' an' clankin' an' wheezin' and
sneezin' an' yawin' all over the sea. An' the sea was empty all the way
roun', wi' no ship in sight to pass us a tow-line or pick us up if she
chucked in her hand an' went down.

"We had our hands so full keepin' her afloat an' under weigh, that it
wasn't till four in the afternoon--more'n sixteen hours after we rammed
the Hun cru'ser--that we found time to bury our dead. It was like
gettin' a turribl' load off your chest when we dropped 'em over in their
hammocks wi' a fire-bar stitched in alongside 'em to take 'em down.
Nothin' is so depressin' to a sailor as bein' shipmates wi' a mate that
ain't a mate no longer. Even the ol' _Firebran'_ 'peared to ride easier
an' more b'oyant after the buryin' was over, as if she knowed the worst
o' her sorrer was left behind.

"Luck took a turn against us again just after dark, for the wind shifted
six or seven points an' started blowin' strong from dead ahead. We had
to alter course some to ease off the bang o' the seas a bit, an' fin'ly
the speed had to be slowed even slower'n before to keep the bulkhead
from being driv' in. But she weathered it, by Gawd she did, an' next
mornin' the goin' was easier. We made the Tyne at noon. It was just a
heap o' ol' scrap-iron so far as the eye could see, that they let into
the Middle Dock the next day, but it was scrap-iron that had come all
the way from Jutland under its own steam, an' wi' no help from no one
save what was left o' the lads as once manned a 'stroyer called the
_Firebran'_.

"It hadn't taken long to reduce her from a 'stroyer to scrap-iron, an'
it didn't seem like it took much longer--time goes fast on home
leave--to turn that scrap-iron back into a 'stroyer again. The ol'
_Firebran's_ got many a good kick in her yet, so they say, an' I'd ask
for nothin' better'n to be finishin' the war in her."

I thanked Melton for his yarn, bade him good night, and was about to
start picking my way to my cabin to turn in, when I sensed rather than
saw that there was something further he wanted to say, perhaps some
final tribute to his officers and mates of the _Firebrand_, I thought.
There was a shuffling of sea-booted feet on the steel deck, a nervous
pulling off and on of woollen mittens, and it was out.