a man
would want to walk the deck anyway.

There was a fine bright moon mounting above the housetops of the
water-front when we slid away from our jetty berth. Slid is the word.
She was all power, this Channel steamer of hardly 1,500 tons, yet with
two great smoke-stacks, three propellers, turbine-engines, and burning
oil for fuel. That last is a cheerful item when you have to walk the
deck--it means no cinders in your eyes.

Fuss? A strange word to her. She slipped like running oil from the
jetty, past the breakwater lights, out by the few craft anchored
there--a fast one for sure. To get a line on her speed, you had but to
watch the shore marks fall away or the water slide by her side as out
into the Channel she went.

People without berths, but with a chair and a rug from the head steward,
began now to tuck away. At first they sat mostly by the rail watching
things. Later they sought snugger corners; but two o'clock of a
September morning in 50 deg. north is still two o'clock in the morning.
They began to go inside. The lights were turned off inside the ship, so
when you walked around in there and felt your foot come down on something
soft, you needed to tread lightly--that would be somebody's neck or
stomach. There were life-rafts on the top deck, of a homelike sort of
model, in the form of two benches with the air-tanks under the benches.
If anything happened to the ship, you could go floating off with all the
comforts of a seat on a bench in the park--if too many did not try to
have seats at the same time. It was a fine night for anybody to spot us,
but just as fine a night for us to spot them. And a ship cutting out
devious courses at twenty-one knots, or whatever she was logging--she is
not too easy to hit. To lay out for the ten and eleven knot cargo boats
is more economical. Still, who knows? We paid tribute to the U-boats by
making detours. All the big stars of the night were out, and by them we
could follow her shifting courses. But no harm; she had speed enough to
sail the Channel sidewise and still bring us in by morning. The night
grew older and cooler. The last of the people who had paid toll to the
steward for a chair and rug went inside. Only one couple were left; and
they had not hired any chair. He was a young officer, and they sat under
his olive-drab blanket, on a life-raft bench athwartship. From there
without moving they could get sidewise peeks at the climbing moon. At
five o'clock in the mo