Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/45

 from the mended coils, winging their way with the speed of light out through the loneliness of the rain-fogged afternoon.

Then came a space of silence, interrupted by the sudden appearance of the operator, still in his shirt-sleeves, with his coat held over his head like a hood. He strode forward to the bridge-gate, where he was met by the waiting captain. Together they bent over a sheet from a tinted form-pad. Then the hooded figure hurried back to the station, and the slam of a door punctuated his disappearance from sight.

The man in the raincoat turned back to the battleship, and stood thoughtfully regarding the bursts of foam on her plunging cutwater and the intermittent shower of spray as she rose and dipped in the cross-swell. Through the engine-room skylight behind him came the call of subterranean voices, the busy clangour of iron scraping on iron, the quick slam of furnace doors, magnified in the open shaft-head to sounds of titanic proportions. As he stood there a deck steward mounted the brass-plated stair way, carrying a tray with coffee-cake and steaming cups of tea.

The man at the rail wheeled about quickly at the unexpected sound of a voice so close behind him. He declined the proffered refreshment briskly and swung back to his earlier position,