Page:Barbour--For the freedom from the seas.djvu/236

 Later two mine sweepers wallowed along under convoy of a diminutive chaser painted with more colors than she had tonnage. Again it was a big Italian freighter, high-sided, rusty-red in spots and squares, ambling along for Bordeaux. But by night the highway was empty and the four ships slid westward into a gentle sea while a soft breeze blew from the south and whispered of Spanish orange groves. Nelson was always glad he experienced the North Atlantic under the conditions he found that day and night, for never again, for as long as he roamed it, was it so kindly and bland.

In the morning, five hundred miles west of Land's End, they awoke to green seas that buffeted the bow under the steady push of a southeast wind and to a sky that alternated sun and squall. The destroyers rolled merrily and the spindrift flew aft as far as their second stacks. There was more signaling about noon and at two o'clock smoke was sighted ahead and the four ships picked up their pace and plowed on into an anxious group of transports and convoys. The transports were big passenger liners and their decks were solid brown streaks where boys in khaki waved and cheered, three and four deep behind the rails, as the newcomers sped amongst them. 211