Page:Barbour--For the freedom from the seas.djvu/295

 going until the evening before you got us. Then he went off. That left just Nutley and me. We wanted to get rid of the others to lighten the boat, but we couldn't lift them. That morning when you sighted us I was saying my prayers, or trying to. I thought Nutley was dead, too. He didn't answer when I spoke to him. He says I didn't speak, but he's quite wrong. Well, you know the rest."

"It must have been awful," said Nelson. "Is the man you spoke of all right now? Nutley, I mean?"

"Right as a trivet. But it makes a chap a bit serious to think that out of fourteen of us only two are alive today. Well, as our friends the French say, it is the war."

"What will you do now?" asked Nelson.

"Get back to Queenstown first, I fancy, and then try hard to get a command of my own. I say, I'd like that, what? There's no reason why I shouldn't have it, you know. Lots of chaps not half so brilliant and clever as I am have command of chasers."

"You sort of hate yourself, don't you?" laughed Nelson.

Tip grinned. "You've got to be a bit cocky or 270