Over it sea-gulls floated on dream-wings. While from some remote Down village, church bells swung out the old song—
Come to Christ,
Come to Christ,
Come, dear children, come to Christ.
The boy, lying on the bloody deck, his feet cushioned on a dead man, listened with closed eyes to the old call.
Last Sunday at that hour, the blackbirds hopping on the lawn without, the swifts screaming above, he and mother and Gwen had been singing hymns together in the schoolroom—rather chokily indeed, for it was his last Sunday at home.
All that was ages and ages ago. He had lived and died a hundred times since then.
Now….
There by the wheel, in a puddle of his own blood, lay old Ding-dong, grey and ghastly. His eyes were closed; his cocked hat with a rakish forward tilt sat on his nose. He lay with shoulders hunched, his legs spread helplessly along the deck before him, stubborn chin digging into the breast of his frock-coat.
One grim fist was frozen to the shattered wheel; the other, grimmer still, clutched the scent-bottle.