A sodden heap of clothes caught his eye. Last night; he had doffed them, dripping as they were, and slept naked beside that, his head pillowed on a chalk boulder. The huddle of clothes, sprawling there so unconcerned, comforted him. They weren't afraid: they took it calmly enough. Hang it! he was as good a man as they.
And after all the old man was dead; and so long as he stayed dead the boy didn't mind. It was the chance of his coming to life again, of his stirring, winking an eye-lid, speaking, that he feared.
At length he dared to look at the old man's face. A sand-fly was crawling on his nose. The boy sighed. He wasn't quite alone then: the fly was there, and the fly was alive. His courage returned to him with a leap. He flicked the fly off with joyful indignation. They knew no reverence, these beastly little beasts! The old man lay upon his back, a rusty stream running down his white shorts. The salt had dried in scurfy ridges on hair and face. His head had slipped off Kit's coat; the little tail of neat-tied hair peeped from beneath; the eyes, wide- open, stared skyward.
Kit closed them; and the action cost him more than all his valours of the day before. Almost he expected to hear the old man's harsh voice— "Now then!"
The deed done, it seemed to the boy as if his action had eased the dead man. The look of strain on the set and yellowing face passed. The old man was tired: he had done with the world; he would shut his eyes for ever on it. The kind wrinkles, deep-puckered about his mouth, seemed to gather into a smile.
Lying there with set mouth, and stubborn chin, in death, as in life, he was old Ding-dong still.
II
Kit could not bury the old man: he had no tools. He could not stay with him: time pressed. What he could, he did with the tenderness of a woman, and the respect of a midshipman for the bravest of the brave.
He arranged the body orderly, straightening the legs and pulling down the coat.
As he did so, he felt something bulky in the flaps. He looked. It was a little old leather-bound New Testament, sea-soaked; and between the leaves of it the Articles of War.