"She was a real enough ship when you and I ran her in at seventeen knots under the guns at Zeebrugge to pick up the Navy boys in the watter," shouted Ewing.
"That was another Service," returned Ching stolidly. "She was a ship then. Now she's a yacht. I'm proud to command her now, as I was then; but I want to make you see that as a yacht she has no status on the seas. If pilots are scarce we shall have no call on one. We've got to run our own risks by ourselves and to make them as small as we know how. Is that clear?"
"As crystal," said Madame. "Also humiliating. And I thought I was rather a swell cruising about the world in a yacht which was practically my own."
"You always would be a swell anywhere," said Ching politely. "But on the high seas the mistress of a yacht doesn't count for a row of beans."
"Don't heed him, Madame," cried Ewing. "He's only a demobbed Commander R.N.R. Your friend Alexander Ewing will stick up for you. I was an Engineer Lieutenant, and the engine-room ranks much higher than the bridge nowadays, though it may not sport so many rows of gold lace. It is my deliberate opeenion, arrived at by careful consideration of all the circumstances, and after giving full weight to the observations of my commanding officer, that we shall get on quite nicely without a pilot, thank you. I am not exactly what you could call an experienced navigator, but give me a well-found vessel of light draught, with six inches of teak fender to her hinder end, a diligent crew heaving the lead at discreet intervals, all the eyes on the bridge looking sprightly for promiscuous breakers, and I would con the Humming Top myself. The mair especially if I could be in two places at once and be in chairge of my bonny engines at the same time as I strolled majestically about the bridge. There is no real deeficulty about navigation, Madame. Yon's not like to the management of high-speed geared turbines. Yon's child's wor-r-k with Admiralty charts spread about ye. But since I cannot be, like the fabulous bir-r-d, in the two places at once, I will leave the bridge to our deefident friend Ching. Go ahead, dead slow, among the prickly reefs, and if you should just butt on the ground give the wor-r-d to me by the engine-room telegraph and I will whip her off on the revairse. That is the grand advantage of geared turbines, Madame. One has the full power on the revairse. What did you go for to put teak to the bottom of us, Ching, if you didna expect to find a use for it?"
"It was a precaution," said the Skipper, "like a fender. One doesn't bang the sides of a ship against a stone wharf because one has fenders. I have seen a fender break through the plates before now when used without judgment."
"You are a careful man, and we trust you, Ching," said Ewing encouragingly. "Go ahead, pilot or no pilot. And if you should get into trouble deeper than your brains can penetrate, there is always the voice pipe handy. Take counsel of Alexander Ewing. He will stand by ye."
"I will," returned the Skipper, "I will ask you how to run my ship when you ask me how to manage your engine-room."
"Alexander," said Madame severely, when the Captain had left the saloon for his own duties, "if Captain Ching were not a sweet-blooded angel he would kick you hard. I should. Don't you see, you thick-headed Scotch mechanic, that the Captain is worried, and when a sailor like that is worried, the danger must be considerable. I am ashamed of you, Alexander."
"It was just pairsiflage, Madame," said Ewing. "A wee bit of vairy humorous pairsiflage. I know my place. Though I have mair gude Scots brains in my finger than all the soft West Country porridge stuff in Ching's head, I would never interfere with the bridge. A Chief Engineer is a man of science, not a rule of thumb navigator."