“Where is the Vera lying, sir?” John asked.
“The Lord knows! The bridge seems to have lost her. She hasn’t come to her buoy yet. But go to the dockyard wall first. The target is probably there already. If it isn’t, you’ll have to look round till you find the Vera, and make enquiries.”
John ran down the gangway into his cutter, seated himself on the “dicky,” and gave orders to shove off. The oars dropped into the water and the boat drew away from the ship. On one hand, the many lights of the Fleet winked at their reflections in the smooth water; on the other, the great rock, magnified by the night, and speckled with the illumination of innumerable windows, rose, dark and gigantic, against the sky. When the wall was reached they searched in vain for the target, and turned to cruise the harbour in quest of the Vera.
Although he was tired and needed sleep before the morrow’s coaling, he was glad that he had come. The click of the oars’ looms and the hiss of their blades, the spring at the beginning and the slackening at the end of each stroke, the ripple and suck about the stern, the regular breathing of the crew and the synchronous creaking of their stretchers, bespoke a romance that was not the romance of steel ships. The coxswain sat motionless, his hand on the tiller, as rugged as a statue rough-hewn in wood. Clustered in the stern sheets, with their bags of glistening tools, the carpenter’s party lent emphasis to man’s silence by their occasional whispering. John’s gaze strayed for’ard: the white gleaming of the crew’s faces and of their hands curved over the ears grew more and more indistinct towards the bows, and the line of gunwale shrank to a delicate thread.
Swing, catch, and an easy stroke; the gleam, the dip, and the swirl of blades; the hidden faces and the arms outstretched, the arms drawn in and the faces raised. And he, above them, commanding them, passed among the shadows of great ships into the darkness. On either hand the little bow-wave ran out lapping, and flattened itself wide of the stern.
“Don’t see no Vera, sir,” said the coxswain.
“Not yet.”
“’Adn’t we better arst, sir?”
“Ask? Where?”