"Chart-room," was the curt reply.
Another voice as Newcomb passed said: "Not the periscope; but I saw the shark-fin wake of the torpedo."
Newcomb walked with difficulty, like a drunken man; it was this damned list. The most violent tossing in a hurricane was preferable. You'd have the plunging dive and recovery, which had something gallant in it, almost playful, like a giant gamboling. But this persistent violation of equilibrium got on a man's nerve.
"The lights have gone out on the starboard side," some one said.
Newcomb pulled out his watch. Stopped! He held it to his ear. No, it was going. And all this had happened in those few beggarly moments!
"What's that yelling about?" he asked irritably of a couple of men who, half-doubled, came up the slant by the wireless-room passage.
"Boat on the other side—smashed like an egg-shell against the hull."
People were drowning on both sides of the sinking ship.
"It's often safest on board," someone said.
"Yes; you stick to the ship."