Undoubtedly a man clinging to a deck chair did look rather like a hen in a coop—a bedraggled hen, most certainly, very bedraggled. Not at all the sort of hen that should be dished up at the Carlton or the Savoy for dinner. A cheap and nasty hen, Vane decided. . . .
A splash of water hit him in the mouth and made him splutter and cough. "Pull yourself together, man," he cried fiercely; "for God's sake, pull yourself together!" He realised that his mind had been wandering; he realised that that way lay Death. He started to swim steadily, keeping near the main mass of wreckage, and pushing the chair in front of him. Several times they bumped into things, and once Vane found himself looking through the bars of the back of the chair at something which rolled and sogged in the water. And then it half turned, and he saw it was a woman. Some of her hair, sodden and matted, came through the openings of his chair, and he watched the floating tendrils uncomprehendingly for a while. Dead . . . of course, she was dead . . . with the water splashing ceaselessly over her face. . . . At peace; she had chucked her hand in—given up the useless struggle.
What chance was there anyway of a boat coming in time? What a fool he was to go on, when he felt so tired and so cold? . . . That woman did not mind—the one lying there in the water so close to him. She was perfectly happy . . . while he was numb and exhausted. Why not just lie on the water and go to sleep? . . . He would keep the woman company, and he would be happy just like her, instead of having to force his frozen hands to hold that cursed slippery wood. . . .
And Joan would be happy, because she would have saved Blandford; and Baxter, damn him, he would be happy; and the whole blessed outfit would be happy as well as him when he had just dropped on to sleep. . . .
He would never have done as a husband for Margaret; the idea was ridiculous. Imagine sitting down and writing a book, while she took the pennies at the door—or did he have to take the pennies? Anyway, this settled the matter, and saved him the trouble of explanation. He loathed explanations; all he wanted was peace and quiet and rest. . . .
What a farce it all was; man thinking he could struggle against science. Science ruled the universe—aeroplanes, gas, torpedoes. And it served men right for inventing them; they should have been more careful. The smile on the dead German airman's face, as he lay on the ground near Poperinghe, floated before him, and he nodded his head portentously.
"You're right, old bean," he croaked. "The man I want to meet is the fool who doesn't think it's funny . . . ."
And then Vane crossed the Valley of the Shadow, as far as a man may cross and yet return. Strange figures crowded around him hemming him in on every side. The Boche whose brains he had blown out near Arras was there with his shattered skull, holding out a hand of greeting—and Baxter, grinning sardonically. Margaret—with a wealth of pity and love shining on her face, and Joan with her grey eyes faintly mocking . . . . And his tailor with the wart on his nose, and Mrs. Green, and Binks. . . . They were all there, and then gradually they faded into the great darkness. . . . Everything was growing still, and peaceful—the rest he wanted had come.
Then suddenly they came back again—the Boche and Baxter and the rest of them—and started pulling him about. He cursed and swore at them, but they paid no heed; and soon the agony he was suffering became almost unbearable. In God's name, why could not they leave him alone? . . . He raved at them, and sobbed, but it was of no avail. They went on inexorably and the creaking of the oars in the rowlocks of the boat that had picked him up seemed to him to be the creaking of his arms and legs. . . .