'What were you going to say?' the bigwig asked apprehensively.
'I was thinking,' Wooten went on with a malicious twinkle in his eye—'well, I was thinking that if we are blown up there will be quite a merry little lot of us—nearly a couple of hundred—what? I can almost see myself as a nice fat little cherub sitting on a damp cloud twanging a harp—eh? They'll probably serve you out with a trombone. Can you play one?' He laughed, for somehow his companion reminded him of the man who had played that instrument in the orchestra of the Portsmouth Hippodrome in pre-war days.
'I do wish you'd be serious,' the contractors' representative observed sadly. 'This is no joking matter.'
'I am serious,' Wooten protested, trying hard to control his face.
'But you seem to like the idea.'
Wooten shook his head. 'Don't you believe it,' he replied. 'But just think what a glorious death it would be for you if you did go sky-high! Why, your name would be in the Roll of Honour, and your photo in the Daily Mirror. You'd be a public hero!'
'Better be a live convict than a dead hero,' observed the bigwig glumly, going off to seek consolation elsewhere.
But when they did get to sea, and the Mariner started first to bob and curtsy, and then, as she gathered speed, to kick and dance like a bucking mule, the violent motion drove all thoughts of mines or German submarines out of their heads. They were seasick—fearfully and wonderfully seasick. The joys of a sailor's life were not for them, and most of the contractors' men and not a few of the ship's company wished that they might die. The very thought of food made their gorges rise in disgust, so lunch was delayed until their return into harbour just before dark.
Wooten and the officers were enthusiastic about the ship. 'She's a rattling good sea-boat,' the former remarked, rubbing the caked salt out of his eyes as he sat down in the wardroom when the ship had secured alongside her wharf. 'We hardly took a green sea on board the whole time.—Give me some of that game-pie and a whisky-and-soda, steward! I'm perishing with hunger.'
'Green seas!' laughed a lately revived contractors' official, busy with a plate of galantine on the opposite side of the table; 'the water seemed to be coming on board everywhere. I thought the weather was absolutely poisonous.'