Rutherford nodded.
"I'm taking the time," said he, "and assuming the twenty knot breeze holds, we might risk a drop about six o'clock."
"A drop" meant jumping into space and trusting one's parachute to do its business properly. I felt a sudden tightening inside me as I thought of that dive into the void, but I asked calmly enough:
"And assuming the breeze doesn't hold?"
"Oh, it will hold all right; it will rise if anything," said he.
We had only been shipmates for a week (that being the extent of my nautical experience), but I had learned enough about Rutherford in that time to know that he was one of the most positive and self-confident men breathing. One had to make allowance for this; still, that is the kind of company one wants in an involuntary balloon expedition across the North Sea through a dense fog.
"And where are we likely to come down?" I enquired.
"We might make the German coast as far south as Borkum or one of the other islands, or we might land somewhere as far north as Holstein."
"Not Holland or Denmark?"
He shook his head positively, "No such luck."