This afforded the men left on board more freedom, and they took turns at coming on deck for a bit of fresh air. Toward the middle of the afternoon—to the boys’ consternation—a heavy fog came rolling in. It began to look as if the distance cruise that night might have to be abandoned. Old Tom gazed at the wreaths of vapor as they came drifting in from the Sound, wrapping the waters about the Lockyer in a white obscurity.
“If this don’t lift by sundown it’s good for all night,” he remarked. “Say,” he went on suddenly, “did I ever tell you lads about the time I was in a fog in the English Channel on board the old wind-jammer Wampus?”
The boys shook their heads.
“Well, here goes for the yarn, then,” said old Tom. “The Wampus was one of them bluff-bowed old craft that they used to build by the mile, and sell by the foot. I was on board her on a voyage from Brest to Boston. All went well till we got in the English Channel, when a thick, pea-soup-kind of a fog shut down on us. It was so bad that you couldn’t see the forecastle from the stern.
“It was my trick at the wheel that afternoon, and for company I had the skipper, an old Maine Yankee. He was so plum nervous that all he could do was to pace up and down and cuss the fog. The English Channel is crowded with shipping, and every now and then——
“M-o-o-o-o-o-m! would go some fog horn off in the smother.
“All to once, we both give a jump. Right dead ahead of us we heard a fog horn start up.
“M-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-m!
“I tell you, it gave me the shivers to hear it. ‘Hard over!’ bawls the skipper, and I spun that wheel round like a squirrel, I tell you. Well, her head swung off, but it didn’t seem to be no good.