Sheer fright was sickening her. A hundred broken words beat on her bewildered mind. Exposure—shock—could his brain be affected? That small crying voice repeated over and over, “What is it, O, what is it? What’s happened to him? What does it mean?” She did not know she had spoken the last words aloud till he answered them.
“I mean only that I believe, this time, I shan’t come back, my dear.”
“But you’ve come through safely—come through everything—up till now!”
He smiled at her affectionately from his far distance. “O, I don’t mean warnings or presentiments, or any of that rot! I mean a reasoned assurance that I am not to survive the war.”
She managed a smile also. “You look—very much alive, Dick!”
“Yes.” He was looking at her very straightly. “But you see—it’s not my own life. It’s just on loan for a time. That’s the way I look at it.”
She heard her own voice saying, “You must try to make me understand, Dick.” He answered at once, “I’ll try, Guida.”
“You know all the newspaper part of it. You know the ship was torpedoed without warning; that she sank in eight minutes; that the sea was so rough only three boats were launched safely? Yes? Well, you know as much of that part of it as I do, then. For I fell when she heeled to the explosion, and either struck my head, or was struck by something. I remember nothing till I found myself fighting upwards out of the sea; not much then; I was pretty far gone. . . ‘All Thy waves and billows are gone over me.’ You’ve read that. So had I. But it’s a strange thing to feel it.
“I was swimming by instinct when I came to myself. My head felt as if it was split in two, and I could scarcely see, what with dizziness and salt water. But there was some sort of wreckage floating near, and I made for it. It was one of those collapsible canvas boats. I don’t know where it came from. It was floating bottom up and crumpled. The air caught under it, made it float like a buoy, but it gave a bit with my weight. Then I saw that there was someone else clinging to the other side of it. A girl.
“I was quite in possession of myself, but awfully sick and shaken. I said ‘Will it bear two, d’you think?’ And she said, ‘Yes, rather. Can you get hold of it?’