MINED.
Twelve hours later H.M.S. "Strongbow" was on her appointed station. It was night. The wind had moderated considerably, yet there was quite a heavy sea running. The young moon peeped between dark masses of drifting scud, while to windward a bank of irregularly defined clouds fringed with ragged tails betokened a repetition of the unpleasant climatic conditions.
It was Sub-Lieutenant Aubyn's "watch below." Seated in the plainly furnished gun-room, the scuttles of which were carefully screened, were most of the junior officers who were off duty.
Some were playing cards, others were reading, in spite of the raucous ragtime melodies ground out by a gramaphone that had already suffered considerably from the effects of two months' buffeting. In the pauses while the junior midshipman rewound the instrument of mental torture, the slap of the waves against the vessel's side could be distinctly heard.
"In for another dirty night," remarked Raeburn inconsequently.
The announcement was received in chilly silence. "Dirty nights" were too frequent and too monotonous to form the subject of conversation.
The assistant engineer tried another tack.
"What do you make of the latest report from the Russian frontier?" he asked.
"Oh, dry up, old man!" expostulated O'Reilly feebly. "What with your cackle and young Jones grinding away at that blessed gramaphone—Jones, if you put on another record I'll throw this book at your head! There's no peace in the gun-room."
Aubyn smiled grimly. He realized that in the monotonous round of routine his comrades were almost bored to death by their own company. Even the versatile O'Reilly was becoming as surly as a bear with a sore head.