"There's thirty-one and six gone," he muttered ruefully. "An' they aren't paid for yet."
His boots were likewise ruthlessly sacrificed. Then, quitting his hold of the basket, he struck out towards the derelict boat. A few strokes convinced him that the overhand method of swimming has its disadvantages when hampered with sodden clothing. The breast stroke, he found, required comparatively little effort, yet by the time he covered that hundred yards he felt that he had reached the limit of his prowess in the swimming line.
Grasping the gunwale, Pyecroft attempted to clamber into the boat, with the result that the water-logged boat dipped completely under his weight.
At the second attempt he slithered over the transom and, still submerged, lightly grasped one of the thwarts. Here was a precarious shelter. Provided he made no attempt to draw himself clear of the water, there was just sufficient buoyancy to keep him afloat.
His next task—there was little time before he would be overcome by the cold—was to unship the mast and lash it to the thwarts. Thrice the boat dipped before the effort met with success. The stout spar, secured to the thwarts by the main-sheets and halliards, added considerably to the liveliness of the boat.
An oar, amongst other flotsam, drifted alongside. This Pyecroft secured, and by its aid added another oar, although of different length, to his life-saving appliances. A circular life-buoy and a couple of empty petrol tins were also taken possession of; these he lashed under thwarts, with the result that the boat's gunwales showed four inches above the surface amidships.
Groping on the bottom boards, the young officer discovered a pair of gun-metal rowlocks that had apparently escaped the eye of the destructive Hun. Thus equipped, he began to row for the distant shore.
It was hard work. At the best the water-logged craft made a bare mile an hour, but the effect of the heavy toil was to bring warmth to the man's chilled body and limbs. Setting his jaw tightly, he held on, glancing from time to time over his shoulder in the direction of the cliffs, now growing dim in the dusk of approaching night.
"How much further?" he asked himself at the end of two hours. "Hanged if they seem any nearer. Wind and tide are with me, too."
Compared with flying through the air at a hundred and fifty miles an hour, his present rate of progression was indeed painfully slow, yet with the dogged determination of an Englishman, "never to say die till you're dead," he tugged at the heavy oars until his blistered hands grew raw and his muscles ached as if his back would break.