'Been sunk. Before the war she was a deep-sea boat, carrying Hun officials and mails between Dar-es-Salaam and Tanga. One day in 1915 she ran into a British light cruiser. The next two years she spent at the bottom of the Indian Ocean.'
'Are you inventing this?' said Norah, taking a firmer grip on a handful of hair.
'Not a word; you can see the shell-marks amidships.'
'I love you when you talk nautical, Dick!'
Dick dragged her to him and kissed her mocking lips.
'Don't, Dick, you'll distract the man at the wheel. Go on telling me! How do you know all this?'
'One of the Boma men told me. Well, eventually our people raised her, buried the bones of her captain and crew, and railed her in sections to the lake. And here she's the only boat we've got.'
'No wonder her engines knock a bit.'
'They're good enough engines, I'm told, though they run red hot. But they're too big for her hull. There's a sweepstake among the half-dozen people who use the lake whether she goes up in flames or the engines drop through her bottom first.'
'Go on, Dick, don't mind me.'