She nodded.
"Keep the hamburgers warm, I'm going up to have a look."
She moved back to the stove as I climbed up into the cockpit.
In a rising breeze the mist was swirling and, from the east, as the fog patches thinned out, the lighter cloud showed where a full moon lay hidden. The noise was louder now, and coming fast, a beat of engines rising above the splash of wavelets against the bow of the sloop. I couldn't see where the ship was. There was no foghorn; neither the doleful groaning of the deep sea ships nor the sharp cough of the coastal steamer, bouncing its sound waves off the island hills, told me where it lay.
"The stupid oaf," I muttered to myself. "What's he doing in this deserted channel, and why doesn't he signal?"
There was no time to wonder. I jumped to the stern and grasped the tiller while I pushed down firmly on the starter button. The engine was cold and coughed reluctantly in the foggy air. I was still prodding the starter and working the throttle when the fog bank broke apart.
Above, to the east, the mottled moon, pale grey and blue like a Danish cheese, had risen over the Coast Range. Across the waters of the channel ran a rippling bar of light, cutting in half the white-walled arena of fog as the late afternoon sun pierces the dust of a Mexican corrida. Charging out of the misty north, like a Miura bull from the gate, came a black, high-prowed ship, moving fast through its phosphorescent bow wave. It came on, straight for us, and the sputtering motor still did not respond. I stood up and worked the tiller back and forth, trying to scull with the rudder and swing our bow to starboard.
"Pat, Pat, for God's sake get on deck! It's a collision!"