Apparently this was only hastening the seemingly inevitable end. Already above the whine of the wind could be heard the noise of the breakers as they hurled themselves with irresistible fury upon the Mutches, the rocks of which were still invisible in the blackness of the night.
Moved by a common impulse the ratings began to throw off their oilskins and sea-boots. As they did so, the leading stoker promptly scrambled into the oilskin coat discarded by the coxswain.
“What’s the idea, mate?” demanded the latter.
“May as well be warm and comfortable until I find myself in the blinkin’ ditch!” was Brown’s imperturbable explanation.
The roar of the breakers grew louder and louder. Surely, thought Kenneth, the end could not be long delayed. A thousand thoughts flashed across his mind. It seemed hard lines to have to be drowned at his age—just as he was enjoying life. . . . And on Christmas Eve, too. . . . No, by Jove! He was forgetting—it wasn’t Christmas Eve but Christmas Day.
Then a sort of strange fatalism gripped him. He was not going to show the white feather before his men if he could help it. He was feeling funky; there was no denying that; but although he knew he was afraid he feared still more that his crew would detect it.
Almost mechanically, Kenneth grasped the wheel. Until the boat struck he would be at his post. Aimlessly he turned the spokes and, somewhat to his surprise, he found that up to a certain point the picket-boat responded to the alteration in helm. She was driving so rapidly through the water that she answered to her rudder.
Suddenly Kenneth caught sight of a column of spray showing ghost-like through the darkness. It was the breakers on one of the outlying ledges of the Mutches.
Instinctively the midshipman put the wheel hard over. It was almost an involuntary act, like that of a man raising his arm to ward off a blow; but, almost providentially, the picket-boat turned decidedly to starboard.
Then, aided by the back-wash from the almost perpendicular rock for which she had been heading, the picket-boat was hurled almost broadside on through a gap in the line of cliffs—an entrance that was practically invisible.