"He looked at me, rather raw about the gills, took a look at the Gunfleet Light and bent down again to me.
"'Did you see anything?' He waved his hand towards the Essex coast. 'Yes,' I said. 'Green lights.'
"'Oh, that was the Harwich boat,' he says. 'I know that. She's gone. Must have been going twenty-two knots.'
"'It was an aeroplane,' I said, whispering, 'flew past.'
"'Eh!' says he. I said it again. He straightens up and takes a turn up and down the bridge.
"'You'd better watch out,' I said. 'It may come back.'
"'I am watching out!' says he, rather savage. 'I'll take care of all the aeroplanes about, Chief.'
"I went back then and took another look round with my glasses, but I saw nothing but a couple of coasting steamers in shore. I stepped down into the mess-room and looked through the slit of the Fourth's door. Funny coincidence! He was on his settee in his pyjamas, asleep, and on his stomach was a magazine he'd been reading, a magazine with a coloured cover showing an aeroplane dropping a bursting shell on a man-o'-war.
"I lay awake for a long time, listening to the bells, watching Rosa's picture flickering on the bulkhead as the screw below me shook the ship. So we'd met again! I couldn't blame the Second Mate—I've kept the grave-yard watch myself; I couldn't blame Mister Charley Phillips. But what would he have said if I'd told him my brother was on that machine? What if I'd said I'd seen wireless sparks spitting above it? Humph!
"I suppose I must have dozed a little, for the next thing I remember was the whoop of our siren and the engines going dead slow. As I tumbled out to go down it was three o'clock. The Third was standing by the reversing gear and I saw by the vacuum gauge that the temperature of the sea was down to forty-eight degrees. 'Fog, sir?' says the Third. 'Aye,' I said. 'Shut your injection a little. We're off the Goodwins, I suppose.' Everything was all right, so I climbed up to look. The Old Man was out on deck and they were heaving the lead. Every minute the siren gave a mournful whoop and the slow thump of the propeller made me miserable. I leaned over the side, thinking of my brother and his aeroplane. For the life of me I couldn't be sure it wasn't all a dream. The thin whine of the siren sounded very like his cry of 'Charley!' I heard the Old Man bark something, heard the tinkling of the telegraph and the siren bellowed again. We were going full speed astern! Just as I turned away from the bulwarks I saw a green light, the starboard light of a coaster, rush past. I could hear some one shouting through a megaphone on the bridge. She must have been awful close—went past our stern with an inch to spare as we swung. And then all was quiet again as the engines stopped and went ahead dead slow. I went down and got my overcoat and a pipe. The Second was putting on his clothes. 'Ah, you may as well,' I said. 'It's thick all right,' I like a man that don't have to be called.