"It was the second night after we left Bremerhaven that this happened and about ten minutes after eight bells, midnight. I keep the eight to twelve watch with the Fourth, you see, and it often happens that I don't feel like turning in right away. It was a clear yet dark night without a ripple on the sea. It had been one of those calm days that we have in English waters in winter time, a pale sun shining through a light haze, cold yet pleasant. I'd seen the Third tumble down the ladder and heard the Fourth put his door on the hook. Down below there was the quick thump of the engines, the rattle of the ashes being shovelled into the ejector, and the click of oil-cup lids as the Third went round the bearings. Everything seemed in fair trim for a quiet night. I walked up and down the deck for a spell, finishing my pipe, and then I was standing by the stern light, an electric fixed on the after side of the scuttle. A good way to the westward was the Kentish Knock Lightship. I was leaning against the bulkhead, smoking and thinking of things in general, you may say, and wondering what the Second would do next, when I saw three green lights, very low on our starboard quarter. I don't think I was much struck by them at first. Might have been a trawler. The Second Mate told me afterwards that after the Old Man had gone down he saw a green light and thought it was the Harwich and Hook-of-Holland mail-boat. He was half asleep or he'd have wondered where her mast-lights were. I took very little notice, I say, until it struck me that, so far from being a trawler, those lights were moving a good deal faster than a mail-boat. Sometimes I could see only one light. I began to wonder what it was and I stepped down to my room to get my binoculars. I remember the mess-room was dark, and across the table and floor was a narrow bar of light from the Fourth's door. As I came up the stairs I heard a peculiar droning sound, as though the Third had let the dynamo run away. I turned round intending to go down below, when I saw the green lights coming up fast ... fast.