"Gangway, you fools! He'll drown!" Two able seamen, leaning over the side--one had escaped from a German prison camp six months previously, and was enjoying himself--were thrust apart; a burly figure in socks, and divested of his reefer jacket, steadied himself with one hand on a davit while he measured the distance, and dived. "Number One!" gasped the incredulous Commander. "Don't tell me that's the First Lieutenant?" "Yessir," said the Wardroom Steward, who had been passing up ammunition, with a cigarette behind his ear, and a hastily-collected gallery of lady-loves' photographs projecting from his breast-pocket. "Yessir." Adding, as one in the confidence of the Wardroom: "'Im as lost 'is brother, bombed by them 'Uns. Actin' regardless, you might say." The First Lieutenant, treading water, was effecting a businesslike bowline under the armpits of the drowning man, and avoiding his enfeebled embrace with considerable presence of mind. Finally the two were hauled inboard and the ship's company raised a cheer. "Shut up, will you!" spluttered the First Lieutenant, angrily, wringing the water from his sodden nether garments. He avoided the eye of his Commanding Officer. The ship's company, under direction of the Surgeon, applied themselves to first aid with all the enthusiasm of victors and amateurs in the gentle art of saving life. The whaler, laden with dazed and bedraggled captives, was pulling wearily up to the quarter, rising and plunging in the steep seas. The business of the ensuing five minutes brought the Commander and his First Lieutenant face to face. "Funny little fellow, ain't you?" said the former. "Bah!" said the Lieutenant. Then added, savagely, "You wait till next time!" X THE PARTING OF THE WAYS (1919) The Light Cruiser that had shortened-in, whose paying-off pendant hung limp from mainmast-head to quarter-deck, asked permission to proceed. From her berth in the upper waters of the Firth the Flagship was invisible; but repeating ships and dockyard signal station caught the query, tossed it from one to the other till the Flagship had it, and sent the affirmative signal back to the Light Cruiser as her Captain stepped up the ladder to the bridge. He walked to the rail that overlooked the forecastle, caught the eye of the First Lieutenant, and nodded. The latter raised his arm, as one who had received and understood an order. He transmitted it apparently by telepathy, for immediately the last lengths of cable came grinding through the hawse pipe.