Roll! Why, several times I thought she would go right over, and once or twice, as we heeled, I caught hold of the edge of the bridge to steady myself; but Collins had his eye on me all the time, and cursed me pretty hard. "Keep her into it, you young ass! Don’t let her pay off like that," he said. And another time: "If you let her swing more than two points off her course again, I’ll give you half a dozen over the ward-room table." I would do my best, and would put the helm over to steady her, feeling horribly sick and dreadfully miserable, for I was wet through and very cold. Mr. Parker came up presently in his oil-skins to relieve Collins, smoking a pipe, the very sight of which made me feel green, and after looking cheerily at "No. 2", which was on our beam, and having as bad a time as ourselves, said, with his body jammed securely between the chart-table and the 12-pounder; "We shall break the old girl’s back if we keep at this much longer, Collins. Give me a light, old chap; all my matches are wet through." I devoutly wished she would break her back, and actually looked aft to see if there were any sign of such good fortune. We slowed down shortly afterwards and fell back to the _Laird_; but she must have been doing nearly twenty knots, and though she did give us somewhat of a lee, we had a horrible time of it. Mr. Parker sent me down below, and I had to hold on pretty hard to get safely aft, and I found poor Tommy lying on the after 6-pounder gratings in a worse state even than I was. This cheered me a little. The night was almost as bad, and though I was dead tired and wet through to the skin and longed to die, it was impossible to lie in a bunk. I was thrown out of the Sub’s bunk twice—you see there were not enough bunks for all, so I had to use the one belonging to the man on watch—and spent most of the night on the deck of the ward-room, clinging to the legs of the ward-room table, till even these gave way at one extra heavy lurch. We went clattering to leeward and woke the Engineer, who kicked me out and wanted to know "What I meant by choosing that time of night to play musical chairs?" Then I crept up on deck and held on to the after steering screen, really too frightened to go below again, we were rolling so horribly. I tell you all this just to let you know what it is like to be in a destroyer in heavy weather for the first time. People see destroyers dashing in and out of harbour, and think what a jolly life it must be on board; and so it is, too, when once you are used to it, and have learnt that they can stand on their heads one moment, roll till the sea comes half-way up to their funnels the next, and be none the worse for it. But doesn’t it want a lot of hanging on? Tommy joined me behind the screen presently, and a miserable pair we were, I can tell you, and wished ourselves back again in the _Laird_, swinging in our hammocks.