The sun, just above the western horizon, burned and flared upon their faces, under their blinking eyelids, and the blue waves changed slowly to a cold green against a vast rosecoloured afterglow that held no loveliness for them. In half an hour it would be night, and there was no boat. Ronny was thinking lingeringly of juicy beefsteak and baked potatoes and a steaming cup of coffee, or fried onions, or even just an orange. Anything to relieve this withering, abominable taste of salt in the mouth. It seemed to him he must have swallowed quarts of salt water already, and his tongue and the lining of his mouth were blistered with it. The feeling of too much salt water swallowed was cold and uneasy also in his stomach. Bill came floundering beside him. “Look here, buddy, le’s you and me try to turn this bus around, so the plane’ll be away from the wind. Maybe she’ll ride better that way for the night.” Suddenly Ronny saw the night--the night. “Sure,” he said to Bill, grateful for activity. But something about his heart was cold. It was harder to swim than it had been. There was no longer refreshment in the swash of water over his body. The wind skimmed stinging hatfuls of spray over a wave top into their faces. When they reached the rudder they clung to it and breathed a trifle hard, planning their concerted effort. Presently they let go and began pushing, thrashing tremendously with their legs, breathing or gasping when they could. The huge thing was unwieldy and hard to start and, once started, the wind often caught and forced it back on top of them. Ronny’s legs began to feel the strain of it and there was a pain in his labouring lungs. Floundering and struggling side by side there, Ronny found that he and Bill were staring grimly into each other’s eyes, as if the very abstract intentness of the look, in such moments as their faces were clear of water, was some sort of permanence. And at the moment when they got the thing half about and the wind took it from the new angle, whirling it as they wanted it to go, Ronny caught a twisted grin on Bill’s face, a grin and gasp of triumph that reached to him as a glorious thing. It was tremendous. It was unconquerable, he felt, grinning back as best he could as they both hung and panted on the turned plane. He felt warm all over, as if with a great achievement.