As it was out of the question to sleep in any of the regular living quarters, our men clustered around the engine-room hatch and in the blower-rooms and got what sleep they could in that manner. None of the officers got any sleep for thirty-six hours. At one time, when we were running before the storm, I looked into one of the blower-rooms and saw a man seated in about six inches of water, fast asleep. Tommy, the ship’s cat, was asleep in his lap. A comber boarded us over the side and increased the depth of water so that the next roll of the ship got Tommy very wet. He jumped from a sound slumber in the man’s lap to a wide-awake and frightened posture upon the man’s shoulder. Another sea climbed aboard to disturb poor Tommy again, so he perched himself upon the man’s head and there he stayed for two hours. I saw Commander Porter get into an argument with a big boarding sea and my next view showed him lying alongside the outer rail in water two feet deep. There is no sense in arguing with a sea like that. One must go where it takes him and be glad when he is jammed into a secure corner. Several boxes and packages came aboard for me just before this trip, each marked “To be Opened on Christmas,” so I carefully stowed them away. The hurricane flooded my room, of course, and drenched all my precious holiday packages. Despite the big flood, everything came through in fairly good order, barring the Christmas cakes, which turned into a beautiful clinker after they had been dried out on a steam radiator. Now we have to dig them apart with an ice-pick. The walnuts and Brazil nuts sent by my loving friends did very well in the storm. They went adrift early in the excitement and got caught in the bilge strainer during the time we were pumping the water out of the ship. The chief engineer found them all when he put on his diving suit to see what kept the pumps from working, and I claimed the whole bunch, knowing full well they were mine. Several odd socks also mingled with the bilge strainer, but they were not mine. The captain, Gray, and I had a nut party in my room on Christmas night and very much enjoyed the bilged nuts. Yeoman Connolly was not likely to forget the night of the storm which caused him to say of his own emotions: