“Well, I agree in part; I don’t hold with officers comin’ up with complaints. It’s bad for discipline.... But there is a limit to what any man can stand. This very mornin’, when I came down here at 4 a.m., I found Mr. Driss goin’ to keep the watch with me. ‘When did you come off your _last_ watch?’ I asks. ‘I kept the First,’ says he. ‘I turned in at twenty-five minutes after midnight. I’ve been asleep for three hours and twenty-five minutes’--all spoken cold and thin, like someone sleep-walkin’. It ain’t natural, Mr. Lynwood. I don’t like to see him--or you--white as ghosts, ready to drop, stumblin’ half blind round an’ round my Engine-room. It makes me feel a brute for keepin’ you here. But if I sent you up, the first thing Aggett would say, if he came down, would be, ‘Where’s the midshipman o’ the watch?’” He paused dramatically. “It’s too much,” he said, “to keep eight hours below between eight in the evenin’ and eight in the mornin’. An’ you at your guns when you _are_ off watch. The Captain wouldn’t have it, if he knew.” Looking at John’s hollow cheeks, he thought, “There’ll be an end to it soon.” But before the end came disaster. Two days later, John, in a corner by the evaporators, was writing in that marble-covered book. The mood in which he wrote held him captive. He was conscious neither of the engines’ beat nor of the ringing of the telegraph. He saw with intense vision, only the scene he described. “Makin’ notes?” Aggett, with low waistcoat and bulging shirt-front, stood there, his hands thrust in his pockets, his chin pushed forward over a choker collar. He must have come down as soon as dinner was finished and the wine passed. “Gettin’ keen on engineerin’? Let’s see.” He held out a hand into which, without hesitation, John put his book. There was a long pause. “Often write this balderdash on watch?” “Two books full, sir, and what you see.” “Why?” “I get an idea and I write it down, sir.” This was Aggett’s chance. At last he had caught one of them committing a really serious offence. Officers were required when on watch to give continuous attention to duty. Hartington could not get out of this, Aggett reflected. He tore out a blank sheet from the notebook. “Pencil,” he said, stretching out his hand. He wrote on, and folded, the paper. “Take this to Hartington. When he’s finished with you, report down here again. I’ll wait.” John climbed the steel-runged ladder and, passing through the great heat above the cylinders, scrambled on to the grating which the windows of the Engineers’ Office overlooked. In the Chest Flat he found Driss beginning to undress before turning in. “Do you know where Hartington is?” “In his cabin, I think. Aggett’s below, isn’t he?” “Yes. He has just bowled me out writing verse on watch. Sent me up with this chit for Hartington.” “To be beaten?” “I suppose so. Good-night.”