But that left sixteen, as I say. Some of them, though, had suffered visibly from being left untended for nearly a decade, so that for our purposes they might as well have been abandoned in the middle of the Atlantic; we didn't have the equipment or ambition to do any great amount of salvage work. The _Empress of Britain_ would have been a pretty good bet, for instance, except that it was lying at pretty nearly a forty-five-degree angle in its berth. So was the _United States_, and so was the _Caronia_. The _Stockholm_ was straight enough, but I took a good look, and only one tier of portholes was showing above the water--evidently it had settled nice and even, but it was on the bottom all the same. Well, that mud sucks with a fine tight grip, and we weren't going to try to loosen it. All in all, eleven of the sixteen ships were out of commission just from what we could see driving by. Vern and I looked at each other. We stood by the MG, while Amy sprawled her legs over the side and waited for us to make up our minds. "Not good, Sam," said Vern, looking worried. I said: "Well, that still leaves five. There's the _Vulcania_, the _Cristobal_--" "Too small." "All right. The _Manhattan_, the _Liberte_ and the _Queen Elizabeth_." Amy looked up, her eyes gleaming. "Where's the question?" she demanded. "Naturally, it's the _Queen_." I tried to explain. "Please, Amy. Leave these things to us, will you?" "But the Major won't settle for anything but the best!" "The _Major_?" * * * * * I glanced at Vern, who wouldn't meet my eyes. "Well," I said, "look at the problems, Amy. First we have to check it over. Maybe it's been burned out--how do we know? Maybe the channel isn't even deep enough to float it any more--how do we know? Where are we going to get the oil for it?" "We'll get the oil," Amy said cheerfully. "And what if the channel isn't deep enough?" "She'll float," Amy promised. "At high tide, anyway. Even if the channel hasn't been dredged in ten years." I shrugged and gave up. What was the use of arguing? We drove back to the _Queen Elizabeth_ and I had to admit that there was a certain attraction about that big old dowager. We all got out and strolled down the pier, looking over as much as we could see. The pier had never been cleaned out. It bothered me a little--I mean I don't like skeletons much--but Amy didn't seem to mind. The _Queen_ must have just docked when it happened, because you could still see bony queues, as though they were waiting for customs inspection. Some of the bags had been opened and the contents scattered around--naturally, somebody was bound to think of looting the _Queen_. But there were as many that hadn't been touched as that had been opened, and the whole thing had the look of an amateur attempt. And that was all to the good, because the fewer persons who had boarded the _Queen_ in the decade since it happened, the more chance of our finding it in usable shape.