“You know the foremost hatch in those boats, for lowering torpedoes?” he resumed. “Apparently they decided to try getting a big air pressure in the boat, then open this hatch and chance being blown through to the surface in the bubble.” The speaker puffed a cloud of smoke and watched it eddy about the flowers in the centre of the table. “So they stripped and put on swimming collars and life-belts, and mustered two-deep under the hatchway.” Longridge was tracing a pattern in the ash from his cigarette on the side of his dessert-plate. “All of ’em?” he interrupted. “Shouldn’t have thought there was room.” “No there wasn’t. There wasn’t room for _him_ or his coxswain. We found those two fully dressed, without life-belts or anything, right the other end of the compartment away from any hope of escape. But he wrote his report, giving clear and explicit directions for salving, amongst other things, and tied it to the second coxswain’s wrist.... Then when they were all ready he gave the word--from the other end of the compartment--and the men all heaved the hatch up together.” Behind the speaker’s shoulders the blue oblongs of the windows had darkened into blackness. A nightingale far off among the laurels was pouring out her liquid song into the night, and for a while Brakespear seemed to be listening to it, twirling the stem of his wine-glass absently between finger and thumb. No one spoke. “It was one of those stupid little accidents,” he went on presently, still in the same low, grave tones, “a thing so utterly insignificant, that stood between Life and Death for them. Yet it happened. The hatch opened about six inches and jambed. They could neither raise nor lower it. The water just poured in.” “Drowned ’em,” said Longridge tensely. The superfluity of the remark seemed to strike him. “Of course,” he added, as if talking to himself. “Yes.” “And they were still two-deep when you found them?” asked Foster. “Yes. There must have been perfect discipline from first to last. And his letter----” The speaker’s voice caught abruptly, as a trailing garment catches in a nail. The ensuing silence remained unbroken till Aughtlone slowly pushed back his chair. “I vote we go and have a game of pool,” he said quietly. * * * * * The hall clock chimed one on a thin scandalised note as the candle-lit procession wended its way bedwards up the wide stair-way. It was one of the Aughtlone traditions that the old house should remain lit by lamps and candles.