Fourgues came at seven that evening and we left at eight. Now he don’t care a damn about anything. He saw his people at Orange and found everything all right and brought back with him a lot of macaroons they make at Aix, preserves from Apt, and a cask of _extra_ brandy. He has not lost his hair once during the whole voyage, and what is more, he has promised me on his word of honour that it will be my turn next time. With all his faults he is not a liar! In three or four months I shall make a trip home and perhaps I shall have been able to save enough to get married. We shall see. Things are going better all the same. At K---- the Navy gave us a reservist chief quartermaster. He is the owner of boats on the Seine and caught on quickly. As far as Liverpool we divided the watch among the three of us and so could breathe. During the trip I taught the tram-driver the rules of navigation, lights, whistles, etc. From Liverpool to Cardiff he took the watch under Fourgues’ supervision. He’s fairly on the spot. He will take the watch by himself on the return trip and you can see your old chum beginning to revive. At K---- there was an engineer who came to look at our broken shaft and repairs. He found it rather rustic (as he termed it) and had a new collar made for us, all polished and well-turned with a guard and friction band. It was a bit too fancy to be solid and has already started shaking loose. At the first dirty sea we get the two pieces of the shaft will begin to twist apart. Fortunately I have kept Muriac’s collars. The _Pamir_ was ordered to go to Anti-Paxo. She made her ten knots and arrived without too much trouble. The reservists are beginning to tumble to it. I forgot to say that the burst tubes of boiler 3 have been changed. It isn’t perfect, but if we don’t drive her too hard we can wait awhile for new tubes. We arrived at Anti-Paxo at two o’clock in the morning. Why do they make us sail with all lights on when the ships of war have all lights out? We are game for the Huns as much as they, and you can’t tell what you may blunder into. During the last night, with the sky so overcast that you couldn’t see the bows, suddenly I smelt smoke right in my face, on the starboard bow. Well, old man, it was one of your thirty-six funnel cruisers which had just cut across our course a cable’s length ahead and which sent its bloomin’ cinders into my eyes. I hadn’t seen a thing! You could have knocked me flat! Really, they might show a light when they are going to play stunts like that. I know that their officers watch, but just the same, one of these days there’ll be a smash, my boy. Before Anti-Paxo a T.B.D. came down on us full speed. We hoisted our signal. She stopped to port side ten yards away. The commander looked furious. “Are you the _Pamir_? You ought to have gone to Fano.” “At K----,” answered Fourgues, “they said Anti-Paxo!” “It’s the _Marguerite_ which should come to Anti-Paxo. We have been calling you all night.”