The engine stopped and the L.T.O. snipped the switches over. In the engine-room the stokers were bending over the silent Diesel, and Hoskins began to square up the tools of his trade. For’ard the T.I. and the redoubtable Jevons were replacing their long-suffering torpedo in its tube, and the coxswain, with puckered brow and the stump of a pencil, was breathing heavily while he wrote up the log. The brass rags were being packed up and stowed away, the oil-cans replaced, and the hatches closed. One by one the men foraged for their caps and went up on deck. The T.I. began turning the lights out. Work was over for the day. The two officers were the last to go on deck, and then the coxswain locked up the boat and followed in the wake of his men. There were kippers for tea in the Petty Officer’s mess, and he was late already. It had been a trying and depressing day, and he walked majestically abroad, feeling like the captain who has made port at last when land had been forgotten. Raymond paused by the gun on his way to the gang-plank. ‘Rotten little thing this,’ he said, pulling down a lever and opening the breach. ‘Why the devil they can’t give us something decent, I’d like to know.’ ‘We ought to have a twelve-pounder on an anti-aircraft mounting,’ responded the ambitious Seagrave. ‘A measley six-pound pea-shooter like that isn’t any earthly use. It’s ages since we’ve fired the thing, and it’ll probably jump the mounting if we do. I can’t understand what they’re thinking about, dumping that ruddy thing on us.’ Raymond smiled. The gun, quite handy and useful in its own way, was Seagrave’s sore point and afforded a never-failing bite. ‘We shall have to write and tell ’em so, but I’m afraid they won’t take any notice of us. Six-pounders you shall have, and six-pounders we get, and they stick to us. ‘What I should really like would be a four-inch and a few eggs,[13] and mine-dropping gear. Then we could do something. It’s sickening messing about like this, looking for Fritz, who never comes out, or runs as soon as he sees us. I’d like to see one of their Battle Cruisers come across our patrol one day. We’d show ’em.’ Raymond smiled again. And so to tea. * * * * * The Officer of the Watch, one Meeks, Lieutenant R.N.R., slowly paced the _Parentis’s_ quarter-deck, wrapped in the rig of the day, to wit, a heavy gloom. The rain had ceased, but the sky was lowering and overcast, and the wind had dropped some hours ago. The moon, struggling gamely through the clouds, was the only saving clause to the situation. An unpleasant day had given place to a damp and chilly night, and at 2.0 a.m. man is not at his brightest.