But the general picture of actual living conditions was much thicker or grosser—particularly in the hour or two following the making of a good anchorage, when the hissing of the primus stove and the smell and taste of food enwrap released bodies in a divine ease. One sits, feet out, and goes over the events of the day, and exhorts the Crew, now cook, and takes what comes, and feels the sun and the wind and the rain and the glitter all warm in the face and lazy in the shoulders and at rest in the legs; while the only touch of mystery or wonder is in the astonishing amount the other fellow prepares himself to consume. Good nature moves about this festival too lazy to laugh outright, but full of nods and sly sayings and frank remembrances. ‘All that I am hoping’, says the Mate in a doleful voice, ‘is that I’ll be able to get a blink of sleep to-night.’ Now he sleeps exactly like an Egyptian mummy. But should a man who so sleeps chance to be disturbed for two minutes in some silent watch, the morning memory of it is multiplied like a reflection in a room of mirrors, until the whole night has become peopled with his restlessness. A luxurious picture of suffering that, once established, he does not readily give up. And particularly when it draws mockery from the Crew. ‘I’m afraid I cannot take all this,’ he complains, prepared with a forearm of defence. ‘You just leave what you can’t eat,’ says the Crew. ‘All right,’ he agrees, resignedly.

However often these fatuous things are repeated, or suggested in dumb play, they never lose some air of drollery, something of friendliness caught from the rigours of the day. It is not the moment for wit, hardly even for humour, certainly not for seriousness: it is a moment for the body and requires some invention of drollery to be chuckled at despite oneself.

Then the question of to shave or not to shave, seeing we must go ashore, and the Book says, ‘Shop. P.O. Tel. Inn at Bunessan.’ The evening is fair and fresh and we can stroll there looking at all the new things on the way. If we shaved now, then we shouldn’t have to shave to-morrow. Moreover, we never care about drinking direct out of the water tank, and after a strenuous and exciting day the body is, in sober truth, wrung dry. Finally the Mate carries a packet of blue blades that make shaving almost a luxury, and he is very generous with them. So we shave in the cockpit and wash in the salt water, and by the time the Mate has combed his hair —about which he continues to be particular—the Crew appears complete with milkpail, handbag, and creases in her blue trousers. And we sally forth on dry land.

‘What’s the time?’ asks the Mate suddenly, for only the Crew carries a watch.

‘Half-past eight,’ she answers.