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I took it from him and drank. “How many of us are there now?” I asked.

“There’s only us,” he said.

The vessel was on fire aft and it seemed to me that she was settling by the stern; the whole stern must have been blown out when the magazine went up.

“They stopped the shelling ten minutes ago,” he said. “They’re practically dead ahead, sir. A little on the port bow.”

“Where’s the panic party?”

Wallis swore, “The dirty b—rs,” he said. The snotty said: “They shelled the boat, sir. I don’t think there’s anybody left.” And then he said: “It wasn’t playing the game, sir.”

I retched violently. And when that was over I asked: “Is there any armament left?”

“Aye, sir,” said Wallis, “there’s the port six-pounder and eight rounds. She’ll want to be broad on the beam for it, but the gun’s all right.”

I saw it lying on the deck upon its swinging mounting, behind the bulwarks. It had not been touched. The vessel lay upon the water like a log; she lay heavily and each time she sank into the trough the coming swell sluiced down the bulwarks burying the hull, so that I thought that she was never going to rise. Astern she was awash, so that there was a hissing and crackling, and a great cloud of smoke where fire and water met. I thought of Jardine, dead in the Dardanelles, and of Fordyce.