THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
surface requires but few men to handle her, means that the forward battery compartment was crowded from bulkhead to bulkhead. Nelson and Martin plumped in amongst them, stumbling over a confusion of legs, and subsided on the edge of a bunk whose occupant, sprawled fully dressed therein, only grunted as they collided with his ribs. Two or three of the men were singing, although their voices were scarcely to be heard above the roar of the engines and riot of the seas, and the cook, looking rather sleepy, leaned against the stove and strummed imaginary music from a sauce-pan.
"When I first went to sea my father said to me,
'Jack, keep away from the Submariney.'
Bottled up tight and sick all night,
I know now that Dad was right!"
"Aw, cut it!" begged a miserable voice from an upper bunk.
"Hello, Tim! What cheer?" cried a facetious youth below. There was no reply to the challenge.
"We'll all be like that if we stay up here much longer," grumbled a tall youth with an incipient mustache and a smear of grease across one cheek. "Say, where are we, anyhow, fellows? How much further is it to where we get off?"
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