is good that we are having rough weather. When the waves are tossing high, the periscopes may not find us.
We are sixteen people who wander like disembodied spirits from the gay days of old through these great empty rooms that once rang with the joy of hundreds of tourists on their pleasure-jaunts over the world. There are no games. There is no dancing. There is no band. There are no steamer-chairs on deck. At sundown we are closed in tight behind iron shutters. No one may so much as light a cigaret outside.
In the ghastly silence of the days that pass, there is only the strain and quiver of the ship, and the solemn boom, boom of the sea. Death is so near that it seems fitting the glad activities of life should cease, as when a corpse is laid out in the front room of a house. For a while there is a tendency to whisper, as if we were at a funeral, or as if, perchance, the Germans in the sea could hear. But soon we find ourselves functioning quite normally. Not until the sixth day out, it is true, does any one venture to take a bath. You don't want to be rushed like that, you know, to your drowning. But we are sleeping regularly at night. We eat bacon and eggs for breakfast as usual. We are pleased when there is turkey and cranberry sauce for dinner. One does not maintain an agony of suspense forever. For most of us, I think it began to end when we had committed ourselves to the decision of this voyage.
