[Illustration: Down the Channel in a Fog—A Narrow Escape.]
Upon the bridge the pilot and the officer of the watch peer “ahead and astern, look to windward and to lee;” the ship slips and slides, now to port and now to starboard, dodging the fleet inter-shooting this marvellous waterway with a wealth of craft no other waters know; and the lookouts glue their eyes to their quadrants of observation, reporting lights and sails till the confusion would be inextricable, save to these steady nerves finding the pathway safely. Down the coast the vessel runs in the darkness, fearing naught while the stars shine and the horizon circles clean cut above the foam-capped waters. But as the night grows the air loses its briskness, a light haze shrouds the sea, and the Channel fog rolls, ghostlike, landward. Soon only the upper stars glimmer, the moisture drips from the rigging, the iron rails and deck-houses are damp and clammy, and the lights are aureoled with a dull cloud of gray and yellowish mist.
The captain takes his place upon the bridge, the engines are eased until, to the worried landsman’s ears, their labored throbbing seems a devil’s tattoo answering the grumbling and rumbling of the fog-whistle. Below, brawny, silent men stand at the levers, ready at an instant to stop and back, or go ahead, just as the emergency may direct. Outside the pilot-house the quarter-master strains his ears and peers nervously into the gloom, yet alert to pass any command given to the junior officer and to his messmate at the wheel. Signals from fog-whistles drift into them from other groping ships, and, at times, spectral hulls and ghostly sails loom close aboard, creeping out of the curtained night or slipping landward or seaward in search of hidden port or roadway. At regular intervals the lead is cast and the depth of water read from the scale by the unhooded glare of a lantern, and on the chart the positions given by the soundings are pricked, to guard against the tricks of treacherous currents.
And so the cheerless night drifts sadly into a wan morning, and the ship creeps warily down Channel, the weary vigil taxing the brains and bodies of those who must seek no rest because of the lives entrusted to their care.