Like most of his comrades, Malcolm Carr was under the impression that he would soon have to swim for it, unless he was one of the lucky ones to get told off to the boats. If anyone had suggested that he was afraid, he would have stoutly repudiated the statement; but he was conscious of a peculiar sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. To a man not a sailor by profession the knowledge that only a comparatively thin steel plate, and fractured at that, is between him and death by drowning is apt to be decidedly disconcerting. He had voluntarily contracted to risk his life by fighting the Boche, but to be "downed" without the chance of seeing a shot fired in earnest was hardly playing the game.