.. and ... for pity's sake give me my height, Captain! We doubt
we're dropping."
"Six thousand eight hundred. Can you hold it?" Captain Purnall
overlooks all insults, and leans half out of the colloid, staring
and snuffing. The stranger leaks pungently.
"We ought to blow into St. John's with luck. We're trying to plug
the fore-tank now, but she's simply whistling it away," her
captain wails.
"She's sinking like a log," says Captain Purnall in an undertone.
"Call up the Banks Mark Boat, George." Our dip-dial shows that
we, keeping abreast the tramp, have dropped five hundred feet the
last few minutes.
Captain Purnall presses a switch and our signal beam begins to
swing through the night, twizzling spokes of light across
infinity.
"That'll fetch something," he says, while Captain Hodgson watches
the General Communicator. He has called up the North Banks Mark
Boat, a few hundred miles west, and is reporting the case.
"I'll stand by you," Captain Purnall roars to the lone figure on
the conning-tower.
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