How We Ran Contraband Of War

We could have done, perhaps, with another man to help handle the heavily-sparred cutter. Still the ones we had were fine fellows; and we were paying such high wages that each addition meant a good lump of gilt off our own gingerbread. Indeed Phil overheard Brown senior remark to his brother one night that, at the price, he'd be willing "to picnic with a cargo of dynamite all his bloomin' life." He had reason to change his opinion before the picnic was finished.

Obeying instructions, and favoured by light but steady South West Monsoons, I kept nearly up to the twenty-first parallel before hauling my wind and standing in to make that particular one out of the two thousand and odd islands I was bound for.