THE NORDERNEY CABLE 153 



lying apparently aground, and could not under- 

 stand her signals ; so we had to anchor suddenly 

 and I went off in a small boat with the captain to 

 the Caroline. It was cold by this time, and my 

 arm was rather stiff and I was tired ; I hauled 

 myself up on board the Caroline by a rope and found 



H and two men on board. All the rest were 



trying to get the shore end on shore, but had failed 

 and apparently had stuck on shore, and the waves 

 were getting up. We had anchored in the right 

 place and next morning we hoped the shore end 

 would be laid, so we had only to go back. It was 

 of course still colder and quite night. I went to 

 bed and hoped to sleep, but, alas, the rheumatism 

 got into the joints and caused me terrible pain, 

 so that I could not sleep. I bore it as long as I 

 could in order to disturb no one, for all were tired ; 

 but at last I could bear it no longer and managed 

 to wake the steward and got a mustard poultice 

 which took the pain from the shoulder ; but then 

 the elbow got very bad, and I had to call the second 

 steward and get a second poultice, and then it was 

 daylight, and I felt very ill and feverish. The sea 

 was now rather rough — too rough rather for small 

 boats, but luckily a sort of thing called a scoot 

 came out, and we got on board her with some 

 trouble, and got on shore after a good tossing about 

 which made us all sea-sick. The cable sent from 

 the Caroline was just 60 yards too short and did 



