I FOG LONELINESS 43 



putting us in mind of suffocation nightmares. We 

 were curiously alone; no land, no sun, no clouds, 

 no sky; hardly any sea; not even darkness visible! 

 And the thickness of the fog was parting us, as 

 it were, from one another. We even spoke 

 louder. 



There was nothing to guide us. Nobody 

 aboard possessed a compass. We steered by the 

 lay of the waves, keeping careful watch on them; 

 for the direction in which they are travelling is not 

 easy to tell in a fog, and had the boat turned right 

 round we should have gone on rowing straight 

 out to sea without knowing it. 



A drifter loomed up very close to us. 'Where 

 be us?' they inquired. 



'A mile to the sou'west'ard.' 



*You'm not going right,' they shouted. 



'You follow us !' we replied. 



They did put themselves on the same course 

 as ours (so much for youthful assurance!), and In 

 a minute, because we could row our smaller boat 

 the faster, they were hidden by mist. We were 

 alone again. 



After we had pulled some distance further, and 

 felt almost certain that we were rowing out to sea, 

 we saw suddenly, not very far from us, a pair of 



