52 ALONGSHORE t 



hear? We'm near enough Beer Head to bring 

 the gulls out.' 



'We'm. . . , Be usf 



With a scuttle and lounge, at last the 01' Man 

 put the tiller down. The drifter swerved roundly 

 out to sea. Once past white Beer Head, we knew 

 that due west would bring us home. All along 

 on the starboard beam we could hear the rushing, 

 as it sounded in the fog, of surf on a shingle shore. 

 Presently we glimpsed the looming cliffs, a moun- 

 tainous haze within a haze, over the flat foggy sea; 

 and before long they took on an outline, but not 

 such a one that we could tell by it how far down 

 the coast we were. Then, in as little time as it 

 took us to say what was happening, dawn stared 

 out with the face of a sullen idiot. The cliff 

 looming above us turned out to be the cliff next 

 to home. We saw our beach, our boats, the front 

 of the little town, and, last of all, our own beacon 

 light. It was as if we had returned to the 

 world after a night's journeying In extra-ter- 

 restrial chaos; we had been so utterly alone; 

 more divided from all that mankind sees and 

 hears and touches than ever a prisoner in his cell, 

 more distant from all the familiar things which 

 prove to a man from moment to moment that he is 



