Claude seemed to himself to be leading a double life these days.  When he was working over Fanning, or was down in the hold helping to take care of the sick soldiers, he had no time to think,—­did mechanically the next thing that came to hand.  But when he had an hour to himself on deck, the tingling sense of ever-widening freedom flashed up in him again.  The weather was a continual adventure; he had never known any like it before.  The fog, and rain, the grey sky and the lonely grey stretches of the ocean were like something he had imagined long ago—­memories of old sea stories read in childhood, perhaps—­and they kindled a warm spot in his heart.  Here on the Anchises he seemed to begin where childhood had left off.  The ugly hiatus between had closed up.  Years of his life were blotted out in the fog.  This fog which had been at first depressing had become a shelter; a tent moving through space, hiding one from all that had been before, giving one a chance to correct one’s ideas about life and to plan the future.  The past was physically shut off; that was his illusion.  He had already travelled a great many more miles than were told off by the ship’s log.  When Bandmaster Fred Max asked him to play chess, he had to stop a moment and think why it was that game had such disagreeable associations for him.  Enid’s pale, deceptive face seldom rose before him unless some such accident brought it up.  If he happened to come upon a group of boys talking about their sweethearts and war-brides, he listened a moment and then moved away with the happy feeling that he was the least married man on the boat.

There was plenty of deck room, now that so many men were ill either from seasickness or the epidemic, and sometimes he and Albert Usher had the stormy side of the boat almost to themselves.  The Marine was the best sort of companion for these gloomy days; steady, quiet, self-reliant.  And he, too, was always looking forward.  As for Victor Morse, Claude was growing positively fond of him.  Victor had tea in a special corner of the officers’ smoking-room every afternoon—­he would have perished without it—­and the steward always produced some special garnishes of toast and jam or sweet biscuit for him.  Claude usually managed to join him at that hour.

On the day of Tannhauser’s funeral he went into the smoking-room at four.  Victor beckoned the steward and told him to bring a couple of hot whiskeys with the tea.  “You’re very wet, you know, Wheeler, and you really should.  There,” he said as he put down his glass, “don’t you feel better with a drink?”

“Very much.  I think I’ll have another.  It’s agreeable to be warm inside.”

“Two more, steward, and bring me some fresh lemon.”  The occupants of the room were either reading or talking in low tones.  One of the Swedish boys was playing softly on the old piano.  Victor began to pour the tea.  He had a neat way of doing it, and today he was especially solicitous.  “This Scotch mist gets into one’s bones, doesn’t it?  I thought you were looking rather seedy when I passed you on deck.”