Then, and for the first time, as I floundered to my feet covered with slime, the blood running down my arms from a scrape against a barnacled stake, I knew that I was drunk.

But what of it?
Across the channel two strong sailormen lay unconscious in their bunks where I had drunk them.

I WAS a man.

I was still on my legs, if they were knee-deep in mud.

I disdained to get back into the skiff.