I can see him this moment writing his neat figures: seventeen, eight, four A.M.The year would be written in red ink at the top of the chart.

He never used his charts more than a year, Captain Brierly didn't.

I've the chart now.

When he had done he stands looking down at the mark he had made and smiling to himself, then looks up at me.
'Thirty-two miles more as she goes,' says he, 'and then we shall be clear, and you may alter the course twenty degrees to the southward.' '"We were passing to the north of the Hector Bank that voyage.

I said, 'All right, sir,' wondering what he was fussing about, since I had to call him before altering the course anyhow.