One moment the end of the bridge would rise high in air and the next almost bury itself in the seething waters.
The wind roared, the lightning flashed, and the thunder rolled.
The dense fog hung like a curtain round the ship, so the whistle was blown incessantly.
The boatswain's mate ordered me to go forward and stand an hour's watch on the bridge.

I obeyed, creeping on all fours most of the time, till I reached the opening between the deck houses.

I escaped, by a hair's breadth, a sea which came over the side like a solid green wall.
The man on the port end of the bridge whom I relieved, shouted in my ear--he could not be heard otherwise--"You want to get a good hold or you'll be fired overboard in a jiffy." Then he left me.
It was the kind of a night one felt the need of companionship.

I spent a lonely hour on the bridge, eyes and ears strained for signs of other vessels, face and hands stung by the pelting rain.

Underlying all other thoughts was the consciousness that we carried several hundred tons of deadly explosive that might shift any moment or be ignited by a spark from a lamp and explode.
The sandbags stored about the steering gear broke loose and were heaped in picturesque confusion.