Grey eyes determinedly gazed at the jetty. A grunt was born deep in the massive chest beneath the blue pullover. Quite abruptly the grey eyes moved their gaze to cross swords with the brown eyes, blinked, and then as abruptly shifted back again to the jetty.

“Ha-well! Reckon you’re right-about us being mates for a long time, an’ about me being too easy to make money like an owner,” Joe agreed, still truculent.“Any’ow, where’d you be if I did have a launch of me own? Lost, that’s what you’d be. All you know about this coast, and the fish swimming off it, is what I’ve taught you, you young, jumped-up, jackanapes.”

“Agreed, Mr Know-all.”

“What’s that?”

Wilton laughed, white teeth flashing in the amber of his face, and Joe snorted and mumbled something like:

“Know-all! Me? Too right I know all there’s to know about this coast and the ruddy sea.” Then more distinctly, he added: “Well, do we stay here till the tide’s high, or do we go ’ome for some tucker?”

“Home and tucker it is, mate-o’-mine.”

“Mate-o’-mine!”Joe echoed, witheringly. “You’re going to the pitchers too much, that’s what you’re doing. There’s theGladious first home.”

Into their view slid a roomy launch, its white hull and brown-painted shelter-structure protecting the wheel and the cabin entrance. The owner was steering, and in the cockpit two anglers were dismantling their gear.

Joe and Wilton stepped into their dinghy and Joe rowed round the stern of theGladious, as she drew alongside the head of the jetty to permit her catch to be weighed, and pulled in alongside an ancient tub which provided a step upward to the jetty. They were watching the heavy tuna being weighed, their interest in fish eternal, when a smart craft hove into sight beyond the bar. TheEdith was gently lifted higher than the river, appeared to be powered by a force much stronger than her engine which rushed her forward over the bar and then deserted her. Like a gull shecame swimming towards the jetty. Behind her, still to cross the bar, was a heavier craft named theSnowy.