Long after Nightfall, Mason and Dixon, officially reliev’d of their Medical Duties, reluctant to part company, go lurching up on Deck, exhausted, laughing at nothing,— or at ev’rything, being alive when they could as easily be dead. Despite the salt rush of Wind, they can no more here, than Below, escape, caught in the Drape of the damag’d Sails, the Reek of the Battle past,— the insides of Trees, and of Men. . . . They have to prop each other up till one of them finds something to lean against. “Well, what’s this, then?” inquires Mason.
