Nine o'clock is followed by eight each night as chronometers are oft times reset. Time is running backward and the Navigator cannot adequately explain the apparent negative speed of advance. It seems that the further we go, the behinder we get. Cadets are smitten by long forgotten, time induced maladies. The effect is obvious.
Anxiety grows with each agonizingly slow minute that passes.
Their boots polish and re-polish every inch of open deck or passage as they scuff from here to there. The infection will spread and soon engulf the entire ship. By the time we anchor in Cape Cod Bay Saturday, even veterans of many Sea Terms will be seen hanging on the rail facing shore, staring into the dark, hoping time will pass faster. But it won't. It will be Sunday morning at 0950 before the first line from the Empire State touches our homeland.