In spite of himself, a shout of exultation escaped. Instead of the comforting, drumming rain on the deck above, however, a shocking . . . silence . . . stunned his senses. He heard surprised shouts on the foredeck and then the confused murmuring of the bridge watch, but for a moment there was nothing else. He spun to look past the chart house. As the rest of the ship . . . materialized out of the greenness behind them, he began to hear it—the ship itself. The reassuring thunder of the blowers as they roared into being, the shouted obscenities of the number two gun crew amidships. On and on, until he heard the tumult as far away as the fantail. But other than the increasingly alarmed voices of his crew, the normal sounds of his ship, and the loud ringing in his ears caused by the din of battle, there was nothing. But there was rain. The rain he’d expected to pound his ship at that very moment was there—but it wasn’t falling. It just hung there, suspended. Motionless. He raised his hand in wonder amid the pandemonium, waved it through the teardrop shapes, and felt their wetness on his hand.
