noon
Several of the stewardesses and two or three women from the second cabin were avowed and bitter suffragettes . Indeed , two of the stewardesses , being English , were of the hatchet-wielding , brick-throwing element that made things so warm for the pained but bull-headed male population of London shortly before the Great War began . These ladies harangued their companions with great effect . To have heard or witnessed the little gatherings at noon and at the close of work for the day , one might have been led to believe that a grave , portentous ques-tion of state was involved . Trifling and simple as all this may seem to the reader of this narrative , it serves a definite purpose . It reveals to a no uncertain degree the eagerness with which these castaways reached out hungrily for the slightest morsel that would satisfy the craving of active minds dulled by the constant , never-absent thought of self ; minds charged with thoughts that centred on something thousands of miles away ; minds that seldom if ever worked in harmony with hands that toiled . The men took up the gauntlet .