Chapter XV Mr. Midshipman Glover Tells How He Was Wounded
Lang to the Rescue—In Disgrace—We Hate Dr. Fox
Pat Jones, the quarter-master, has told you all the exciting things that happened the night we reached the island, and how we had bagged three of the four torpedo-boats which came out, with only the loss of poor Rogers.
Both Tommy Toddles and myself were jolly down in our luck at not being allowed to go away in the whaler, and, like the silly idiots we were, we did not take the opportunity of getting a little sleep. The result was, that when daylight came we were both so sleepy, we could hardly stand upright or keep our eyes open.
Mr. Lang had brought “No. 2” close in abreast of the wreck of the Chinese torpedo-boats, and ordered Mr. Parker to recover his two Berthon boats.
As you know, our whaler had been smashed by the same shell that had killed poor Rogers, so she was useless, and suddenly I heard Mr. Parker singing out to me to clear away the dinghy and get her into the water.
“Take four hands with you; put one in each of the Berthon boats, and then tow them back,” were his orders, “and take care you don’t capsize this time, or back you go to the Laird.”
We pulled in towards the nearest boat—close inshore she was—and just beyond her, right under the towering cliffs, were the two battered torpedo-boats, with some dead Chinamen washing about among the wreckage—a nasty sight, I can tell you.
We hauled in the moorings of the first boat, one of my four men jumping into her, and we had just commenced to tow her across to where the second bobbed up and down in the water, when ping! ping! came something past my head. A bullet took a splinter out of an oar, and we heard the noise of a rifle high up on the cliffs above us.
Then came a regular hail-storm of them—whip! crack! whip! crack! they went singing past, and throwing up little spurts of water all round us.
You may bet that we pulled hard and tried to make ourselves small.
Suddenly I saw Tomlinson, an A.B., who was pulling stroke oar, get white in the face and drop his oar.
Pat Jones, who had come with me, seized it before it could fall overboard, and Tomlinson tumbled down into the bottom of the boat with both his arms shot through, and helpless.
Then there was a loud boom from “No. 2” or “No. 3”, and one of our 12-pounder shells burst against the cliff just below where they were firing at us; another and another followed, the noise rolling from cliff to cliff and making a hideous roar, whilst stones and rock came rolling down and splashing into the sea.
The pirates—Chinamen probably they were, for they shot miserably—left off firing, but before we could weigh the second boat’s moorings they began again, firing from the top of the cliffs, a little farther away.
Pat Jones was steadying the dinghy with the oars, whilst Stevens, a Plymouth seaman, and I were hauling in the rope, and hauling, too, for all we were worth, when suddenly Stevens gave a gasp and fell forward, knocking me over, and would have fallen overboard himself had not Jones jumped aft and pulled him aboard. He was dead. I could see that by the way his head hung sideways as he was hauled into the boat, and Jones laid him down alongside Tomlinson, who was groaning horribly.
The rope, too, had slipped through my hands, and the moorings had to be hauled up again. Jones and I seized hold of them, and it was then that I felt something hit me in the leg. It felt just as if somebody had struck me hard with a ruler or the flat of one of our dirks.
I can’t really remember accurately what happened after that till I found myself pulling the stroke-oar and towing the two Berthon boats away from those horrid cliffs. I felt terribly sick, and it was all I could do to keep my foot from hurting Tomlinson and to keep the other away from the dead man.
I seemed to wake up quite suddenly with my wrists feeling like hot irons, and with hardly strength to lift the clumsy oar out of the water. All the time, just as if it was in a dream, Jones behind me kept on saying, “Steady, sir, steady!”
Little spurts of water were still jumping up close to us, but I was too utterly tired to worry about them. My leg, the one that had been hit, began to feel like lead, and I know that I lurched over the loom of my oar once or twice, and could hardly pull it through the water.
“You’ll do more good steering, sir,” said Jones, and he got hold of my oar, shifted the crutch, and pulled both oars himself, working like a machine. I managed to scramble aft and get hold of the tiller, and just remember seeing “No. 2’s” whaler, with Mr. Lang in her, coming down towards us.
I opened my eyes to find myself in Mr. Parker’s bunk, and the propellers whizzing round and shaking the whole stern of the destroyer.
Looking over the edge of the bunk I saw Tommy Toddles in a chair fast asleep, with his head hanging over to one side in a most comical manner.
I guessed what had happened. I had simply fallen asleep in the boat, and had been put in Mr. Parker’s bunk, with Tommy to watch over me, and he, too, had gone to sleep. I felt frightfully ashamed of myself for being such a baby, and crawled out, found my trousers, which someone had taken off in order to bandage my leg, and dressed myself rather gingerly, because the leg was very stiff, and smarted a good deal when I moved it. There were two neat little holes in the trouser leg, where a bullet had gone through, and a patch of blood, which stiffened the cloth all round them. I did feel proud!
What a joke it would be, I thought, to leave Tommy sleeping there and guarding the empty bunk; but then it struck me that Mr. Parker would only be the more angry, so I shook him, and a big job I had to wake him.
He did look silly when at last he opened his eyes and mumbled something about it not being his watch, and we both scrambled on deck and made our way for’ard.
It was a lovely warm, bright morning, and right astern was the island which had been so horribly close to us all night. Oh, we were so sleepy, and all over the deck men were lying sound asleep curled up in corners out of the breeze. Just abaft the after funnel was a heap covered with our best ensign, and we hardly cared to pass it, for we knew that poor Rogers and Stevens were underneath.
We clambered up the bridge ladder, passing Pat Jones at the wheel, who smiled grimly, with a warning look at Mr. Parker. He, with his back turned to us, and dressed in oil-skins and sou’wester, stood, gripping the bridge rails, as rigid as a statue.
You should have seen him jump when I said, “Please, sir, I’m all right now, sir,” and Tommy, saluting, sleepily added, “Please, sir, Glover’s woke up.”
He looked ten years older: his eyes, sunk deep in their sockets, stared at us in a dull way, his cheeks were sunken, and his whole face was furrowed with deep lines. He had practically not left the bridge for forty-eight hours, and it was wonderful how he could stand the strain.
He swore angrily at us—at me for coming on deck without leave, and at Tommy for letting me get up.
“But please, sir,” I began, “Tommy did not——”
I just stopped in time, for I was going to tell him that Tommy had been asleep.
Tommy, however, looking very ashamed, blurted out, “I went to sleep, sir, and Glover got up without waking me.”
That made Mr. Parker all the more angry, and he sent us both below.
“Both of you will go back to the Laird. Have your chest ready in half an hour!” he said, snapping our heads off.
We saw the Laird steaming to meet us, and went below again, feeling absolutely wretched, and commenced slowly to stow our things away in the chest which Tommy shared with me.
The next thing we knew was that we were being roughly shaken by Pat Jones, and we woke to find that we had both been asleep. Tommy was sprawled right across the chest, face downwards, with a pair of boots in his hand.
We could have cried, we were so angry with ourselves.
A cutter from the Laird was alongside, and we two and Tomlinson, the wounded man, were pulled across to her, Mr. Parker coming too to make his report.
As we went up the gangway we could hardly face all the midshipmen who crowded round us—Mellins, and Dumpling, and all the others—we felt so much in disgrace, and I had not even the heart to tell them that I’d been wounded.
I had to hobble for’ard to the sick-bay, and the bandage was taken off my leg.
“Just a skin wound, Glover,” Dr. Fox said, and put in some stitches, which didn’t pain me half as much as I expected.
“I needn’t go on the sick-list, sir, need I?”
The Fleet Surgeon smiled in his nasty way, and then fastened a long splint to the leg, and, of course, that made it certain that I could not go back to “No. 3”.
How I did wish that I had not gone to sleep in the boat, and then no one would have known that my leg had been hit, and I might still have been aboard her. What a fool I had been! All my chances were gone, and, feeling utterly wretched, I couldn’t manage to keep back a tear, and Dr. Fox saw it before I could brush it away.
“Pain you, youngster?” he asked, and then he must have understood, for he laughed and called me a young fire-eater, and wanted to know if I wasn’t content with having been wounded twice, which made me get red and uncomfortable, and made me hate him.
It was impossible to walk with the beastly splint, so they carried me aft and put me in the Captain’s spare cabin.
Tommy came along, too, and spread his hammock on deck, the sentry outside shut the door, and we slept soundly for nearly ten hours. Wasn’t that a sleep? and weren’t we hungry, too, when we did wake up?
Tommy went off to the gun-room, and the mess-man sent us in any amount of food. What a time we did have! And all the midshipmen crowded in and talked thirteen to the dozen, and wanted to hear all about our adventures, and to see the scratch in my leg. You can imagine how important I felt, especially when Captain Helston, with his arm still bandaged to his side, came to see me, and said some awfully jolly things. What I wanted, though, and what we both wanted, was to know whether we could go back to “No. 3”, and I managed awkwardly, and getting very red in the face, to ask him.
He smiled grimly, and said, “I’ll see what I can do when you come off the sick-list,” and left us happy again.
It turned out that Mr. Parker himself had fallen asleep in Captain Helston’s cabin after he had reported to him, and that, as everybody in both destroyers had been practically forty-eight hours without rest, people had been sent to them from the Laird just to keep up steam and keep a look-out during the day.
This news made Tommy and myself quite contented, for, at any rate, we were not the only ones who couldn’t keep awake.
Mellins and Dumpling had, however, both been sent to “No. 3” to take our place—temporarily we hoped.
“You haven’t missed much,” added Ogston, the Assistant Engineer, who had been so plucky in the sinking steamer, “for the Strong Arm has not joined us, and we’ve been doing nothing all day.”
They had buried both Rogers and Stevens. Poor fellows! they lay in a hundred fathoms, and brought our list of killed up to fourteen already.
Dr. Fox came in then, cleared everybody out of the cabin, gave orders to the sentry that no one was to be allowed in, turned out the light, and left me. Just like him, was it not? But I had a pencil and paper, turned up the light again, and wrote a tremendous letter home, just to spite him.