“Youngster, get the number of wounded from the surgeon.”
But when I entered the cockpit, stumbling over the wounded, and came to the surgeon’s assistants, I own I was unnerved a little, for I found them busily employed taking our old Quartermaster’s right arm out of the socket, whose only son, well known to me, I had just seen broken to pieces by a round shot which dashed him into the gun he was serving.
“Is my boy doing well, sir?” he gasped in a low agonised voice.
“I hope so,” I answered reverently, and I felt fit to choke, and the old man groaned heavily. He suspected the truth from the tone of my voice.
“Pour a glass of Madeira down his throat,” said the surgeon: “he is sinking fast.”
The complication of noises in this den of misery, from the shrill cry from agonised youth to the deep and hollow groan of death, the imprecations of some and the prayers of others, the roaring of the guns, and the hopes and fears that pervaded the wounded, formed a very shocking scene, and is still deeply impressed on my memory. But nothing shocked me so much as the cold hard voice of the surgeon: “I am too busy to count the wounded—say the cockpit is full, and some bad cases.”
I took this to the Admiral, who was back on the poop, with men and spars dropping all round him. He took no notice of me: all he said was, “I think their fire slackens, Mr. Vassall,” addressing one of our lieutenants.
“I am sure of it, sir: many of the crew have deserted their guns.”
He was not, it must be observed, talking of the Aquilon, the ship which had dealt us such awful mischief, but of the Spartiate, which we were engaging. He took no notice of the Aquilon: we hardly returned a gun to her.
“Louis will see to that,” he said (Captain Louis was of the Minotaur, the next in our line): “I am engaging the Spartiate till she strikes.”