“A nasty temper,” said Sankey with a glance at Clive. “I fear you have not prescribed a sufficiency of opening medicine.”
He laid hands on Bush, and with Clive’s assistance dexterously twitched him over so that he lay face downward.
“The Dagoes seem to have done a crude job of carving; you, sir,” went on Sankey, addressing Bush’s defenceless back. “Nine wounds, I understand.”
“And fiftythree stitches,” added Clive.
“That will look well in the Gazette,” said Sankey with giggle; and proceeded to extemporise a quotation: “Lieutenant—ah—Bush received no fewer than nine wounds in the course of his heroic defence, but I am happy to state that he is rapidly recovering from them.”
Bush tried to turn his head so as to snarl out an appropriate reply, but his neck was one of the sorest parts of him and he could only growl unintelligibly, and he was not turned on to his back again until his growls had died down.
“And now we’ll whisk our little cupid away,” said Sankey. “Come in, you stretcher men.”
Carried out on to the maindeck Bush found the sunlight blinding, and Sankey stooped to draw the sheet over his eyes.
“Belay that!” said Bush, as he realised his intention, and there was enough of the old bellow in his voice to cause Sankey to pause. “I want to see!”
The explanation of the trampling and bustle on the deck was plain now. Across the waist was drawn up a guard of one of the West Indian regiments, bayonets fixed and every man at attention. The Spanish prisoners were being brought up through the hatchways for despatch to the shore in the lighters alongside. Bush recognised Ortega, limping along with a man on either side to support him; one trouser leg had been cut off and his thigh was bandaged, and the bandage and the other trouser leg were black with dried blood.