Then, returning to my side, he drew out his penknife and with quick, gentle fingers proceeded to cut away a number of stitches that kept the bandage in place, and when at length he had unwound it he flung it deftly away behind him, though not so deftly but that I caught a glimpse of it out of the corner of my eye and saw that it was drenched with blood. By the time that he had removed the bandage, gently clipping away, with a pair of scissors, the hair that stuck to it here and there, Burroughs, the assistant surgeon, had turned up with hot water and a number of odds and ends, and Wilson took the sponge in his hand, saying:
“Now, I shall probably hurt you a little; but don’t yell, if you can help it, because if you do you will disturb the poor fellows around you. So set your teeth and, if you feel anything, just grin and bear it. I will be as gentle as I can.”
And he was gentle—no man could have been more so; nevertheless, during the next quarter of an hour he inflicted so much agony upon me as he extracted little splinters of bone with his forceps, and so on, that long before he had finished I was drenched with perspiration, and felt so sick that I finally swooned again; and he completed his operation upon my senseless body.
That night, I afterward learned, I passed in a state of high delirium, and for several days I had only a very vague idea of where I was and what was happening around me; my predominating sensations being that the top of my head was on fire and blazing furiously, while I was consumed by fever and a thirst that was almost as exquisite a torture as the pain of my head. The only radical difference between the two was that when I was permitted to quench my thirst that particular form of torture was alleviated for a few brief seconds, while the other was continuous and distracting almost to the point of being unendurable. It seemed to me that I lay for an age in that suffocating sick-bay, every moment of the time being heavy with indescribable torment; but as a matter of fact I was there little more than forty-eight hours, the skipper cracking on for Jamaica, in order that several bad cases—of which I was one of the worst—might have the advantage of the lofty, airy wards of the naval hospital at Port Royal, where we arrived on the morning but one after our attack upon the pirate brigantine. I may as well complete the story of that adventure by saying—what I only learned afterward—that we captured the vessel, with a loss to ourselves of five killed, and eighteen wounded, of whom seven—including myself—were so badly hurt that Wilson gravely doubted whether we should ever pull round. As for the pirates, out of a crew of one hundred and twenty-six men, twenty-three were found dead on her deck after we had taken her, and fifty-four were wounded, some of them so desperately that no less than eleven of them died before we anchored in Port Royal harbour. The remainder were in due course brought to trial for piracy, and found guilty. Five of them were hanged at Gallows Point, while the rest were condemned to work on the roads in chains for the remainder of their miserable lives.
Chapter Ten.
Ashore—Invalided.
I have a hazy recollection of suddenly finding myself on deck, still in my hammock; and then, a few minutes later, of being in a boat. Finally, when I next came to myself I discovered that I was no longer in my hammock, but in a bed—a delightful spacious comfortable bed in which there was room for one to stretch oneself, change from one side to the other, and otherwise obtain a little temporary relief when lying long in one posture had become wearisome. Then, instead of being enveloped in stiflingly hot blankets, I lay upon one fragrant, cool, snow-white sheet, with another over me, the bed enclosed by mosquito-netting, and a deliciously cool breeze streaming into the long ward through several wide-open, lofty windows, one of which, immediately opposite the foot of my bed, afforded me an excellent view of a considerable portion of Port Royal harbour, with the Apostles’ Battery, crouching at the foot of the Salt Pond Hills, almost immediately opposite, on the other side of the water. One of the hospital orderlies, who was on duty in the ward, came to the side of my bed at once upon finding that I was awake, and gave me a long, satisfying draught of lemonade, cool and exquisitely refreshing, after which I think he must have summoned the doctor to me, for a few minutes later that individual came lightly to the side of my bed, thrust his hand beneath the sheet and felt my pulse.
I afterward learned that this was Dr Loder, chief of the medical staff in the Port Royal Naval Hospital. And oh! what a difference there was between him and Wilson, the Europa’s surgeon. The latter was bluff, hearty, and slightly inclined to be boisterous in manner; while Dr Loder’s every word and every movement, nay his whole appearance, suggested peace, quietness, and perfect restfulness, as well as—by some subtlety of manner—a vague but none the less distinct impression that things were going well with one. He was a tall and rather thin man, with dark-brown hair, beard, and moustache; he was bald on the top of his head, and wore gold-rimmed spectacles through which his fine dark eyes beamed down upon his patients with an expression of sympathy that was in itself as good as a tonic. He asked me a few questions in a quiet, almost caressing tone of voice, gave the orderly who had me in charge certain instructions, and then, patting me gently upon the shoulder, assured me that I should soon be all right again, in a tone of voice that, quiet as it was, somehow seemed to carry absolute conviction with it.