"It is no time for jesting," said I, with some dignity.
"My dear fellow," the surgeon answered, "your wound is no jest.
You are not fit for duty."
I looked down at the big hole in my trousers and the cut in my thigh, of which I had known nothing until then. I had no sooner seen it and the blood than I saw that I also was in some need of repair, and lay down with a quick sense of faintness. My wound was no pretty thing to see, but was of little consequence, a missile having torn the surface only. I was able to help Surgeon Usher as he caught the severed veins and bathed the bloody strands of muscle in D'ri's arm, while another dressed my thigh. That room was full of the wounded, some lying on the floor, some standing, some stretched upon cots and tables. Every moment they were crowding down the companionway with others. The cannonading was now so close and heavy that it gave me an ache in the ears, but above its quaking thunder I could hear the shrill cries of men sinking to hasty death in the grip of pain. The brig was in sore distress, her timbers creaking, snapping, quivering, like one being beaten to death, his bones cracking, his muscles pulping under heavy blows. We were above water-line there in the cockpit; we could feel her flinch and stagger. On her side there came suddenly a crushing blow, as if some great hammer, swung far in the sky, had come down upon her. I could hear the split and break of heavy timbers; I could see splinters flying over me in a rush of smoke, and the legs of a man go bumping on the beams above. Then came another crash of timbers on the port side. I leaped off the table and ran, limping, to the deck, I do not know why; I was driven by some quick and irresistible impulse. I was near out of my head, anyway, with the rage of battle in me and no chance to fight. Well, suddenly, I found myself stumbling, with drawn sabre, over heaps of the hurt and dead there on our reeking deck. It was a horrible place: everything tipped over, man and gun and mast and bulwark. The air was full of smoke, but near me I could see a topsail of the enemy. Balls were now plunging in the water alongside, the spray drenching our deck. Some poor man lying low among the dead caught me by the boot-leg with an appealing gesture. I took hold of his collar, dragging him to the cockpit. The surgeon had just finished with D'ri. His arm was now in sling and bandages. He was lying on his back, the good arm over his face. There was a lull in the cannonading. I went quickly to his side.
"How are you feeling?" I asked, giving his hand a good grip.
"Nuthin' t' brag uv," he answered. "Never see nobody git hell rose with 'em s' quick es we did—never."
Just then we heard the voice of Perry. He stood on the stairs calling into the cockpit.
"Can any wounded man below there pull a rope?" he shouted.
D'ri was on his feet in a jiffy, and we were both clambering to the deck as another scud of junk went over us. Perry was trying, with block and tackle, to mount a carronade. A handful of men were helping him, D'ri rushed to the ropes, I following, and we both pulled with a will. A sailor who had been hit in the legs hobbled up, asking for room on the rope. I told him he could be of no use, but he spat an oath, and pointing at my leg, which was now bleeding, swore he was sounder than I, and put up his fists to prove it. I have seen no better show of pluck in all my fighting, nor any that ever gave me a greater pride of my own people and my country. War is a great evil, I begin to think, but there is nothing finer than the sight of a man who, forgetting himself, rushes into the shadow of death for the sake of something that is better. At every heave on the rope our blood came out of us, until a ball shattered a pulley, and the gun fell. Perry had then a fierce look, but his words were cool, his manner dauntless. He peered through lifting clouds of smoke at our line. He stood near me, and his head was bare. He crossed the littered deck, his battle-flag and broad pennant that an orderly had brought him trailing from his shoulder. He halted by a boat swung at the davits on the port side—the only one that had not gone to splinters. There he called a crew about him, and all got quickly aboard the boat—seven besides the younger brother of Captain Perry —and lowered it. Word flew that he was leaving to take command of the sister brig, the Niagara, which lay off a quarter of a mile or so from where we stood. We all wished to go, but he would have only sound men; there were not a dozen on the ship who had all their blood in them. As they pulled away, Perry standing in the stern, D'ri lifted a bloody, tattered flag, and leaning from the bulwarks, shook it over them, cheering loudly.
"Give 'em hell!" he shouted. "We 'll tek care o' the ol' brig."
[Illustration: "D'ri, shaking a bloody, tattered flag, shouted, 'We 'll tek care o' the ol' brig.'">[