Up they came to his swinging table, where Doc took a probe, poked into the wound, wrapped cotton around the probe, soaked it in iodine, jabbed it in, twisted it around, swabbed it out, dressed it down, slapped the patient on the chest, said "Next," and did it all over again.
"Next! You'd think it was a blessed barber's shop," Doc heard one of them say. Only he was an officer—by the back of his head Doc knew it—some of them would have told him what they thought of his rapid-fire action. But it was no time for canoodling—it was war, and they were all rated as grown men and so able to stand a few little painful touches.
One terribly wounded patient gave him worry. On him Doc worked with great care. He was working on him, all the others being attended to, when the 352's deck officer came to say that he was going back to the destroyer to report. "The captain of this ship wants to abandon her," said the deck officer.
"Abandon ship and we will never be able to get this man I got here now off her—not in this sea, sir," said Doc. "And if he's left alone for two hours, he'll sure die."
"I'll signal what the skipper says." The officer went off with his crew in the whale-boat, leaving a hospital steward and a signal quartermaster to stay with the doctor.
Doc was working away on his hard case when his quartermaster came to say that the 352 had signalled that they were to stay aboard and that the steamer was to get under way and steer a course south half east magnetic.
The doctor, without looking up, said: "All right."
"Shall I tell the steamer's captain, sir?"
This time Doc looked up. "Why, of course, tell him. Why not? Why do you ask me that?"
"You are the ranking naval officer aboard here, sir. I take orders from you now, sir."