“I am the water-tender, and my place is below, but everybody went on deck when the battle began. John Varvares, the oiler, John Denif and John Meek, the firemen, were on watch with me, and had they remained below they would not have been killed.
“After the firing began I went below again to attend to the boiler, and a few minutes later a solid shot came crashing through the side of the boat and into the boiler, where it exploded and destroyed seventy of the tubes.
“At first it stunned me. When the shell burst in the boiler it threw both the furnace doors open, and the fuse from the shell struck my feet. It was a terrible crash, and the boiler-room was filled with dust and steam. For several seconds I was partially stunned, and my ears rang so I could hear nothing. I went up on the deck to report to Captain Bernadou.
“I saw him near the forecastle gun, limping about with a towel wound around his left leg. He was shouting, and the noise of all the guns was like continuous thunder. ‘Captain,’ I cried, ‘the forward boiler is disabled. A shell has gone through it.’
“ ‘Get out the hose,’ he said, and turned to the gun again. I made my way to the boiler-room, in a few minutes went up on the deck again, and the fighting had grown hotter than ever. Several of the men were missing, and I looked around.
“Lying all in a heap on the after-deck in the starboard quarter, near the after conning-tower, I saw five of our men where they had wilted down after the shell struck them. In other places were men lying groaning, or dragging themselves about, wounded and covered with blood. There were big red spots on the deck, which was strewn with fragments and splinters.
“I went to where the five men were lying, and saw that all were not dead. John Meek could speak and move one hand slightly. I put my face down close to his.
“ ‘Can I do anything for you, John?’ I asked, and he replied, ‘No, Jack, I am dying; good-bye,’ and he asked me to grasp his hand. ‘Go help the rest,’ he whispered, gazing with fixed eyes toward where Captain Bernadou was still firing the forward gun. The next minute he was dead.
“Ensign Bagley was lying on the deck nearly torn to pieces, and the bodies of the other three were on top of him. The coloured cook was a little apart from the others, mangled, and in a cramped position. We supposed he was dead, and covered him up the same as the others. Nearly half an hour after that we heard him calling, and saw that he was making a slight movement under the clothes. I went up to him, and he said:
“ ‘Oh, boys, for God’s sake move me. I am lying over the boiler and burning up.’