"They've only hauled off for repairs, an' it stands you in hand to help make ready for what's yet to come. Stow your jaw, an' bear a hand with the rest of us!"
I was to "bear a hand" in moving the dead to one side where they would not hamper our movements, and aid in carrying the wounded below, as I soon saw, and straightway it was as if all strength had departed.
Now that the heat and excitement of the action was past for the time being, my stomach revolted at the horrible sights everywhere around, and, leaning out one of the ports, I yielded to the sickness which beset me even as it had when first we put to sea.
That I could have gloried in the terrible carnage; that I had passed the dead bodies of those who that morning had greeted me with a friendly word, and not felt my heart quiver, seemed incredible, and I shed bitter tears because of my hard-heartedness.
It was cruel as it was wicked, and I must have been possessed by a demon to have found a savage pleasure in such sickening work!
Almost without being aware of the fact I listened to a conversation among the men as to the injury we had received.
Eleven men had been killed outright, twenty-one were wounded, and two died after being carried into the cockpit. Our topsail sheets, topsail halliards, jib and foretopmast staysail halliards had been cut away, and almost the only canvas that could have been spread was the flying jib. How many shot had hulled us it was impossible to say; but, looking over the rail, one could see the big splinters sticking up here and there until it seemed that we must have been wounded in every square yard of hull on the stern and starboard side from the water line upward.
It seemed impossible that we could continue the action another moment, and yet our men were cheerily making preparations to renew the fight.
I believe it was the knowledge that we would soon be under fire again which aided me in so far pulling myself together that I could obey orders; and even when I was in the thick of the terrible work the sight of a pool of blood would cause an upheaval of my stomach, although when the wounds were received and I might have said a soothing word to the dying, all this carnage was as nothing.
It is beyond my poor skill with a pen to set down the second portion of this wicked fight into which we had been so cowardly forced, and also because I know very little of it from my own knowledge. When the Britishers came down upon us again the fever of battle took hold of me once more, and I was little less than crazy.