“How’s this for hell?” said Tucket. “This is Captain Pain.”
“Are the guards at the gates still?” Margaret answered.
“Some of ’em are. Your own men are. Mine are. I never saw men like these, though.”
“Let’s get the wounded to the boats. How many have we? How many men are steady still?”
“Sir,” Tucket answered, “I’ve twenty-five men by me. We lost fourteen killed. There’s nineteen hurt here. That’s fifty-eight. Say there’s twenty at the gates still. That leaves a matter of a hundred and seventy like what you see. Get them hurt into the carts, boys, and start ’em to the boats. Gently does it. That’s you.”
They laid the wounded men in litters and carts, and wheeled them down gently to the canoas. Margaret walked by the side of the carts, talking to the men about their wounds, fanning them with his handkerchief, getting drink for them, wetting their brows with water whenever they passed a cistern. The ships were then coming to anchor within half a mile of the town.
“You won’t be long in the boats,” he told the wounded men. “You’ll soon be in bed on board. You can see the ships. There they are. Do you see?”
He spoke to Tucket, urging that they should withdraw the guards from the east and north gates, lest the Spaniards, guessing what had happened, should attack suddenly, and overpower them.
“I’ve already sent,” said Tucket. “I ain’t goin’ to lose good men because these swine choose to raise hell. This was Captain Pain’s piece. The sooner we’re off the better.”
“I’d sound the assembly,” Margaret said. “But the trumpeter’s drunk.”