“Could we ring the church bell or something, sir?” said one of the men.
“The church is on fire.”
“Beg pardon, sir. But we’d oughtn’t to wait,” said Tucket. “We’d ought to get these fellers on board. The sun’s strong. And we got to make two journeys as it is.”
At the boats they were joined by the north-gate guards, about a dozen men in all.
“We can only send away six canoas at a time,” Margaret said. “That’ll mean twenty-four oars. Two wounded men in each canoa. You can’t put more, comfortably.”
“That’s so,” said Tucket. “Get ’em in, sons. Ask Captain Cammock to fire guns.”
They manned six canoas, and laid the worst cases in the sternsheets. The one sober doctor went with them. He was a clever surgeon, pretty well known all over the Indies as Doctor Glass Case. He had left England under a cloud; it was not known why. No man knew his real name.
“Take them aboard the Broken Heart,” Margaret said. “And then come back for the rest. Tell Captain Cammock how things stand here.”
The boats shoved off from the shore below the water-gate. Boat-covers propped on oars made awnings for the wounded. Margaret and Tucket watched them quartering on each other, stringing out into line, some of the stroke oars splashing, so as to spatter water, by request, into the faces of the wounded.
“Gully-shooting,” Tucket said.