On the whole the Calder had come off lightly. The worst damage to personnel had been caused by the gas-shell, for, before the fumes had dispersed, six men had lost their lives and ten others had been incapacitated by the poisonous fumes.
"She's as fit as ever she was in my department," reported Engineer-Lieutenant Boxspanner. "Hope to goodness we shan't be ordered to haul out of it."
"I trust not," replied Crosthwaite. "Must turn a blind eye to some of the defects, I suppose. What did it feel like down below?"
Boxspanner shrugged his broad shoulders. It was the first time he had been in action, his appointment to the Calder being of recent date.
"It was all right after the first half-minute or so," replied the engineer-lieutenant. "The racket at first was enough to stun a fellow. I suppose in this job one can get used to anything. Where's Stirling, by the by?"
"Busy," replied Crosthwaite gravely. "Come and see him at work--if you can stick it."
Well it was that the Admiralty, with their customary promptitude to promote the welfare of the fighting fleet, had lost no time in appointing scores of probationary assistant surgeons to the destroyers immediately after the outbreak of hostilities. Previously no medical staff had been carried on these small craft. A casualty occurring on board, and accidents in the engine-rooms, were not of unfrequent occurrence; the patients had to rely upon the well-meant attentions of their comrades until they were transferred either to a parent ship or to one of the shore hospitals.
Dr. "Jimmy" Stirling was a man who took life seriously. At times he was almost pessimistic, although there were occasions when a sudden spirit of youthful exuberance would take complete possession of him.
In his shirt-sleeves, and with a blood-stained apron that an hour previously had been spotlessly white tied closely under his armpits, the surgeon was working with deliberate haste, performing a serious operation at a speed that would have turned a hospital probationer pale with apprehension.
The confined space which had been turned into a sick-bay reeked with chloroform and iodoform. Wounded men were vying with each other in their efforts to make light of their injuries, whilst those who were able to smoke aroused the envy of their less fortunate comrades. It was considered "good form" for a patient to utter a rough-and-ready jest at his own case, while grim, but none the less sympathetic, words were bestowed upon their nearest fellow-sufferers. It was a curious physiological fact that a man who would have raved at a careless comrade for having accidentally dropped some gear, narrowly missing his head, greeted the information that he would lose his right arm with the nonchalant remark: "Anyhow, when I get home on leaf my missus can't make me dig the bloomin' allotment."