Two shells—5.9-inch shells—had come in through the ship's side and made a terrible mess of things. The first one had burst in the stokers' mess deck, smashing mess tables and stools and setting fire to them. Flying fragments had wounded the chief cook, who, against all orders, was in the galley, and five men belonging to the "fire" and "repair" parties. The rest had dashed along with their hoses, and, whilst they were putting out this fire, the second shell had burst in the next mess aft on the other side of a bulkhead, and without fuss or worry they had dragged their hoses along and put this out too.
Both messes were now ankle-deep in black water, the blackened and smashed wooden tables and benches lying higgledy-piggledy all over the deck; pipes and stanchions were torn and twisted; the iron cap and ditty-box racks hung down fantastically from the blackened beams and plates overhead, and the whole place was littered with the men's crockery smashed into the tiniest pieces.
"I'll give you an hour and a half for the wounded, and then we're going in again," the Fleet-Surgeon was told, when he found the Captain and Commander wading about among the wreckage.
Off went the Fleet-Surgeon to find his wounded; they had already been dragged into cosy corners and roughly bandaged.
Dr. Gordon came along, from his station aft, to help him.
By this time all the ships had withdrawn out of range. The "Secure" and the "Disperse" were sounded, and everyone hurriedly dashed down to see the damage and hunt for bits of shell.
"And there's another on the boat deck," the Pimple, absolutely off his head with excitement, screamed to the Lamp-post and Uncle Podger as they came out of B2 casemate, up the hoist of which they had just climbed.
He dragged them up to see the damage done, and even Uncle Podger went into raptures when he saw the beautiful hole in the wooden deck, and the fifty or more small holes which fragments of shell had made in the engine-room uptakes and in one of the funnels.
"It doesn't matter if the Bacchante does find out about the sea-gulls, now," he said, and gloated at the lovely sight.
The Orphan came up, anxious lest any of the flying pieces had hit his beloved picket boat; Bubbles came along, chuckling and laughing, and they all craned their necks over the side to see the holes where two shells had come in, and where those that had struck the armour had knocked off the wood sheathing and the paint.