"I actually stood on it, sir! Didn't you see me, Dick?" Jim told him, and I told Captain Parkinson that I had seen him, too, from the gateway with my own eyes, and that was a long time before anyone else came in sight.
He wouldn't say anything, so we went away and sat down close to the Captain, and began talking about it—you know what I mean—talking just loudly enough for him to hear, if he wanted to; but we were both too frightened to talk too loudly, and I don't think that he did hear.
It was grand to see the fog rolling away in the morning, and to see the gunboats showing up, and when it cleared away altogether, it was grander still to watch them peppering the Chinese with shells whenever they came out in the open. Then the boats came along, and you should have seen old "Blucher" scrambling into the first Vigilant's boat that ran up the beach. It made everyone laugh.
I was sent back with the second batch of wounded, and Dicky met me at the gang-way, looking awfully white and scared. He told me that the Commander was doing all right; but I wasn't allowed to see him, and Dr. Mayhew was almost off his head with worry and work, and hadn't time to talk to me.
When I saw my face in the looking-glass I didn't wonder why people had smiled whenever they saw me. The left side was all purple and black, and my forehead was raw, and my left eye and upper lip all swollen.
Old Ah Man burst into tears, when he saw me—he was a funny old chap—and went away and kicked his Chinese stewards and "makee learn" boys, and brought me some beef tea and custard, and cried again when he heard that Withers had been killed.
Then I had a hot bath, Dicky helping me, and turned into my hammock, and it wasn't till next morning that my arm was properly dressed and put into plaster of Paris.
I knew, even before I went on deck, by the noise of the bell being struck every two minutes, that the fog had come on again. It was denser than ever, if that was possible, and we had to switch on the lights all over the ship to see our way about.
At midday we buried Withers and the five men belonging to the Vigilant who had been killed—buried them overboard. Captain Lester had brought them off from shore, because he feared that if he buried them there the Chinese would dig them up and mutilate them.
It was most awfully solemn and depressing, in that damp, raw fog, with our bells tolling and our colours half-masted and dripping down limply. Out of the fog, on each side of us, the gunboats' bells were tolling, for they were burying their dead too, and the noise seemed to throb right through you. The Chaplain read the funeral service over the six bodies, covered with Union Jacks, and lying in a row on the quarterdeck, Withers being the smallest and being placed farthest aft, because he was an officer, and the Captain stood behind them, without moving a muscle, and looking terribly stern.