Our compass had been smashed, but we could guess our course roughly, and Ah Chee knew his way pretty well among the islands, so we didn't worry much about that.
We were really too "played out" to worry about anything. By the middle of the afternoon it was blowing very hard, and we were plunging, and shaking, and heeling over so much, that we had to lower the mainsail altogether, and could only carry the foresail hoisted halfway up, and the little mizzen sail. That eased her, and made her much more comfortable, and I should have let the men go to sleep, but Sharpe wouldn't hear of it. "No, sir. It's going to be a dirty night, and we'd best set up that damaged rigging tempor—arily." So he and the four hands—all that were left, if you don't count the two men at the tiller—worked wearily away till it was nearly dark.
But long before that I'd gone to sleep myself. I was very ashamed then, and am still ashamed of myself; but I had got into a corner, more or less out of the wind and the spray, propped up between the poop and the side of the junk, close to the men at the helm, and must have simply gone to sleep standing up, and slipped down without knowing it.
"The Ferret is in sight, sir!" I suddenly heard, and there was Sharpe standing over me, and trying to shake some life into me. "She's asking for news."
I hardly dared look at him, because I felt such a "worm", and got on my feet again. At first I thought he meant the Vigilant, but it was only Mr. Trevelyan and Jim in their junk. Oh! I felt so stiff and sore, and had to rub my eyes to get properly awake; but then I was frightfully glad, for I thought that Mr. Trevelyan might know something about doctoring. She was slanting down towards us, with only a bit of her mainsail hoisted, and flying some signal.
"We've given her our name, sir," the signalman said, "and now Mr. Trevelyan wants to know what news you have, sir."
I told the signalman what to say, and he semaphored, "Captain to Captain" (that didn't even make me smile, or feel proud, so proves how tired I must have been). "We have sunk one pirate junk, and escaped from four more in the channel between East and West Nam Chau Islands" (we had found the name on the chart, after all). "Petty officer Scroggs killed, two able seamen, Midshipman Morton and able seaman Cooke badly wounded, and able seaman Adams has leg broken."
We saw them take it in, and I knew how unhappy Jim would be about Dicky. Then they hoisted a signal which meant "heave to", and we lowered the bit of foresail and swung round, with our mizzen to keep us in the wind, whilst Mr. Trevelyan came lurching down, swung up into the wind just ahead of us, lowered his mainsail, and hoisted a tiny bit of mizzen. I could see them all looking at us, and Jim was standing on the poop waving to me, and I waved back to him. They got out their dinghy and two men, and Mr. Trevelyan began dropping down towards us. We threw them a rope and they caught it, swung in under our stern, and Mr. Trevelyan clambered up over our poor old wrecked poop. It was a jolly tricky thing to do, because a big sea was running. I was so awfully "done up", that I could almost have burst into tears when I saw him. I was never so thankful to see anyone in my life before.
"Holy Moses! Ford, you've been and smashed up the Skipper's junk, and no mistake! My jumping Jupiter! you must have had a warm time, and you look like a blooming butcher yourself."
"It's not mine, sir," I told him; "it's Scroggs's." I had been too tired to wash my face and hands and my clothes, and the spray hadn't done it either; it was all caked and brown by now. I implored him to come and see Dicky and Adams. "I don't know a blooming thing about doctoring," he said, scratching his head, and looking awfully serious; but he picked his way across the smashed-up poop, and where the Maxim gun had been, and we crawled in to see Dicky. He was still unconscious; he wouldn't even look at me, though his eyes were open, and we shouted his name, and every time the junk flopped about, both Adams and Cooke moaned terribly. Mr. Trevelyan did make it more comfortable for them all, because he made us roll Cooke in blankets, so that his legs did not stick together, and he made us tie Adams's legs together to keep the broken one steady; and then we put them in their hammocks and slung them, somehow or other, and after that it didn't hurt them so much when the junk rolled and pitched.