A Chinaman knows his master when he meets him—he has wits enough for that—and right well did they labour to appease the wrath of such a tyrant as was Ping Sang.
Each one thought that the safety of his head and his pigtail depended upon his exertions, and no greater stimulus was required. Though a Chinaman may not dread death, he dislikes the idea of the preliminary pain sufficiently strongly.
At any rate, they coaled our five ships with a speed which could not be equalled by the smartest ship in the Channel Fleet.
During this time we doctors were extremely busy, and, more by good luck than by excessive skill, the wounded progressed favourably.
They were all aboard the Hoi Feng—the steamer I had converted into a hospital ship for them—and did extremely well. Pattison was convalescent in ten days. Saunderson and little Cummins joined him soon after, and all three were always ready to greet me cheerily whenever I climbed up the side, Cummins chuckling hugely, and annoyingly, at having "dodged the doctors", because he knew well that I had at first thought his arm would have to come off.
Young Glover rather worried me. The boy's wounds would not heal properly, and the wound in the chest must have penetrated more deeply than I, at first, had thought, because he developed some pleurisy on that side.
Helston's broken arm was also on the way to recovery, and the rest in harbour and the comparative immunity from worry did him a vast amount of good.
I took him for walks ashore every day when it did not rain, but was always careful to land on the side opposite to the town, and never went anywhere near One Gun Hill or Hopkins's bungalow. He always made great efforts to talk about every subject under the sun, but before we had gone far he inevitably reverted to the one subject—Milly. It was slightly tedious, and tried me considerably; but the man's whole existence was centred round her, so I suppose it was natural.
That did not make it any the less boring, however.
Our people had been for a month on salt provisions, but we were able to supply them now with fresh vegetables from the island, and killed the few oxen and goats we could find to give them fresh meat.