The party carried Raxworthy back to the ship, where Dr. Ridge made an examination. The curious part of the midshipman’s injuries was that although the whip of the crocodile’s tail had laid the skin open on both shins, the deepest gashes were on the soles of his feet.
“That’s easily accounted for,” declared the surgeon-lieutenant. “The force of the blow swept your feet over the gravel, and the gashes were caused by sharp stones. You’ll be on the sick-list for a day or two, my lad!”
The midshipman protested, ineffectually, that there wasn’t much to worry about, and that he was frightfully keen upon carrying out his duties; but the word of a surgeon-lieutenant carries more weight than that of a captain in such cases.
And Dr. Ridge was fully aware of the poisonous germs that infest the Yang-tse. Very thoroughly he applied sterilizing lotion to Raxworthy’s wounds, but as a concession he allowed his patient to lie on a mattress under the quarter-deck awning.
“And if you shift your moorings without my permission, young fellah, I’ll have you bastinadoed!” concluded the doctor with mock severity.
Night fell, but Sandgrub was still in her ignominious position. If anything the river was still falling. It was the dry season, and there was a chance of the gunboat being left almost high and dry for weeks.
The circumstances made it imperative for Sandgrub to wireless the senior naval officer at Shanghai reporting the stranding. It would not have been necessary had she run aground for only a few hours. Such incidents were of common occurrence in the Yang-tse-Kiang; but the prospect of being high and dry indefinitely rendered a wireless report necessary, and with it the disquieting probability that Sanddigger would be sent up-river to take over Sandgrub’s task of dealing with the bandits.
At sunset colours were lowered, armed look-outs posted and regulation lights hoisted to signify that the ship was aground near the fairway. The crews of the six-inch quick-firers slept at their guns, while the men detailed to run the searchlights were told to get what rest they could beside the projectors.
Raxworthy, under a mosquito curtain, dozed fitfully. With the fall of night his lacerated feet began to throb painfully. Mosquitoes pinged and fireflies darted to and fro. From the nearby paddy-fields bull-frogs croaked incessantly. Frequently sampans drifted down stream, their crews, which chiefly consisted of whole families, greeting the “foreign devils” with sarcastic though generally unintelligible remarks concerning their plight.
About four in the morning, Raxworthy was aroused by a peculiar grinding noise, followed by shouts from the look-out that the ship was on the move.