Part 8 (2/2)
Others were busily engaged in putting patches on the gaping rents in the funnel casings and stopping the sh.e.l.l-holes in the thin plating.
Fortunately the engine-room had escaped serious damage, only two casualties occurring owing to an auxiliary steam-pipe being severed by a sliver of sh.e.l.l.
On the whole the _Calder_ had come off lightly. The worst damage to personnel had been caused by the gas-sh.e.l.l, for, before the fumes had dispersed, six men had lost their lives and ten others had been incapacitated by the poisonous fumes.
”She's as fit as ever she was in my department,” reported Engineer-Lieutenant Boxspanner. ”Hope to goodness we shan't be ordered to haul out of it.”
”I trust not,” replied Crosthwaite. ”Must turn a blind eye to some of the defects, I suppose. What did it feel like down below?”
Boxspanner shrugged his broad shoulders. It was the first time he had been in action, his appointment to the _Calder_ being of recent date.
”It was all right after the first half-minute or so,” replied the engineer-lieutenant. ”The racket at first was enough to stun a fellow.
I suppose in this job one can get used to anything. Where's Stirling, by the by?”
”Busy,” replied Crosthwaite gravely. ”Come and see him at work--if you can stick it.”
Well it was that the Admiralty, with their customary prompt.i.tude to promote the welfare of the fighting fleet, had lost no time in appointing scores of probationary a.s.sistant surgeons to the destroyers immediately after the outbreak of hostilities. Previously no medical staff had been carried on these small craft. A casualty occurring on board, and accidents in the engine-rooms, were not of unfrequent occurrence; the patients had to rely upon the well-meant attentions of their comrades until they were transferred either to a parent s.h.i.+p or to one of the sh.o.r.e hospitals.
Dr. ”Jimmy” Stirling was a man who took life seriously. At times he was almost pessimistic, although there were occasions when a sudden spirit of youthful exuberance would take complete possession of him.
In his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves, and with a blood-stained ap.r.o.n that an hour previously had been spotlessly white tied closely under his armpits, the surgeon was working with deliberate haste, performing a serious operation at a speed that would have turned a hospital probationer pale with apprehension.
The confined s.p.a.ce which had been turned into a sick-bay reeked with chloroform and iodoform. Wounded men were vying with each other in their efforts to make light of their injuries, whilst those who were able to smoke aroused the envy of their less fortunate comrades. It was considered ”good form” for a patient to utter a rough-and-ready jest at his own case, while grim, but none the less sympathetic, words were bestowed upon their nearest fellow-sufferers. It was a curious physiological fact that a man who would have raved at a careless comrade for having accidentally dropped some gear, narrowly missing his head, greeted the information that he would lose his right arm with the nonchalant remark: ”Anyhow, when I get home on leaf my missus can't make me dig the bloomin' allotment.”
”Let's get out of this, sir,” whispered the engineer-lieutenant.
”Thought it would take a lot to capsize me, but, by Jove----!”
He backed abruptly, followed by the lieutenant-commander. Stirling, deep in his task, had not noticed their presence.
A barefooted signalman, his blackened face and scorched and torn singlet bearing testimony to his part in the ”sc.r.a.p”, pattered along the sh.e.l.l-pitted deck, and, saluting, tendered a signal-pad to his commanding officer.
Crosthwaite took the paper and read the message scrawled thereon in violet pencil.
”H'm!” he muttered. ”S'pose they want us out of it.”
It was an order to the effect that the _Calder_ was to steam to a certain rendezvous, fall in with one of the parent s.h.i.+ps, transfer wounded, and await further orders. There seemed very little possibility of the destroyer partic.i.p.ating in the night attack upon the German fleet--an operation in which the swiftly-moving British vessels might achieve greater results, even if they failed to surpa.s.s the glory they had already acquired by their wild, tempestuous dash in broad daylight.
”Almost wish I'd let the damaged wireless go for a bit,” mused Crosthwaite as he made his way to the badly-shattered bridge.
CHAPTER IX--The ”Warrior's” Gallant Stand
”What do you think we are up against?” asked Sefton, taking advantage of a lull in the firing to put the question to his companion in the fire-control station.
”Something big,” replied the other, wiping a thin layer of coal dust and particles of burnt cordite from the lenses of his binoculars. ”With this rotten mist hanging around, one has to be jolly careful not to pitch a salvo into one of our own craft. Wish to goodness I'd remembered to bring my camera along. By Jove! Wouldn't the old _Defence_ make a fine picture when she opened fire?”
”I'll fetch it for you,” volunteered Sefton.
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