The First Lieutenant walked steadily backwards and forwards along the port side, singing out, "Steady, men; don't hurry--don't crowd," and the two stokers near me tucked their feet out of the way and went on chewing their quids of tobacco.
Then a man slid down one of the starboard hoists and crawled aft to Dr. Fox. He had a great gash in one leg, with some spun yarn tied tightly about it.
"They're firing furious," he gasped, "and a splinter from the first cutter caught me."
Then the port guns ceased firing, and we heard the steering-engine rumbling "hard over".
"We are turning now, boys, and going past again. Stand by for the starboard guns," sang out the First Lieutenant.
The quarter-deck gun ceased firing. Now we were almost round again, and could faintly hear the boom of the _Strong Arm's_ guns coming down the hoists.
There was a crash and a roar above us, something came clattering down one of the port upper-deck hoists, a man jumped and picked it up--a fragment of shell--and he dropped it again precious quickly with burnt fingers. I remember that the men all laughed at him.
In a moment Dr. Fox was there with a bag over his shoulder. They made a bight in the rope hoist, he placed his foot in it, and grasped the rope over his head.
"Haul handsomely, men," he growled, and they hauled him up the hoist. He was down again in a minute or two, sliding down the rope.
"Too late!" I heard him mutter as he landed, his hands and sleeves covered with blood.
"Who was it, sir?" somebody asked him, but he took no notice.
Then the starboard guns and the quarter-deck 8-inch commenced, and we had begun to go past those two forts for the second run.
I pictured our shells bursting against the rocks and among the guns I had seen there, and wondered whether the European in charge was sober or not, and whether the Commander was still holding out round his Krupp gun. If only I hadn't been such a fool as to jump down off that parapet of sand-bags, I might have been with him still.
We were coming to the end of the second run now, and the First Lieutenant had just said as he wiped his forehead: "They can't stand much more of this if we're making anything like decent shooting," when they commenced cheering on deck, and somebody shouted down that the forts had hoisted a white flag. The men below cheered from one end of the passages to the other, and the guns above ceased firing.