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"And your men forward are suffering from the wounds they received?" said Green. "Such is the case, but I was ashamed to acknowledge how nearly we were defeated by the savages," said the master, with the greatest coolness. Green accordingly went forward, and found five men in their bunks, all badly-wounded, two being nearly at the last gasp.
They ate like famished wolves and then threw themselves on their bunks to get a long sleep in preparation for the strenuous night that lay before them. And so used had they already become to roaring of cannon and whining of bullets and shrieking of shells, that, although the din was almost incessant all through that day, it bothered them not at all.
We have now a good regimental hospital, admirably arranged in a deserted gin-house, a fine well of our own digging, within the camp lines, a full allowance of tents, all floored, a wooden cook-house to every company, with sometimes a palmetto mess-house beside, a substantial wooden guard-house, with a fireplace five feet "in de clar," where the men off duty can dry themselves and sleep comfortably in bunks afterwards.
"A Christmas story!" the children were clamouring. Can it really be Christmas Eve? Gissing thought. Christmas seems to have come very suddenly this year, I haven't really adjusted my mind to it yet. "All right," he said. "Now sit still and keep quiet. Bunks, give Yelpers a little more room. If there's any bickering Santa Claus might hear it."
After he had put his water over the fire he turned to one of the bunks and with half a dozen coarse epithets roused Thompson, who sat up stupidly, still half drunk. Henry had gone to a small table, and Scotty followed him with the bacon. But Roscoe did not move. He forgot his hunger. His pulse was beating quickly. Sensations filled him which he had never known or imagined before.
This consists of changing the light from the big lamp under the ceiling to two small lamps, and the reason for the change is that the heat of the big lamp would be too strongly felt in the upper bunks. This operation is a gentle hint that the time has come for certain people to turn in.
Two other men were snoring with deep content in their bunks, while a small, bright-eyed boy sat up in his, reading adventurous fiction. "Here comes old Dan," said the man with the anti-macassar warningly, as a pair of sea boots appeared at the top of the companion-ladder; "better not let him see you with that paper, Billee."
The place was in darkness except for one small slush lamp, and Lilo, taking his seat on a sailor's chest, looked round at the bunks. They were all unoccupied, and this fact increased his fears. He, however, was a courageous lad, and his first thought was to provide himself with some sort of weapon, and by the aid of the lamp he began searching the bunks.
"Yes; I would give anything to see a man-of-war, what you've so often told us about, with all its masts and sails, and bunks and guns and anchors, and officers and men. I often wonder so much what new faces would be like. You see I'm so used to the faces of yourself and Mr Young, and Mainmast and Susannah, and Toc and Matt and Dan and "
Of course, Charles Davis should have been overside with a sack of coal at his feet long ago. And Andy Fay and Mulligan Jacobs are only, and have always been, wrecked and emaciated wisps of men. Yet far stronger men than they have gone over the side, and far stronger men than they are laid up right now in absolute physical helplessness in the soggy forecastle bunks.
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