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Thorogood's battery was on the disengaged side of the ship during the earlier phases of the action. Across the deck they heard the guns of Tweedledee's battery open fire with a roar, and then the cheering of the crews, mingled with the cordite fumes, was drowned by an ear-splitting detonation in the confined spaces of the mess deck, followed by a blinding flash of light.
The King's Messenger had slipped his arm inside Thorogood's, and the two moved on towards the barrier. "Has your wife got a young brother?" asked Mouldy Jakes abruptly as he and the India-rubber Man followed in the wake of the porter and the barrow. "Yes," replied Standish. "A lad called Joe cadet at Dartmouth."
In no sense of the word, however, did the rush resemble a panic. The aft-deck had seen greater haste on all sides in a scramble on deck to cheer a troopship passing the cruiser's escort. But the variety of dress and undress, the expressions of grim anticipation in each man's face as he stumbled over the uneven deck, set Thorogood's reeling mind, as it were, upon its feet.
The speed at which the Fleet was travelling sent the wind thrumming through the halliards and funnel stays and past Thorogood's ears with a little whistling noise; otherwise few sounds reached him at the altitude at which he stood. On the signal-platform below, a number of signalmen were grouped round the flag-lockers with the halliards in their hands in instant readiness to hoist a signal.
"Yes," he said, and searched among the papers with which the desk was littered. "There was a telephone message just now " He found and consulted some pencilled memoranda. "You are to call at Sir William Thorogood's house at nine o'clock. There may be a letter or a message for you to take up to the Commander-in-Chief."
His battalion was ordered to the front to defend a narrow rocky pass which the enemy were attempting to carry by storm. Twice already they had made the assault, and had almost succeeded on the second attempt. A third assault was being made when Thorogood's company came up. They rushed forward just as the Russians crowned the heights and were driving the British back.
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