s, for
there was nothing in the world but that one port gun to prevent their
closing and polishing her off. The chances are they recognised her
class, knew she was more than a match for the pair of them if she was
right, and were glad to get off with no more'n an exchange of shots in
passing. That was the end of the fighting for the _Bow_, and about time,
too. Her bows were stove in, all the fore part of her was full of water,
her bridge was smashed and useless, her W.T. and searchlights were
finished, all but one gun was out of action, and--when they came to
count noses next day--forty-two of her crew were dead. Far from looking
for more trouble, it was now only a question of making harbour, and
even that--as it turned out--was touch-and-go for two days.

"It was about one in the morning when that brush with the destroyers
came off, and after that there was nothing to do but hang on till
daylight and they could clear a way to reach us from abaft the wreckage
of the bridge. It was pretty awful, ticking off the minutes there in the
darkness. A good many of the worst knocked about were talking a bit
wild, but I never heard the guy with the Chinook _wa-wa_ again. He must
have died and been pitched over while I was being bandaged up. I _did_
hear the 'wool-mat-maker' yapping again, though, saying how 'target
cloth' was better to work on than canvas, and describing how to pull the
stuff through in a loose loop, and then cut them so that they bunched up
in 'soft, puffy balls.' Seems like I was cussing him when I dropped off
to sleep.

"I must have bled a good deal, for I slept like a log for four or five
hours, and woke up only when some one turned me over and began to finger
my hip. It was broad daylight, but hazy, and the sun just showing
through. Some of the wounded had already been carried aft, and they were
mostly dead ones that were lying around. These were being sewed up in
canvas to get ready to bury. I thought there was something familiar in
the face of one guy I saw them laying out and sort of collecting
together, but it wasn't till later that it suddenly came to me that he
was the one I had seen by firelight when he stood up and looked at
himself where he'd been shot in two.

"The two guys who bundled me up in a 'Neil Robertson' stretcher and
packed me aft, picking their way over and through the wreckage, were
both all bound up with rags, and so was about every one else I saw. They
took me below into the wardroo