m, and then, because that was full up, on
to some officer's cabin, where they found a place for me on the deck.
After a while, a little dark guy--he was also a good deal bandaged, and
so splashed with blood that I didn't notice at the time he was a sick
bay steward--came in, washed my wound out with some dope that smarted
like the devil, and tied it up. He worked like a streak of greased
lightning, and then went on to some one else. That chap was Pridmore,
and, let me tell you, he was the real 'top-liner' of all the heroes of
the _Bow_. The surgeon had been killed at the first salvo the night
before, leaving no one but him to carry on through all the hell that
followed. And some way--God knows how--he did it; yes, even though he
was wounded three or four times himself, and though he had to go without
sleep for more'n two days to find time to dress and tend the thirty or
forty crocks he had on his hands. He was sure the star turn, that
Pridmore, and I was glad to read the other day that they had given him
the D.S.M. Not that he'd have all he deserved if they hung medals all
over him; but--well, a guy likes to have something to show that what
he's done hasn't been lost in the shuffle entirely."

I made an entry of "Pridmore, sick bay steward, _Bow_," in my notebook
for future reference, and as I was returning it to my pocket a sudden
list to starboard, accompanied by a throbbing grind of the helm,
heralded a sharp alteration of course. Round she went through ten or
twelve points, finally to steady and stand away on a course that seemed
to lead toward the dip in the skyline between the jagged range of
mountains back of Monastir and the point where a lowering bank of
cirro-cumuli hid the ancient abode of the gods on the snow-capped summit
of Olympus. On Number Two assuring me that his yarn was spun, that there
was nothing more to it save an attempt he had made, in spite of his
wound, to get into a fight that started when some of the wounded were
hissed by a gang of dockyard "mateys"--I clambered back to the bridge to
learn the significance of the new move. I still wanted to hear Gains'
story of the _Killarney_, but I had already sized him up sufficiently to
know that he was not the type of man who would unbosom himself before
his mates. With him, I knew, I should have to watch my chances, and
endeavour to have a yarn alone. Number Two's parting injunction was to
"try and have a go at Jock Campbell, 'the human proj.' Jock's t