“There is no gratitude needed,” said Lady Barbara, shrugging her slim shoulders, “for work which had to be done.”
A good many years later her ducal brother was to say “The King’s government must be carried on,” in exactly the same tone. The man in the bed beside them waved a bandaged arm.
“Three cheers for her leddyship,” he croaked. “Hip hip, hurrah!”
Some of the shattered invalids joined him in his cheers — a melancholy chorus, blended with the wheezing and groaning of the delirious men around them. Lady Barbara waved a deprecating hand and turned back to the captain.
“We must have air down here,” she said. “Can that be arranged? I remember my brother telling me how the mortality in the hospital at Bombay declined as soon as they began to give the patients air. Perhaps those men who can be moved can be brought on deck?”
“I will arrange it, ma’am,” said Hornblower.
Lady Barbara’s request was strongly accented by the contrast which Hornblower noticed when he went on deck — the fresh Pacific air, despite the scorching sunshine, was like champagne after the solid stink of the orlop. He gave orders for the immediate re-establishment of the canvas ventilating shafts which had been removed when the decks were cleared for action.
“And there are certain of the wounded, Mr Rayner,” he went on, “who would do better if brought up on deck. You must find Lady Barbara Wellesley and ask her which men are to be moved.”
“Lady Barbara Wellesley, sir?” said Rayner, surprised and tactless, because he knew nothing of the last development.
“You heard what I said,” snapped Hornblower.
“Aye aye, sir,” said Rayner hurriedly, and dived away below in fear lest he should say anything further to annoy his captain.
So that on board H.M.S. Lydia that morning divisions were held and divine service conducted a little late, after the burial of the dead, with a row of wounded swaying in hammocks on each side of the maindeck, and with the faint echo of the horrible sounds below floating up through the air shafts.
Chapter XIX
Once more the Lydia held her course along the Pacific coast of Central America. The grey volcanic peaks, tinged with pink, slid past her to the eastward, with the lush green of the coastal strip sometimes just visible at their feet. The sea was blue and the sky was blue; the flying-fish skimmed the surface, leaving their fleeting furrows behind them. But every minute of the day and night twenty men toiled at the pumps to keep her from sinking, and the rest of the able bodied crew worked all their waking hours at the task of refitting.
The fortnight which elapsed before she rounded Cape Mala went far to reduce her list of wounded. Some of the men were by then already convalescent — the hard physical condition which they had enjoyed, thanks to months of heavy work at sea, enabled them to make light of wounds which would have been fatal to men of soft physique. Shock and exhaustion had relieved the ship of others, and now gangrene, the grim Nemesis which awaited so many men with open wounds in those pre-antiseptic days, was relieving her of still more. Every morning there was the same ceremony at the ship’s side, when two or three or six hammock-wrapped bundles were slid over into the blue Pacific.
Galbraith went that way. He had borne the shock of his wound, he had even survived the torture to which Laurie submitted him when, goaded by Lady Barbara’s urgent representations, he had set to work with knife and saw upon the smashed tangle of flesh and bone which had been his legs. He had bade fair to make a good recovery, lying blanched and feeble in his cot, so that Laurie had been heard to boast of his surgical skill and of the fine stumps he had made and of the neatness with which he had tied the arteries. Then, suddenly, the fatal symptoms had shown themselves, and Galbraith had died five days later after a fortunate delirium.
Homblower and Lady Barbara drew nearer to each other during those days. Lady Barbara had fought a losing battle for Galbraith’s life to the very end, had fought hard and without sparing herself, and yet seemingly without emotion as if she were merely applying herself to a job which had to be done. Hornblower would have thought this was the case if had not seen her face on the occasion when Galbraith was holding her hands and talking to her under the impression that she was his mother. The dying boy was babbling feverishly in the broad Scots into which he had lapsed as soon as delirium overcame him, clutching her hands and refusing to let her go, while she sat with him talking calmly and quietly in an effort to soothe him. So still was her voice, so calm and unmoved was her attitude, that Hornblower would have been deceived had he not seen the torment in her face.