sail of Cherbourg, when we sighted a ship of war which had apparently had
longer or quicker eyes than our own. She was coming straight for us when we
became aware of her, and she never swerved from her course till her great
guns began to play on us under British colours.

True to those colours, as soon as her standing was fixed, I made my way to
Captain Duchâtel to claim performance of his promise.

I had no need to put it into words. The moment I saluted, he said, "Ah,
yes. So you stick to it?"

I saluted again, without speaking.

"Bien! Go to the surgeon and tell him you are to help him. There will be
work for you all before long."

And there was. The story of a fight, from the cock-pit point of view, would
be very horrible telling, and that is all I saw. I heard the thunder of our
own guns, and the shouts of our men, and the splintering crash of the heavy
shot that came aboard of us. But before long, when the streams of wounded
began to come our way, I heard nothing but gasps and groans, and saw
nothing but horrors which I would fain blot out of my memory, but cannot,
even now.

I had seen wounded men before. I had been wounded myself. But seeing men
fall, torn and mangled in the heat of fight, with the red fury blazing in
one's own veins, and the smoke and smell of battle pricking in one's
nostrils, and death in the very air--that is one thing. But tending those
broken remnants of men in cold blood--handling them, and the pitiful parts
of them, rent torn and out of the very semblance of humanity by the