breath to speak; and while they were carrying him into the town, the
word went round that the ship's name was the _Despatch_, transport,
homeward bound from Corunna, with a detachment of the 7th Hussars,
that had been fighting out there with Sir John Moore. The seas had
rolled her farther over by this time, and given her decks a pretty
sharp slope; but a dozen men still held on, seven by the ropes near
the ship's waist, a couple near the break of the poop, and three on
the quarter-deck. Of these three my father made out one to be the
skipper; close by him clung an officer in full regimentals--his name,
they heard after, was Captain Duncanfield; and last came the tall
trumpeter; and if you'll believe me, the fellow was making shift
there, at the very last, to blow '_God Save the King_.' What's more,
he got to '_Send us victorious_' before an extra big sea came
bursting across and washed them off the deck--every man but one of
the pair beneath the poop--and _he_ dropped his hold before the next
wave; being stunned, I reckon. The others went out of sight at once,
but the trumpeter--being, as I said, a powerful man as well as a
tough swimmer--rose like a duck, rode out a couple of breakers, and
came in on the crest of the third. The folks looked to see him broke
like an egg at their feet; but when the smother cleared, there he
was, lying face downward on a ledge below them; and one of the men
that happened to have a rope round him--I forget the fellow's name,
if I ever heard it--jumped down and grabbed him by the ankle as he
began to slip back. Before the next big sea, the pair were hauled
high enough to be out of harm, and another heave brought them up to
grass. Quick work; but master trumpeter wasn't quite dead; nothing
worse than a cracked head and three staved ribs. In twenty minutes
or so they had him in bed, with the doctor to tend him."