“We’ll get you some good medicines for the pain, White. It looks to me that you’ll get a passage to Key West. You’ll be a naval hero there. Free rum at the Anchor Inn to a man with a good-looking wound.”
White groaned and grimaced a smile. Wake was glad to see it.
“You did well, Coxswain. You did just fine. Don’t worry about anything. You did your duty just fine.”
As he spoke, Wake held White’s arm to try to steady it from shaking. He realized that White was fighting to retain his self- control. He also realized that the pain of his wounded men was more than the laudanum aboard St. James could handle. He would need help from the Gem of the Sea quickly to treat these men. It was crucial to get them medical treatment and keep their wounds as clean as possible until then.
Scarbond had two sailors trying to bandage his wound as Wake knelt down beside him. The bandage was not securing well due to the location of the wound in the front of the lower abdomen. A four-inch-wide crater showed in Scarbond’s torso. The sailors were cursing at him to stop moving and let them pull the bandage tighter. Scarbond was sobbing and swearing loudly back at the sailors as he gripped his stomach and doubled over from the waves of pain that radiated out from the wound. The sailors had to pry his arms away from his body to reapply the dressing. Wake helped to hold the arms as he looked into the face of the nineteen-year-old from Ohio who had been in the Navy for only four months.
“Arthur, let them help you. We’ve got to get a dressing on this wound. We’ll get you something for the pain quickly, but this bleeding needs to be stopped. Arthur, listen to me.”
Scarbond made no reply or acknowledgment of recognizing his captain. His agony transcended any normal communication as his screaming got louder. A cursory examination of his wound showed that it was probably from one of the shotguns lying by the Rebels. It was massive and the intestines were visible as they partially emerged from the crater. Blood was everywhere, and the sailors who were trying to help had terrified expressions. Wake helped them manhandle Scarbond’s bandage onto the wound and cinch it down around his middle, and then he assisted in carrying him to the boat. White, already in the boat by then, grabbed Scarbond’s arms and dragged him over the gunwale with the assistance of two other men, all three gritting their teeth against the screams of the youngster. Jackson, limping along in the shallow water, came up last to the boat and Wake helped him aboard.
“How’s your leg, Jackson?”
Jackson smiled through clenched teeth.
“Not bad, Captain. Hurts like hell an’ they’ll have to dig the lead out, but it don’t feel like it’s in too far. Just don’t let that fool Mason mess about with it, please, sir.”
Mason, Jackson’s friend and messmate, was organizing sailors to row the wounded out to the schooner. He turned to look down at Wake standing waist deep in the water.
“I’ll get ’em all out to McDougall, sir. That ol’ salter’ll know what do to for ’em, Captain. Just please get the two that’s run off. And be careful like, sir.”
“Very good, Mason. Tell McDougall to give them all the laudanum we’ve got aboard. He knows the medicine chest.”
Turning back toward the beach, Wake heard noises coming from off in the woods as he waded ashore. The men on picket stared into the gloom of the forest trying to make out what was happening as the noises became discernible as voices in anger. Nervous fingers loudly cocked muskets. Wake saw the look in the eyes of the pickets.
“Mark your targets, men. Make sure they’re not our own coming back. Let’s not have that happen.”
The four sailors acknowledged the reminder and eased up a bit but still watched the jungle darkness in front of them intently.
Two seamen were shoving the sloop into deeper water before the tide turned to ebb. Wake assisted them with an eye and an ear turned to the bushes for intelligence of how Rork’s party was faring. Straining with all their might, the three men finally succeeded in budging the heavily loaded sloop into floating on her own with an anchor holding the vessel to the current, as Wake observed that the wind from the south was now starting to diminish in strength. Looking at the flood tide line on the beach, Wake saw that they were at the top of the tide now, and the ebb would soon start.
That greatly complicated his situation with the wounded men. The Gem was off twenty miles to the south, the wind was dying, the daylight was ending, and the nearest help lay on Useppa Island, which was two miles against the ebb current in the bay. The wounded needed help right now.
Words became distinguishable from the woods now and it was obvious the sailors were returning to the beach. Rork himself could be heard as he bellowed at some bluejacket.
“I want them alive and talking, you fool! I’ll not tell ye agin without some pain attached, Connelly. Lord above, deliver me from fools such as these!”
The crashing sounds grew louder and eventually manifested in a column of sweating cursing sailors emerging from the shadows, dragging two trussed up wretches who were bleeding from a dozen cuts. Some of the cuts were large. Rork
