Note B — Chapter I

“Some of us tried to get aft as soon as we were clear of the Seagull, but couldn’t make the grade over the wreck of the bridge. As all the officers and men who had been there had either been killed or wounded, or had gone to the after steering position they were now conning her from, we were as much cut off from them as though we were on another craft altogether. All the crews of her fo’c’sl’ guns—or such of them as were still alive—were in the same fix. So we just bunched up there in the dark and waited. Some of the wounded were in beastly shape, but there wasn’t much to be done for them, even in the way of first aid. Some shipmates of other times drifted together in the darkness, and I remember ’specially—it was while I was trying to tie up some guy’s scalp with the sleeve of my shirt—hearing one of them telling another of a wool mat he had just made, all with ravellings from ‘Harry Freeman.’ [B] Funny how it’s the little things like that a man remembers. The gunner whose head I bound up was telling me just how the Bow happened to be strafed, but it went in one ear and out of the other.

[B] The bluejackets’ name for knitted woollen gifts from friends on the beach.