We unlaced them, and oh, the terrible pain it was to him to take them off! and though we cut his socks with a knife, the skin all came off with them. He had fainted by that time. Then I heard Mr. Pattison’s voice, and Tommy rushed aft and brought some brandy and a pillow, and we propped his head up and poured a little brandy down his throat, though it was difficult to do it, because his tongue was so swollen. They covered him with a blanket, but he was a huge man, and his two raw feet stuck out at the end. I shall never forget them. All this terrible time I had noticed nothing else, but now, looking over the side, I saw that the destroyer was only going very slowly, and that there was a big hole at the water-line, where that last shell had come aboard, and water was pouring in. No shells seemed to be coming our way now, and looking towards the island I saw the cruiser steaming away from us without firing, and, hurrah! hurrah! two great splashes of water leapt up, one after the other, close to her stern, and boom! boom! came the reports of heavy guns from the north. "Hurrah! hurrah!" shouted Tommy, "there’s the _Strong Arm_." You can imagine what a relief it was and what we felt. We yelled and shouted like mad things, and even Harrington had strength enough to raise his head and wave his arm, though he could not make as much noise as a mouse. It was indeed the _Strong Arm_ firing her foremost guns, and making a great bow wave as she steamed towards us. "Out collision mat!" shouted Mr. Pattison, and the order was yelled down the fo’c’stle and everyone came rushing out, got a line round the destroyer’s bottom, made it fast to the collision mat, and hauled it over the great rent in the side. It took three or four minutes to do this, and by that time the deck seemed quite close to the water, and the stern seemed even lower. The _Strong Arm_ was now drawing up rapidly. Then I was sent with a couple of men to screw down the hatch covers leading to Mr. Pattison’s cabin and the ward-room, and by the time we had done it the deck was a-wash. The starboard engine had stopped by now, and we lay wallowing with a horrid log-like jerky motion whilst the men tried to get a tarpaulin over the hole in the stern, but did not seem to do any good. The boats were next got into the water. They were full of holes, but by stuffing their jumpers into the shot holes in the whaler and by bailing hard, they just managed to keep her afloat. The collapsable Berthon boats were quite useless, being pierced in half a dozen places, and the dinghy was smashed to smithereens. There was only the whaler for fifty men. This meant that most of us would have to take our chance of hanging on to an oar or wooden grating till the _Strong Arm_ could pick us up.