8             ON BOARD THE BEDOVY         [ca I
"What? Talking, are you . . .?" and, snatching a favourable moment, they lifted me bodily, pushed from behind, and down I jumped into the pinnace, stiffly, awkwardly, falling right on both legs, . . . and forthwith lost my senses from the awful pain. ... I was brought to again by pain (probably still more excruciating). I found myself stretched on a thwart, with somebody in a sailor's blue jacket sitting right on top of me, and upon my right leg, almost on the very wound, was stretched a big stick, pressing on it. I cannot find words to give any idea how that stick weighed on my leg.
Subsequently it was all explained to me: directly after I had been "heaved off" on to the pinnace, they handed over (almost in the same manner) a stretcher with our unconscious Admiral tied fast to it. At this very moment one of the sailors, who was preparing to catch hold of his handle of the stretcher, lost his balance and sat down upon me bodily, and the stretcher's handle fell down with all its weight, pinning down my hapless right leg.
But all these explanatory details were gathered by me very much later; and just then I only saw the back of a blue-jacket sitting right on top of me, and, suddenly seized with fury, I caught hold of the gunwale with