A Company of Heroes Book Three: The Princess Read Online Free PDF Page A

flicking off its cap with the blade of his pocket knife.
    “More than you may think,” she says, and tells him about the water she had found.
    “Hm. The mast must have sprung some seams below the waterline. Well, we’ll see if we can’t cut it loose before it does even more damage.”
    “How are you feeling?”
    “How do I look?”
    “I hope you look worse than I do. Let me see your shoulder,” she asks, pulling back his shirt before he has a chance to reply. “Ugh. It’s awful.”
    “Here, let me see that,” he says, moving her aside and craning his neck to see his own collarbone. “It’s not as bad as all that. It hurts worse than it is, if you follow me. See if you can find some water and I’ll clean it up.”
    “Do you have any bandages?”
    “There might be a first-aid kit in the wheelhouse, whatever’s left of it.”
    “I’ll see what I can find.”
    The wheelhouse still stands, though its roof had been carried away and its windows blown out. Fastened to one of its walls is a metal box with the first-aid symbol stenciled on it. She takes this back to the captain.
    “I don’t know if there’s any fresh water I can get to,” she says.
    “Well, I don’t suppose it would kill me if you used seawater. The salt might even help. The antiseptics in the kit ought to make everything come out even.”
    The captain is more or less right. Once the wound is cleaned it looks less threatening if not less ugly. The princess does a neat job of dressing it.
    “It’s going to be stiff for a long while,” he says, “and it’ll hurt something awful, but then, that bastard’s aim can have been better, too. Or worse, depending on point of view.”
    “Let’s see what we can do,” he continues, “about that mast before it staves in the whole side of the ship.”
    He stands, and immediately wobbles, grasping the wall of the deckhouse behind him for support.
    “Woo! I did lose a little blood, I think.”
    “Finish that drink,” advises Bronwyn, “and give the sugar a chance to get in your system.”
    The jettisoning of the broken mast is a more or less simple operation. Bronwyn wields the axe and works under the expert direction of the captain, so that the tangle of lines would be cut away in the safest order. The princess pulls off her short sailor’s jacket and tosses it over a belaying pin, then rolls up the sleeves of her blouse. She is barefoot and the cuffs of the flaring seaman’s trousers come to just below her knees. She has her russet hair pulled back tightly from her face and tied with a piece of string at her nape. She looks competent and strong and her muscles slide beneath the tanned skin of her arms like ripples in a crucible of molten bronze.
    Once her chore is done, Basseliniden peers over the side and inspects the hull.
    “How’s it look?” the princess asks.
    “Not very good, I’m afraid. Feel how she’s wallowing? How sluggish she feels? We’ve probably been taking on water all night. How far up did you say the water is in the lower passage?”
    “Halfway up the wall. Are we sinking?”
    “Yes, but I don’t know which fate awaits us first: drowning or burning. Look at the smoke: it’s gotten heavier.”
    “Just feel the deck,” she replies. “It’s almost too hot to touch. What if the water puts the fire out?”
    “That’d be fine, but we’d still be sinking. And don’t forget, it’s not just the fire, it’s the explosives we have on board.”
    “I haven’t forgotten. So we’re to be drowned, burnt or blown to bits?”
    “Well, I don’t know in what order they’ll come, but those appear to be our choices.”
    “Can’t we get off the ship? Cann’t we make a raftt?”
    “Maybe, but I’d like to get some idea of where we are first. I wish I can see the sun.”
    “Cann’t you just as easily find our position in a raft?”
    “Probably,” he says, turning to her, “but I don’t think we’re in any present danger of sinking, not immediately, at least.