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D'RI AND I
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block and tackle, to mount a carronade. A handful of men were helping him, D'ri rushed to the ropes, I following, and we both pulled with a will. A sailor who had been hit in the legs hobbled up, asking for room on the rope. I told him he could be of no use, but he spat an oath, and pointing at my leg, which was now bleeding, swore he was sounder than I, and put up his fists to prove it. I have seen no better show of pluck in all my fighting, nor any that ever gave me a greater pride of my own people and my country. War is a great evil, I begin to think, but there is nothing finer than the sight of a man who, forgetting himself, rushes into the shadow of death for the sake of something that is better. At every heave on the rope our blood came out of us, until a ball shattered a pulley, and the gun fell. Perry had then a fierce look, but his words were cool, his manner dauntless. He peered through lifting clouds of smoke at our line. He stood near me, and his head was bare. He crossed the littered deck, his battle-flag and broad pennant that an orderly had brought him trailing from his shoulder. He halted by a boat swung at the davits