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There were no injuries.
More correctly, there were no injuries that reached the sick berth, though when Katya made her rounds of Roth’s first-aid kits at the end of the week she had several bandages and one or two cold packs to replace. Roth’s skipper made a brief note in her log (Three bells first watch, engaged French Juno class frigate @ approx. post 27.34ยบ02’16”. Fired 12 rounds, driving off same. Received 1 broadside; no casualties or damage.), while the midshipmen made rather more dramatic descriptions in their personal journals (kept against the time when they were to be evaluated against possible promotions to lieutenants), some reaching several pages in length.
Stephen, on the way to his own dinner several days later, heard Barus’s voice float out through the open door of the starboard midshipman’s berth, describing the encounter as if the midshipman had personally held off the entire French fleet. Stephen was lingering in the hall out of a curiosity to hear how far the midshipman would stretch the truth, and how far his mess mates would allow him to stretch it, when he realized that he had unconsciously used the term mess mates.
“I am becoming a space-faring creature,” he observed to himself with some complacency, and he entered the wardroom at last.
Inside, he found seven of his own mess mates, joined quickly by an eighth, the purser, stepping from his cabin and wiping his forehead. This left Mister Veidt’s as the only empty seat; presumably he was up on the bridge. Stephen and the others took their accustomed places, and Mister Greenstreet said his formulaic grace.
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