Wow, I bet his ass chewed one hell of a hole in that seat while waiting for the engines to respond.
There should not have been any lag/spool up time for engine response because:
1. The pilot should have had the throttles to full power as soon as he hit the deck, so when the cable parted and the Hawkeye went over the end of the deck the engines should already have been at full power.
2. The Hawkeye is fitted with T-56 engines, similar but more powerful than the C-130's and P-3's T-56 engines. The T-56 is a single spool engine with a constant RPM prop. In the air they are always at 100% RPM so there is no spool up time. They respond essentially instantly to an increase in throttle.