Powder Monkey (21 page)

Activity over, we settled down for the night. A few wounded men whimpered softly, but by now most of those seriously hurt in the fighting had died and gone over the side of the ship. No one felt like talking. We just sat there, packed tight together, alone with our thoughts. My arm began to sting where I had been nicked by the cutlass. A year ago, back home in Wroxham, such a wound would have made me tearful. That night it seemed no more troublesome than the prick of a thistle.

An hour or so after the operation Captain Mandeville came round. Middlewych went over to see him. For a brief moment he seemed remarkably clear-headed, then he became delirious and began to ramble.

‘So close to victory. So close . . . Just think, Middlewych. We could have sailed into Portsmouth with
La Flora
tied behind. The whole town would have turned out to welcome us. People would have climbed on to the roofs of their houses to see the spectacle. Cheering and waving . . . There would have been a knighthood for me, and a captain's commission for you. And glory enough to impress the Governor and beautiful Miss Beverly. What a pretty neck she has . . . And such exquisite manners . . . How fate toys with us. Now
we'll be lucky if we don't get dismissed from the Navy.'

Middlewych seemed uncomfortable with this level of intimacy. ‘Yes, sir', ‘Indeed, sir', he would say at appropriate moments. If the circumstances had not been so grim, it would have been almost funny seeing Middlewych propping up this forbidding man, and trying to comfort him by making polite conversation.

As the night progressed Mandeville grew more delirious, and began to call for his mother. Then he began to have an imaginary conversation with his father. ‘Don't go . . . stay with me. Don't leave me in this wretched school. Please, Father, please . . .'

Silas eyed him coldly and whispered, ‘He'll not be with us by the morning.'

Mandeville started to ramble pitifully about the life he would never live to enjoy … the Admiralty post he aspired to, then perhaps a Member of Parliament. A manorhouse in Kent, full of little Mandevilles – the boys just like him, the girls as pretty and gracious as Miss Beverly.

Exactly when he died I could not say. His breathing dropped to almost nothing. Then his chest rose to take in a final gasp of air which passed out of him in one long sigh, like a ghost escaping through his open mouth. I never imagined I would feel sorry for the Captain, but his death was such a lonely one. Even though I was one of the lowliest creatures on the ship, I, at least, had my
friends. If I had died down in the hold, I would have been surrounded by people who would have mourned me as a friend. Mandeville died hundreds of miles away from anyone who even remotely liked him.

Soon after, as we sat dozing in the stifling atmosphere of the lower deck, a Spanish officer made his way through the ranks of marines that stood guarding us. This man spoke to us in Spanish, and waited impatiently while his words were translated by another Spanish sailor.

‘Gentlemens, half come to the
Gerona
, half stay here.'

Then these two men spoke to Middlewych. They conversed awkwardly, but eventually nodded in agreement. Middlewych spoke to us all. ‘The Spanish are asking for men to man the pumps, as water continues to rise in the hold. We can work two at a time for half-hour shifts.' He turned to a bosun's mate and asked him to set up a rota.

His task completed, the Spanish officer nodded amiably, turned on his heels and left. When he'd gone Richard began to ape the accent of the sailor who had spoken to us. Silas was not amused.

‘D'you speak Spanish then, Yankee-doodle-dandy? Not as good as he speaks English. Be thankful someone can speak to us in our own tongue.'

Richard looked suitably chided. I never knew with him whether he was genuinely sorry or just playing a
part. Then Silas whispered, ‘They're splitting us up because we could still have them. There's enough of us here to cause a lot of trouble. We could still get out of this pickle, and sail the
Miranda
back to England!'

Richard, my gun crew, Lieutenant Middlewych and perhaps another fifty of us remained in the
Miranda
. The rest were taken off to the
Gerona
. I saw that Michael Trellis was among them. The thought of several years in a Spanish prison with him for company was too much to bear. Then all of a sudden, I remembered the fight with Lewis Tuck and Silas and me just before we went into battle. I looked around quickly for Tuck, but could not see him.

‘What happened to Tuck?' I whispered to Silas.

‘Don't know, Sam,' he said. ‘Let's hope the bastard's been killed.' He winked. I sighed with relief. That was one thing we did not have to worry about for now.

We stayed below deck for the rest of the day. Once again ours was an enclosed world, where we had to rely on our ears rather than our eyes to gather information. Throughout the morning we heard the dragging of wood on wood, and banging and shouting. Middlewych spoke a little Spanish. From what we could overhear we deduced that our captors were setting up a jury mast. Some other work was going on above our heads, as the damage done to Mandeville's cabin by those raking cannonballs was patched up.

Middlewych looked thoughtful, and spoke to one of the bosun's mates. ‘I'm guessing that if they're jury rigging the ship, then we've a fair journey to make. If we were nearer a port they'd just tow us.'

Later that morning, a couple of Spanish marines came to take away Mandeville's body. For the next couple of minutes we made not a sound, listening hard to see what would happen. Then there was a splash, and we realised they had put him over the side of the ship without so much as a few prayers, let alone a funeral.

‘Sic transit gloria mundi,' said Middlewych. I thought he was muttering a prayer, until Richard whispered in my ear.

‘Thus passeth the glory of the world,' he said. ‘It's Latin. Like “Tempus Fugit”, and “Brutus aderat forte, Caesar adsum Jam”. I don't think Middlewych liked the Captain very much.'

When you are feeling sorry for yourself there is nothing more hateful than the sound of other people laughing. We sat all day in the stifling, darkened gunroom, listening to these Spanish sailors jabbering away ten to the dozen in their mysterious language. As the evening drew on, they began to celebrate their victory. From what we could hear, many of them were getting raucously drunk. A plot began to form in Middlewych's mind. He spoke at length to Silas, and Silas came over to Richard and me. I knew before he'd even started to
speak that there was trouble afoot.

‘Good evening, lads,' he said with an ingratiating smile. ‘The Lieutenant here has a plan which may result in us escaping from this mess.'

Richard and I looked uneasy. ‘Does it involve us by any chance?' said Richard.

Silas smiled in a non-committal way. ‘Come over and talk to the man,' he said.

Middlewych gave us one of his mirthless smiles. ‘Witchall, Buckley. Listen to that!' We did . . . drunken singing filtered down the stairs from the gun deck. ‘Most of them seem to be having a party, although I'd be a little more cautious myself if I had fifty Englishmen to keep an eye on.'

‘We're not all English, sir,' said Richard, rather cheekily.

‘Indeed, Buckley,' he said wearily. ‘Now here's my plan. We need a couple of volunteers – small and light on their feet – to get out of here and steal us a handful of weapons. Bring them back and we can seize the ship and head for home. What the Spanish don't know is that right here in the gunroom is a little trap door leading to the bread room.' This I knew, for I had been in there once before. ‘In the bread room, there's a door leading out to the after platform. And from there it's straight on to the gunners' storeroom, for which I have the key.' With a dramatic flourish Middlewych produced a brass key, about the size of a man's index finger.

‘D'you think you might be able to nip down there and pick up a few weapons for us?' He said it in the breezy way my mother might have asked me to run down to the Rose and Crown and tell my father his dinner was ready.

‘What about the guards?' I said.

‘Yes, sir,' chimed in Richard. ‘Isn't the ship crawling with sentries?'

‘Yes,' said Middlewych. ‘There's a Spanish marine on every companionway. I'm sure they're just itching for an excuse to run any one of us through with a bayonet. So, whatever you do, you must be very careful. But I think you'll find most of them seem to be carousing. One of our chaps got taken down there this evening to fix the pump and he says there are only two guards down in the hold. One by the after magazine and one by the forward magazine.'

I felt a familiar shudder of fear, and Richard and I exchanged wary glances.

‘Is there anything else we need to know?' said Richard. He'd obviously made up his mind he was going already.

‘Yes,' said Middlewych. ‘The hold is flooded with six feet of water. Do either of you boys swim? Good!'

‘How are we going to get past the sentries?' said Richard.

‘It's going to be difficult,' admitted Middlewych. ‘But here's a couple of ideas. First of all, Bouncer here has
been hiding in my cabin since all this began. Take him with you and see if you can distract the after magazine sentry. Then you can swim your way forward, and see what's to be done when you get there. Whatever happens with these sentries, remember I don't want you killing either of them. If they find a dead sentry, they'll know something's up, and they may start bumping us all off.'

‘Can I talk to Richard?' I asked the Lieutenant.

‘Carry on, lad. Carry on.'

Ordinarily, I would not have dared talk to a senior officer in this way. But circumstances were very different. We were all prisoners now, and Middlewych was asking Richard and me to risk our lives.

We huddled together, away from the Lieutenant's earshot. ‘He's asking a lot of us!' I said with some indignation.

Richard gave a weary shrug. ‘The future's looking bleak enough already. The crew here are convinced we've got years ahead of us, rotting away in a Spanish prison. The way I see it, Sam, we've got a simple choice. We can attempt to escape tonight, and maybe die trying. Or we can waste away over the next few years dying of starvation or disease.'

Just at that moment I thought of Ben, stone dead with an axe in his head. I knew I had to do this.

‘Let's give it a try.' Then we both grinned like the idiots we were.

‘Death or glory!' said Richard.

‘Death or glory!' said I.

It was so crowded in the gunroom that, with men standing and moving around, it was possible to ensure the guards outside could not see what we were doing. Within moments, we had set off. Down to the hold, on to the gunners' storeroom, back to the gunroom. On an ordinary day it was a job that would take three minutes . . . We squeezed through the narrow hatch and down into the bread locker. It was pitch black down there, so Middlewych passed down a lantern. Then he carefully lowered down Bouncer, and wished us luck.

‘Take your time, boys. Getting back alive is the most important thing.'

Then the hatch shut over our heads, and Richard and I sat in the dim light of the lantern, waiting for our eyes to get used to the gloom. My heart was beating so hard I thought my chest was going to burst. I stroked Bouncer to stop him mewling, and breathed deeply to calm myself.

After a while, when we were ready, we began to pick our way through the provisions and towards the small door that led out to the after platform. This too was locked, and the key could only be inserted from the other side. To get past this barrier, Middlewych had given us a small screwdriver to take the lock from the
door. Behind the door would be a sentry. Exactly where, we did not know. I tried to peek through a crack in the wood, but could see nothing. We listened very intently, but could hear nothing against the general hubbub of the fifty or so men above us. While I held the lantern up, Richard began, ever so gently, to remove the three screws that held the small lock in place. Every so often, one of the screws would creak as we turned it, or Richard's hand would slip, and the screwdriver would scrape against the wood.

We worked on that lock for an eternity and Richard and I were soon bathed in sweat. We had been given very little to drink by our captors, and I began to feel a powerful thirst. Eventually the lock came away from the door. Middlewych had warned us that the door creaked loudly when it was opened. We had a plan for this too. Richard went back to the hatch that led to the gunroom, and tapped gently upon it. Then he moved gingerly back to me by the door. We waited. After an interval, our men began to cheer and holler.

At that moment I pushed at the door. It did give an infernal creak – and I expected the Spanish guard to come tearing down the corridor and impale us both. But, thank heaven, with the noise from the gunroom, he never heard the door.

I opened it as far as it would go. There was just enough space for me to wriggle out. Richard followed
immediately after with Bouncer, pulling the door closed behind him. Above the noise we could hear angry shouting from the guards upstairs. The noise in the gunroom simmered down as quickly as it had started.

On my hands and knees I crawled as quietly as I could down the small narrow corridor to the after platform. At every new plank I expected a squeak or creak to give me away. But the ship was so solidly constructed, nothing moved or made a noise.

Somewhere before me lay the sentry. I could smell him – the sweet odour of smouldering tobacco wafted down towards me – a welcome change from the usual stench of the hold. As I reached the corridor end I peered cautiously round the corner. There he was, sitting with his back to me, underneath the mess deck ladder. Yes, he was smoking a pipe – something any of us would be deservedly flogged for, so near to the magazine.

I glanced back at Richard, crouched by the bread-room door, and beckoned him to let go of Bouncer. I waved a morsel of pork – a leftover from the officers' last meal – and he trotted up to me curiously. Then I tossed the pork over to the far side of the after platform. Bouncer, wonderful Bouncer, followed on, padding up to the pork. Just before he pounced on it, he gave a delighted meow. The guard immediately sat up, and turned around to look. I peeked around the corner to
see this great tall fellow, creeping cautiously towards the cat. Fortunately for us, he liked cats. ‘Gato! Gato!' he was calling. Bouncer stayed exactly where he was, then playfully rolled over on to his back. At once, the guard rested his musket against the after platform rail, and crouched down to stroke the cat. Then he started speaking fondly to Bouncer. I had no idea what he was saying, but I quickly discovered what it was.