Powder Monkey (20 page)

I returned to an utter shambles. While I was gone, the gun crew next to ours had been hit. Three men around the gun were sprawled in various positions, dead, unconscious or screaming. The boy who served that gun was lying dead on the deck.
Let it be them. Not me
. That was all I could think. Now I would have to take over his job and serve the surviving crew as well.

With two guns to fetch cartridges for, I could spend less time in the shooting gallery, and more below deck. As the battle continued, the deck by the after magazine filled with injured bodies. Some sat waiting, grimly patient – with splinters sticking from their arms or legs. Others, especially those who had lost limbs, writhed in mortal agony. The rules for the doctor's attentions were fair. Men were dealt with strictly in the order they arrived – with no favourable treatment for officers. On
one trip to the magazine I glimpsed my friend Tom Nisbit, with a bloody red stain over his shirt. I had no time to speak to him, and he died soon after. He had been shot through the chest by one of the
Gerona
's marksmen. He had survived Captain Bligh's
Bounty
mutiny, but not the
Miranda
.

Soon we were so close to the enemy that we could glimpse inside her gun deck, and see the silhouettes of men darting about their business. The closer we got, the more fearful I became that a gun crew on the
Gerona
would be able to blast a shot straight through our gun port. Our crew had been firing almost constantly for over half an hour, and must have felt quite spent. But still they laboured, toiling with their hot and heavy gun.

Ben could see a gun inside one of the
Gerona
's gun ports right opposite ours, which would soon be pointing straight at us. ‘They're just swabbing out for another shot,' he shouted. ‘Quickly, lads, or we'll all be blown to kingdom come.'

I waited helplessly for Tom Shepherd to take the cartridge off me so I could go and get another. As I waited I checked in my shirt pocket. Rosie's letter was still there, but the envelope was damp with sweat and the ink of the address had begun to run on to my white shirt. ‘Don't fail me, Rosie,' I mouthed to myself.

Then Tom shouted at me to hand over the cartridge. Quick as a flash I unscrewed the top of the cartridge
box, whipped out the gunpowder and was gone. Down to the magazine I ran, feeling like the last few seconds of my life were ticking away. When I returned, our crew were just aligning their gun with stays, and Ben was calling for another quoin to lower the elevation.

‘Quick, lads, quick,' fretted James Kettleby, sweat pouring down his grimy face in rivulets.

‘Steady as she goes,' said Ben, who was working with an ice-cold determination. Through the hatch I could see the other gun crew trying to aim their gun. I could make out their gun captain placing a burning rope to the powder hole.

‘They're going to fire!' I shouted.

Ben didn't flinch. Then he yelled, ‘Make ready!' and pulled the cord on the flintlock. Our gun burst into life, and when the smoke cleared I could see our shot had sailed clean through the enemy gun port and knocked their gun right over. We yelled ourselves hoarse with delight. If we had been a second later, all of us would have been killed.

Just then, I was startled to hear the bosun's whistle calling for the boarders. In all the tumult of battle, I had forgotten this would almost certainly end with hand-to-hand fighting. Ben and I went at once to pick up a pistol and cutlass from the barrel behind us, and headed upward.

The stairway to the quarterdeck was almost
immediately forward of our gun, and I was glad I did not have to walk through the bloodbath on the gun deck to get to it. But as soon as I came out on deck, I could see an horrific panorama. Much of the foremast was gone – pitched over the side. The mainmast, too, had been badly damaged, and yardarms and canvas lay in splinters and tatters on the deck. In the confusion of battle I could not recall hearing this happen. Our carefully maintained rigging had been utterly destroyed. All around lay bodies. There were so many that I wondered that there must have been far more killed, and those remaining had not yet been thrown into the sea.

The number of men gathering on our deck to board the
Gerona
seemed worryingly small, although I was relieved to see Richard still among them. I grinned wildly when I saw him, but all he could manage was a tight-lipped smile. Other men, who had been fighting on the topmost deck throughout the battle, also looked grim. I sensed events were not going our way. Lieutenant Middlewych confirmed my fears.

‘Men, prepare to repel boarders!'

It was us that were about to be boarded, not the other way round. A glimpse over the rail towards the
Gerona
revealed a much larger number of men on her deck. All were armed to the teeth and boiling with murderous intent. I also looked over to the quarterdeck. Captain Mandeville was lying on the deck, a bright red stain
down the front of his white waistcoat. Two midshipmen were propping him up and getting ready to haul him down to the doctor.

Middlewych rallied us for the coming melee. ‘Men, stand your ground. Carronades prepare to fire . . .'

We waited in fearful anticipation as musket shots from marksmen up in the
Gerona
's rigging whistled between our ranks and over our heads. When the
Gerona
was about fifteen feet away two of our carronades fired a volley of grapeshot into the Spanish warship. The shot thudded violently into the deck rails and scythed through her crew. Splinters flew in all directions. We followed this up with a barrage of ‘stinkpots' – hand missiles. One of these exploded in the hand of the man who lit it, blowing his hand off and killing the marine next to him. It was not a good omen.

When the smoke cleared from our grapeshot and stinkpots, the
Gerona
was a bare ten feet from us. There were fewer men standing on her deck, but I could be sure they still outnumbered us. She was slightly taller in the water, and looked menacingly over our upper deck. One bear-like man was standing on the rail swinging a grappling hook. Just as he let go, one of our marines shot him and he fell into the water. But his grappling hook lurched over, and landed with a splintering clunk on the deck. Others quickly followed. Soon the
Miranda
was caught tight in the
Gerona
's grip.

Seconds later, the Spanish crew began to swarm aboard like a great human wave – over us, left and right of us . . . Almost at once, I found myself facing a tall, handsome Spaniard. I engaged, I parried, I lunged, but he was both bigger and stronger. As I backed away, Ben leaned over from nowhere, and ran him through. ‘Gerroutofit!' he yelled in a fighting frenzy. It was the last thing he did. An instant later a Spanish sailor planted a boarding axe in his forehead. He dropped like a stone. I turned to face his attacker, only to find myself fighting a huge brute of a man. I had picked the most mismatched opponent. He seemed puzzled by my impudence, then lunged over to cut me down. I remembered I had a pistol at my waist, drew it and shot him at point-blank range. The expression on his face changed to startled surprise, then horror, as he fell to his knees.

After the first mad rush of combat, I looked around and saw that we were overwhelmed. Yet I dared not surrender, for fear of being accused of cowardice.

It was then I heard a whistle pipe and Middlewych shouting through the confusion. ‘Men, we must strike. Throw down your arms.' It was not a moment too soon. Three Spaniards had surrounded me, each pointing a cutlass at my chest. I stood, cornered by the starboard rail, and prayed they would have the grace to let me live.

Some men, still locked in a frenzy of combat, fought until they were pulled apart. They continued shouting
obscenities at each other until they were hustled behind their comrades. I stood there panting, exhausted but relieved to still be alive. Richard was there too, and Robert Neville. For the first time, I noticed a sharp pain in my left arm, and saw that my sleeve was covered in blood. I lifted the sticky fabric to look inside. There was a shallow cutlass slash near to my shoulder. I had been lucky.

The Spanish sailors stepped aside to let a tall, noble-looking fellow pass between them. We knew at once that this was the
Gerona
's captain. He stepped forward, distinctive in his navy-blue and scarlet uniform, a bright feather plume waving to and fro atop his hat. I thought he looked rather gaudy compared to our captain in his splendid outfit.

Middlewych greeted him with dignity, and the two men spoke with admirable civility. ‘Your men fought with great courage, Lieutenant,' I heard the Spanish captain say. Middlewych bowed his head, then handed over his sword.

The surrender ceremony over, we were quickly herded below decks. Those of us untouched by the battle or wounded and able to walk were placed to the rear of the gun deck, just outside the Captain's cabin. There we collapsed, exhausted.

Then it hit me like a boulder. Ben had been killed. My friend, my Sea Daddy. I had seen it, of course, but now
it came back to me with awful clarity. So too did the moment when I had fired my pistol into the Spaniard who was trying to kill me. I had actually taken the life of another man . . .

I sat down on a bench, and wept. At a time like this it would be Ben who would come and put a comforting arm around me. Not any more. Richard came instead. He hugged me, and he cried too.

‘That was so horrible,' he said over and over.

Middlewych came over to us and said, ‘Pull yourselves together, boys,' but he didn't have the heart to be angry. The rear of the mess started to fill up with survivors of the battle. I noticed with some relief that Silas and the rest of my gun crew were still alive. The hand-to-hand fighting had been over so quickly they had not even been called from their posts to fight.

As we gathered in the rear of the gun deck I tried to count the number of survivors, and reckoned on there being less than a hundred and fifty of us. That meant that a hundred or so men had been killed in the fight with the
Gerona
. What was to become of us? I wondered if the Spanish treated their prisoners as badly as the French were supposed to. Would they treat us worse, because they resented our presence in Gibraltar?

The rear of the gun deck became crowded. A Spanish lieutenant came and ordered some of us further down
into the ship. We were herded on to the mess deck and the officers' gunroom was opened for us. Inside were Dr Claybourne, Mr McDowell and several of their assistants. All of them looked as if they had spent the afternoon in a slaughterhouse – which, I suppose, they had. Claybourne raised a bloodied hand to protest at this intrusion, but the Spanish officer just waved him away. He sighed and shook his head.

‘Men, y'll just have tae give me plenty of space.'

Dr Claybourne had moved his surgery to the gunroom when the orlop deck became too crowded with dead and dying men. His most recent patients lay propped against the gunroom cabins – some not long dead, others in a desolate half-world between life and death.

Laid out on the table was Captain Mandeville. He was in a serious state – white as a sheet and unconscious. A musket shot had pierced his chest, and the doctor was now preparing to operate.

McDowell went over to the senior Spanish officer guarding us and talked to him in halting Spanish. The man nodded and called out an order to a marine. Shortly afterwards, Claybourne was presented with a fresh bowl of water, into which he rinsed several bloody cloths and sponges.

‘Right,' he said. ‘Now we'll begin.'

While we tried to keep a respectful distance,
Claybourne cut away the bloody clothing around Mandeville's chest. He proceeded to insert a finger, then a metal probe, into the wound. He turned to McDowell and asked him to have a look. I was amazed, under the circumstances, that Claybourne was still performing his role as teacher to his apprentice. Perhaps he knew already that Mandeville was a lost cause.

Claybourne spoke softly to McDowell. ‘Chest wounds such as this, like yer head wound or belly wounds, they're ones for St Jude. If there were other men t' treat now, I'd leave him t' die in his own time. But we can still try.' So, while McDowell held the wound open with a clamp, Claybourne burrowed inside Mandeville's chest with a tweezer-like instrument. He pulled out a fragment. ‘The musket ball's shattered inside him, y' see? It's all got to come out, or he'll not stand a chance.'

Claybourne called for more light, and two of his assistants held lanterns near to the Captain's chest. The burrowing continued. Every so often Claybourne would produce another fragment of metal and lay it carefully on the side of the table. I watched with a fearful fascination, and felt grateful that Mandeville was oblivious. I couldn't imagine how agonising such a procedure would be for a man who was conscious.

Five minutes later, Claybourne wiped a bloody hand over his brow and sat down. McDowell used some of
the swabs from the murky water bowl to mop up the wound. Then two of the assistants raised Mandeville up so they could wrap a bandage around his chest. No one looked pleased with their work.