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.

  Chapter 12

  Prisoners

  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.

  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.’