Powder Monkey by Paul Dowswell Page B

is a hanging offence. Don’t do it, Sam. You’re throwing away your life.’
    Then a bosun’s mate shouted up from the deck. ‘You men in the mizzen topgallant. Down at once!’
    My determination to go ebbed away. What had I got myself into? We scuttled down, I with my heart in my mouth wondering what punishment I would face with my mad plan to escape.
    Lieutenant Middlewych was waiting. ‘Lovett, what on earth was going on up there?’
    Ben was supremely confident. ‘Lad lost his nerve, sir. He’s not very good in the rigging.’
    Middlewych was unimpressed. ‘He looked good enough to me on that merchantman the other day.’
    â€˜I’m sorry, sir,’ I said. ‘I’m not used to being so high up. I promise it won’t happen again.’
    â€˜Make sure it doesn’t, lad,’ he said.
    Out of earshot of the Lieutenant, Ben was livid. ‘Never, EVER, pull that trick on me again. If Middlewych had chosen not to believe me, we’d have both been flogged.’
    Throughout the morning we sailed against the wind. It was past eleven o’clock before we were away from the city, heading down to the Solent. It took another day before we left the coast behind at Portland Bill. Mandeville called his crew together and informed us that we were to patrol the Bay of Biscay and Spanish coast, then stop off at Gibraltar to resupply. Our quarry would be any French or Spanish ship that crossed our path.
    I took a long look at the distant cliffs, and wondered if this would be the last I’d see of England. In the other direction, where we were heading, lay a vast expanse of open sea. One side, safety. The other, danger. What would I give now, to trade this life for the humble chores of my uncle’s shop?
    Away from harbour, the
Miranda
’s daily routine changed considerably. Depending on the watch we took, on some nights we had only four hours’ sleep. There were breaks in the afternoon or evening, when it was possible to catnap, but the ship was hardly filled with cosy sofas and armchairs. I was tormented by thisconstant lack of sleep, especially on the long dreary night watches either side of four a.m. While other sailors dreamed of fine food or women, I longed for a fresh warm bed, and the freedom to stay in it until the weariness had left my bones.
    In some ways life aboard the
Miranda
was similar to that in the
Franklyn
, with its daily round of cleaning, mending and tending. But learning to live with so many people in such a small space was no pleasure at all. At night we bedded down in the mess deck, shoulder to shoulder in our hammocks. Despite the constant rumble of snoring, belching, farting, sleep-talking and nightmare groaning that surrounded me, I managed to sleep well enough. I was so exhausted at the end of each day I could have slept through the Great Fire of London. But I never got used to the waking up. At the sound of the bosun’s shrill whistle we would be roused from a deep sleep and have to spring to our feet, lest our hammocks be cut down or our heads assaulted by a knotted rope.
    After a night in such a crowded space, my head would ache and I had a foul, coppery taste in my mouth – as if I had slept with a penny under my tongue. I suppose this was due to lack of air.
    As soon as we were up, we rolled our hammocks and placed them in netting at the side of the ship. The wooden beam below was marked by numbers apportioned to us, so we knew exactly where to place our hammock. Iwas 195. Having the hammocks packed like this was supposed to offer protection against musket balls and splinters. Then we relieved our bladders in the piss dales or at the heads in the bow of the ship. There were only two seats for all the two hundred and fifty ratings on board, so first thing in the morning men would lean up against the bow netting at the side of the ship where the wind blew away from them, and piss into the waves. If the sea was high