At noon the hatch was shoved open. A pan of thin soup, some biscuit and water were lowered down. The hatch was being closed again when Drinkwater roused himself and called, 'We've a dead man down here.'
The hatch stopped and the silhouette of a man's head and shoulders was visible against the sky.
'So?' he drawled.
'Will you permit him to be taken on deck?' There was a pause.
'He's one of yours. You brought him: you keep him.' A gobbet of spittle flew down and the hatch slammed shut.
The exchange had woken the men. They made for the food, improvising means of eating it, dunking the biscuit and sucking it greedily.
After a while Sergeant Hagan crawled over to the midshipman.
'Beg pardon, Mr Drinkwater, but 'ave you any orders?'
'Eh? What's that?' Drinkwater was uncomprehending.
'Mr Price is dead. You're in charge, sir.'
Drinkwater looked at the quartermasters and the marines. They were all older than him. They had all been at sea longer than he had. Surely they were not expecting him to…? He looked at Hagan. Hagan with twenty-odd years of sea-soldiering to his credit, Hagan with his bragging stories of service under Hawke and Boscawen, Hagan with his resource and courage…
But Hagan was looking at him. Drinkwater's mouth opened to protest his unsuitability. He had not the slightest idea what to do. He closed it again.
Hagan came to his rescue.
'Right lads, Mr Drinkwater wants a roll-call,' he said, 'so let's see how many of us there are… Right…' Hagan coughed, 'Marines speak up!' Apart from the sergeant there were five marines left.
'Quartermasters?' The two quartermasters were both still alive and unwounded.
'Bosun's mates?' There was silence.
'Seamen?' Eleven voices were eventually identified, one of whom complained of a sprained ankle.
Hagan turned to Drinkwater. 'That's… er, counting yerself, sir, that's exactly a score, though one is unfit, sir…' Hagan seemed to think that this round figure represented some triumph for the British.
'Thank you, Sergeant,' Drinkwater managed, unconsciously aping Devaux in his diction. He wondered what was next expected of him. Hagan asked:
'Where d'ye think they mean to take us, sir?'
Drinkwater was about to snap that he had not the faintest idea when he remembered the helm orders as he left the deck.
'South-east,' he said. Recalling the chart he repeated their course and added their destination. 'South-east, to France…'
'Aye,' said one of the quartermasters, 'The bloody rebels have found some fine friends with the frog-eating Johnny Crapos. They'll be takin' us to Morlaix or St Malo…'
Hagan spoke again. His simple words came like a cold douche to Drinkwater. Hagan was the fighter, Hagan the expediter of plans. Hagan would not shrink from a physical task once that task had been assigned to him. But he looked to the quality to provide the ideas. To him Drinkwater, in his half-fledged manhood, represented the quality. In the general scheme of things it was assumed a person of Drinkwater's rank automatically had the answer. He was what was known on a King's ship as a 'young gentleman'.
'What do we do, sir?'
Drinkwater's mouth flapped open again. Then he collected himself and spoke, realising their plight was hourly more desperate.
'We retake the ship!'
A pathetically feeble, yet strangely gratifying, cheer went round the men.
Drinkwater went on, gaining confidence as he strung his thoughts together.
'Every mile this ship covers takes her nearer to France and you all know what that means…' There was a morose grumble that indicated they knew only too well. '…There are nineteen fit men here against what?… about three dozen Americans? Does anyone know approximately how many were killed on deck?'
A speculative buzz arose, indicative of rising morale.
'Lots went down when the lieutenant fired the gun, sir…' Drinkwater recognised Sharples's voice. In the bustle of events he had forgotten all about Sharples and his being in the prize crew. He was oddly comforted by the man's presence. '…and we fixed a few, you did for one, sir…' admiration was clear in the man's voice.
Hagan interrupted. It was a sergeant's business to estimate casualties. 'I'd say we did for a dozen, Mr Drinkwater… say three dozen left.' Grunts of agreement came from the men.
'Right, three dozen it is,' Drinkwater continued. An idea had germinated in his brain. 'They're armed, we're not. We're in the fo'c's'le which is sealed from the rest of the ship. It was the one place we chose to put them.' He paused.
'They got out because they made a plan long before we took them. As a… er… contingency… I heard the American captain tell Lieutenant Price he would retake his ship. It was almost like a boast. I've heard Americans have a reputation for boasting…' A desperate cackle that passed for a laugh emanated from the gloomy darkness.
Hagan interrupted again. 'But I don't see how this helps us, sir. They got out.'
'Yes, Mr Hagan. They got out by using their plan. They were model prisoners until they had made their arrangements. They lulled us until the last possible moment then they took back their ship. If we hadn't run into fog we might have been under the lee of the Lizard by now…' he paused again, collecting his thoughts, his heart thumping at the possibility…
'Someone told me these Yankee ships were mostly made of softwood and liable to rot.' A murmur of agreement came from one or two of the older hands.
'Perhaps we could break through the bulkhead or deck into the hold, and work our way aft. Then we could turn the tables on them…'
There was an immediate buzz of interest. Hagan, however was unconvinced and adopted an avuncular attitude. 'But, Nat lad, if we can do that why didn't the Yankees?'
'Aye, aye,' said several voices.
But Drinkwater was convinced it was their only hope. 'Well I'm not sure,' he replied, 'but I think they didn't want to raise our suspicions by any noise. It is going to be difficult for us… Anyway, if I am right they already had a plan worked out which relied on us behaving in a predictable manner. Now we've got to better them. Let's start searching for somewhere to begin.'
In the darkness it took them an hour to find a weak, spongy plank in the deck of the fo'c's'le. Hagan produced the answer to their lack of tools by employing his boots. The joke this produced raised morale still further, for the booted marines, the unpopular policemen of a man o'war, were the butt of many a barefoot sailor's wit.
Hagan smashed in enough to get a hand through, timing his kicks to coincide with the plunging of the Algonquin's bow into the short Channel seas. For the wind veered and the schooner was laid well over, going to windward like a thoroughbred. Regularly and rhythmically she thumped into each wave and as she did so she disguised the noise of demolition.
The deck lifted easily once an aperture had been made. Access was swiftly gained to the cable tier below. Drinkwater descended himself.
The schooner's cable lay on a platform of wooden slats. Beneath these the swirl and rush of bilge water revealed a passage aft. It was totally dark below but, doing his best to ignore the stench, he pressed on driven by desperation. He wriggled over the coils of rope and in one corner, unencumbered by cable he found the athwartships bulkhead that divided the forepart of the ship from the hold. Here he found the slatting broken and ill-fitting.
He had to get aft of the bulkhead. He struggled down in the corner, worming his way beneath the cable tier platform where they failed to meet the ship's side properly. Something ran over his foot. He shuddered in cold terror, never having mastered a fear of rats. Fighting back his nausea he lowered himself into the bilge water. Its cold stink rose up on his legs and lapped at his genitals. For a long moment he hung poised, the malodorously filthy water clammily disgusting him. Then a strange, detached feeling came over him: as if he watched himself. In that moment he gained strength to go on. Continuing his immersion Nathaniel Drinkwater finally forsook adolescence.