The discussion was now an argument from which the crew seemed to draw a form of moral strength that favoured Langman. Deane appeared to concede the argument. He walked away and went below deck to fetch the men their water ration. Deane distributed the water and went down into the ship’s hold. Christopher Langman was drinking his ration from a bottle. Jasper Deane approached Langman, took the water bottle from him and struck him with it. John Deane emerged from the hold, carrying a wooden periwig stand. Langman was stunned from the bottle attack and, in those moments, unable to defend himself properly. John Deane hit Langman across the head three times with the wooden block. Langman collapsed. He lay on the deck and didn’t move. Blood ran from the wounds in his skull soaking Langman and the deck around him red. The crew thought that Langman had been murdered. Now they would do whatever John Deane ordered them to do.
Langman survived the assault. He was taken below deck to his cabin, physically damaged and temporarily silenced. He remained there for twelve hours as the situation above him deteriorated. The weather was turning hostile. The ship was being forced towards the mainland. John Deane was back in command and unopposed.
In the early evening Nicholas Mellin realised that the Nottingham Galley was far too close to shore. He alerted the captain but also told Christopher Langman. The first mate walked onto the deck. Covered in his own dry blood, Langman challenged Deane for the second time that day. He stated that Deane had no right to be so close to the shore unless it was his express intention to wreck the Nottingham Galley. Langman counselled Deane to ‘haul further off’, to sail against the wind rather than let it blow the galley further inland.
Deane told Langman that he would not listen to him, even if it cost him the ship. Deane threatened Langman. He told Langman that he would get his pistol and shoot him. Then Deane told his men that he would ‘do what he pleased except they confined him to his cabin’. The captain was throwing down a gauntlet. He was instructing his crew to go ahead and mutiny if they had the courage to do so.
John Deane didn’t shoot Christopher Langman. The crew didn’t mutiny. A weird stasis seemed to fall on the captain, the first mate and crew of the Nottingham Galley. John Deane was in his cabin preparing for bed when the ship struck Boon Island.
As the Nottingham Galley came apart on the rocks John Deane apologised to anybody that would listen. He told his crew to prepare themselves for death as any hope of escape was futile. Many of the men tried to make their way onto the deck of the ship but breaking waves forced them back below. Deane began to weep and howl like an animal but other members of the crew were trying to determine the extent of the damage and see what could be done to save their companions. Nicholas Mellin went below deck to see if the hold had been breached. The hold was letting in water. Mellin returned to the cabin and gathered the men around him. They prayed to God that the ship might keep together until morning.
Christopher Langman stood on the deck. He tried to assess what needed to be done. He was physically weak but the drama of the occasion seemed to give him energy and strength. Langman went to see John Deane in his cabin and rebuked him for demoralising the men. Deane told Langman that it was useless, all of them were going to die. John Deane, who under normal circumstances was either inept, corrupt, or else a despotic lunatic, was now completely neutered as a source of effective leadership. Langman elected to take charge.
The Nottingham Galley was taking in water at a disturbing rate. Anyone on deck was in danger of being knocked into the sea by the breaking waves. Despite these hazards, and the added element that it was virtually impossible to stand upright on deck, Langman and three others began to chop down the fore-mast and the main-mast, hoping to form a bridge between the island and the ship.
John Deane was still in his cabin. Christopher Langman paid him another visit. He implored Deane to think of his men and how he might save them. Deane was more preoccupied with retrieving anything of value before the ship went down. Langman left Deane alone and went back on deck.
Langman was first onto the makeshift bridge. He crossed the bridge to the shore of the new island. He encouraged others to follow him. Three men took his lead. The rest of the crew remained behind. Langman and his compatriots seemed to disappear into the black as they crawled across the sundered mast. They could not be seen through the darkness of the evening or heard above the din of the ocean. The remaining crew could not tell if any of the four men had reached the shore or had been swept into the sea. They were divided in their minds as to whether to stay or cross over. John Deane wished to stay. The crew prayed. The decision was made for them. The cabin began to take in water. The men were forced onto the deck, obliged to crawl on their hands and knees. A couple of men braved the mast and bid the rest follow them. Having no choice all the remaining crew members of the Nottingham Galley crossed the bridge and reached Boon Island in relative safety.
Every man was soaked. Their clothes were heavy and waterlogged. There was no shelter. They feared that the high tide would cover the island and drown them all. They expected to die that evening. They prayed. They thanked the Almighty. They confessed their sins to God. If they could survive the night then there was a degree of hope. The men expected the main bulk of the Nottingham Galley to be intact and reasonably accessible, in which case goods could be salvaged and their chances of survival improved. During the night a man was sent to look for the Nottingham Galley. He returned and reported that there was nothing there. The ship had disappeared. Morning came. The island had not been swamped by the tide as the men feared. All fourteen members of the crew were alive but the Nottingham Galley was gone. The only evidence that it had ever existed was bits of wreckage washed up on the shore.
Among the wreckage was half a cheese caught up in a piece of the ship’s rope, some linen and some canvas. The cheese was distributed among the men. The linen and canvas was used to make a tent. Nicholas Mellin oversaw the tent’s construction. By the second day the tent was finished and habitable. Christopher Langman credited the tent with saving the crew from freezing to death but it couldn’t keep out the wet. The tent’s present location posed a danger. The tent had to be moved to higher ground to avoid the tides that covered that part of the rock. The tent provided some protection but little comfort. When the men slept they slept on stones. Despite the new shelter, keeping warm would be a problem. The jagged topography of Boon Island prohibited walking around as a means of improving the body’s circulation. The tent failed to save the ship’s cook who died of exposure. The crew grieved. Their mourning seemed to be an amalgam of genuine sadness for a fallen shipmate and a lament for themselves as they feared that they too would freeze to death before long. The crew removed the cook’s body from the tent and let the sea have him.