I don't remember anything more till I woke with a splitting headache, feeling as if I wanted to be sick and couldn't be. It was almost dark. I thought that I'd had a nightmare—I often did, after too much gunroom tinned salmon—and wondered why the lanterns had gone out. You know how you often wake up and think that you are in some strange place, and gradually work things out till they come right again.
That's what I tried to do, but I couldn't fix things, and one eye didn't seem to work, and I wondered why I had my boots and my uniform on, and why it was all so wet. I put out my arm to feel if Jim's hammock was in its place, and then I let out a yell and rolled back pretty quickly.
That yell seemed to blow away the cobwebs, and I lay back and began to make out that I was lying on a funny kind of floor, in a small room with whitewashed walls and a broken-down roof, with straw hanging through the cracks. The walls seemed to be made of bricks and mud, and one had a door in it and a small square opening above it, through which a little light came. Someone close to me began to move, and then sat up, very slowly. It was Martin, the gunroom "flat" sentry, and then I remembered that he had saved me from being choked, and all the things that had happened came back to me all at once.
"Where are we?" I asked.
He gave me a startled look. "Crickey, sir, beggin' your pardon, you does look a awful sight!"
"What's the matter? What's happened?" I felt that it was awkward to talk, my lips felt uncomfortable, and I put my hand up to my face and it felt all raw and swollen. I couldn't see at all if I shut my right eye, so knew that my left one was closed up.
"Kicked you in the face, sir, and dragged you away afore we could stop 'em."
"What!" I said, very alarmed. "The Commander not here? Where am I?"
"I don't exactly know where we be, sir, but them pirate chaps 'ave got 'old of us, and Old Tinker Bill too; 'e was brought in 'ere after us."
Then I saw that there was a bluejacket lying asleep on the other side of him, and he dug him in the ribs—"'Ere, wake up, Tinker!" and he sat up growling.