The Lost Middy, Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap

This is yet another tension-packed teenagers' novel from the pen of G. Manville Fenn. The hero is a sixteen-year-old called Aleck, who is an orphan being brought up by his uncle, whose main interest in life is writing a book of history. They live by the sea, and Aleck's great pleasure is to take his little sailing boat along the coast, often inthe company of a pensioned-off man-o'-war's man, called Tom Bodger. They get involved with a press-gang raid by one of HM sloops, which is accompanied by a revenue cutter. Some of the men of the neighbouring hamlets are taken by the press-gang, but a middy from the sloop is also taken by the local smugglers, and hidden in the very cave where they normally hide their spoils. Unfortunately Aleck also stumbles on the track of the smugglers, and gets shut up in the same cave. Both entrances of the cave are blocked up. There is no possible escape. According to Wikipedia: "George Manville Fenn (January 3, 1831, Pimlico - August 26, 1909, Isleworth) was a British writer. He worked as a teacher in Lincolnshire, until he became printer, editor and publisher of various magazines. He had eight children with his wife Susanna Leake, whom he had married in 1855. Most of his work consists of adventure stories for young readers, featuring Explorers, Smugglers, young Adventurers and Seamen. His adult novels offer critical social commentary on Victorian England, especially reconsidering economic questions."