By the time Bush had drunk there was the usual group of people clamouring for his attention, for orders and information, and by the time he had dealt with them there was smoke rising from the furnace in the corner of the courtyard, and a loud crackling from inside it. Bush walked over. A seaman, kneeling, was plying a pair of bellows; two other men were bringing wood from the pile against the ramparts. When the furnace door was opened the blast of heat that rose into Bush’s face was enough to make him step back. Hornblower turned up with his hurried pace.
“How’s the shot, Saddler?” he asked.
The petty officer picked up some rags, and, with them to shield his hands, laid hold of two long handles that projected from the far side of the furnace, balancing two projecting from the nearest side. When he drew them out it became apparent that all four handles were part of a large iron grating, the centre of which rested inside the furnace above the blazing fuel. Lying on the grating were rows of shot, still black in the sunshine. Saddler shifted his quid, gathered his saliva, and spat expertly on the nearest one. The spittle boiled off, but not with violence.
“Not very hot yet, sir,” said Saddler.
“Us’ll fry they devils,” said the man with the bellows, unexpectedly; he looked up, as he crouched on his knees, with ecstasy in his face at the thought of burning his enemies alive.
Hornblower paid him no attention.
“Here, you bearer men,” he said, “let’s see what you can do.”
Hornblower had been followed by a file of men, every pair carrying a piece of apparatus formed of two iron bars joined with iron crosspieces. The first pair approached. Saddler took a pair of tongs and gingerly worked a hot shot on to the bearer.
“Move on, you two,” ordered Hornblower. “Next!”
When a shot lay on every bearer Hornblower led his men away.
“Now let’s see you roll those into the guns,” he said.
Bush followed, consumed with curiosity. The procession moved up the ramp to the gun platform, where now crews had been told off to every gun; the guns were run back with the muzzles well clear of the embrasures. Tubs of water stood by each pair of guns.
“Now, you rammers,” said Hornblower, “are your dry wads in? Then in with your wet wads.”
From the tubs the seamen brought out round flat discs of fibre, dripping with water.
“Two to a gun,” said Hornblower.
The wet wads were thrust into the muzzles of the guns and then were forced down the bores with the club-ended ramrods.
“Ram ‘em home,” said Hornblower. “Now, bearers.”
It was not such an easy thing to do, to put the ends of the bearing-stretchers at the muzzles of the guns and then to tilt so as to induce the hot shot to roll down into the bore.
“The Don must’ve exercised with these guns better than we’d give ‘em credit for,” said Hornblower to Bush, “judging by the practice they made yesterday. Rammers!”
The ramrods thrust the shot home against the charges; there was a sharp sizzling noise as each hot shot rested against the wet wads.
“Run up!”
The guns’ crews seized the tackles and heaved, and the ponderous guns rolled slowly forward to point their muzzles out through the embrasures.
“Aim for the point over there and fire!”
With handspikes under the rear axles the guns were traversed at the orders of the captains; the priming tubes were already in the touchholes and each gun was fired as it bore. The sound of the explosions was very different here on the stone platform from when guns were fired in the confined spaces of a wooden ship. The slight wind blew the smoke sideways.
“Pretty fair!” said Hornblower, shading his eyes to watch the fall of the shot; and, turning to Bush, “That’ll puzzle those gentlemen over there. They’ll wonder what in the world we’re firing at.
“How long,” asked Bush, who had watched the whole process with a fascinated yet horrified interest, “before a hot shot burns through those wads and sets off the gun itself?”
“That is one of the things I do not know, sir,” answered Hornblower with a grin. “It would not surprise me if we found out during the course of today.”
“I dare say,” said Bush; but Hornblower had swung round and was confronting a seaman who had come running up to the platform.
“What d’ye think you’re doing?”
“Bringing a fresh charge, sir,” said the man, surprised, indicating with a gesture the cartridge-container he carried.
“Then get back and wait for the order. Get back, all of you.”
The ammunition carriers shrank back before his evident anger.
“Swab out!” ordered Hornblower to the guns’ crews, and as the wetted sponges were thrust into the muzzles he turned to Bush again. “We can’t be too careful, sir. We don’t want any chance of live charges and red-hot shot coming together on this platform.”
“Certainly not,” agreed Bush.
He was both pleased and irritated that Hornblower should have dealt so efficiently with the organization of the battery.
“Fresh charges!” yelled Hornblower, and the ammunition carriers he had previously sent back came trotting up the ramp again. “These are English cartridges, sir, I’ll wager.”
“Why do you say that?”
“West-Country serge, stitched and choked exactly like ours, sir. Out of English prizes, I fancy.”
It was most probable; the Spanish forces which held this end of the island against the insurgents most likely depended on renewing their stores from English ships captured in the Mona Passage. Well, with good fortune they would take no more prizes — the implication, forcing itself on Bush’s mind despite his many preoccupations, made him stir uneasily as he stood by the guns with his hands clasped behind him and the sun beating down on his face. The Dons would be in a bad way with their source of supplies cut off. They would not be able to hold out long against the rebellious blacks that hemmed them in here in the eastern end of Santo Domingo.
“Ram those wads handsomely, there, Cray,” said Hornblower. “No powder in that bore, or we’ll have ‘Cray D.D.’ in the ship’s books.”
There was a laugh at that — ‘D.D.’ in the ship’s books means ‘discharged, dead’ — but Bush was not paying attention. He had scrambled up the parapet and was staring out at the bay.
“They’re standing down by the bay,” he said. “Stand by, Mr Hornblower.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Bush strained his sight to look at the four vessels creeping down the fairway. As he watched he saw the first one hoisting sail on both masts. Apparently she was taking advantage of a flaw of wind, blowing flukily in the confined and heated waters, to gain some of the desperately necessary distance towards the sea and safety.
“Mr Abbott, bring down that glass!” shouted Hornblower.
As Abbott descended the steps Hornblower addressed a further comment to Bush.
“If they’re making a bolt for it the moment they know we’ve got the fort it means they’re not feeling too secure over there, sir.”
“I suppose not.”
“You might have expected ‘em to try and recapture the fort one way or another. They could land a force up the peninsula and come down to attack us. I wonder why they’re not trying that, sir? Why do they just unstick and run?”
“They’re only Dagoes,” said Bush. He refused to speculate further about the enemy’s motives while action was imminent, and he grabbed the glass from Abbott’s hands.
Through the telescope details were far plainer. Two large schooners with several guns a-side; a big lugger, and a vessel whose rig they still could not determine, as she was the farthest away and, with no sail set, was towing behind her boats out from the anchorage.