“One splash I didn’t see,” said Bush
“Nor did I, sir. Clean over, perhaps. But possibly a hit.”
The men with the charges came running up to the platform, and the eager crews seized them and rammed them home and the dry wads on top of the charges.
“Six shot!” shouted Hornblower to Saddler; and then, to the gun captains, “Prime. Put in your wet wads.”
“She’s altered course,” said Bush. “The range can’t have changed much.”
“No, sir. Load and run up! Excuse me, sir.”
He went hurrying off to take his stand by the left-hand gun, which presumably was the one which had been incorrectly laid previously.
“Take your aim carefully,” he called from his new position. “Fire when you’re sure.”
Bush saw him squat behind the left-hand gun, but he himself applied his attention to observing the results of the shooting.
The cycle repeated itself; the guns roared, the men came running with fresh charges, the red-hot shot were brought up. The guns were fired again before Hornblower came back to Bush’s side.
“You’re hitting, I think,” said Bush. He turned back to look again through his glass. “I think — by God, yes! Smoke! Smoke!”
A faint black cloud was just visible between the schooner’s masts. It thinned again, and Bush could not be perfectly sure. The nearest gun bellowed out, and a chance flaw of wind blew the powder smoke about them as they stood together, blotting out their view of the schooner.
“Confound it all!” said Bush, moving about restlessly in search of a better viewpoint.
The other guns went off almost simultaneously and added to the smoke.
“Bring up fresh charges!” yelled Hornblower, with the smoke eddying round him. “See that you swab those guns out properly.”
The smoke eddied away, revealing the schooner, apparently unharmed, still creeping along the bay, and Bush cursed in his disappointment.
“The range is shortening and the guns are hot now,” said Hornblower; and then, louder, “Gun captains! Get your quoins in!”
He hurried off to supervise the adjustment of the guns’ elevation, and it was some seconds before he hailed again for hot shot to be brought up. In that time Bush noticed that the schooner’s boats, which had been pulling in company with the schooner, were turning to run alongside her. That could mean that the schooner’s captain was now sure that the flaws of wind would be sufficient to carry her round the point and safely to the mouth of the bay. The guns went off again in an irregular salvo, and Bush saw a trio of splashes rise from the water’s surface close to the near side of the schooner.
“Fresh charges!” yelled Hornblower.
And then Bush saw the schooner swing round, presenting her stern to the battery and heading straight for the shallows of the farther shore.
“What in hell —” said Bush to himself.
Then he saw a sudden fountain of black smoke appear spouting from the schooner’s deck, and while this sight was rejoicing him he saw the schooner’s booms swing over as she took the ground. She was afire and had been deliberately run ashore. The smoke was dense about her hull, and while he held her in his telescope he saw her big white mainsail above the smoke suddenly disintegrate and disappear — the flames had caught it and whisked it away into nothing. He took the telescope from his eye and looked round for Hornblower, who was standing on the parapet again. Powder and smoke had grimed his face, already dark with the growth of his beard, and his teeth showed strangely white as he grinned. The gunners were cheering, and the cheering was being echoed by the rest of the landing party in the fort.
Hornblower was gesticulating to make the gunners cease their noise so that he could be heard down in the fort as he countermanded his call for more shot.
“Belay that order, Saddler! Take those shot back, bearer men!”
He jumped down and approached Bush.
“That’s done it,” said the lamer.
“The first one, anyway.”
A great jet of smoke came from the burning wreck, reaching up and up from between her masts; the mainmast fell as they watched, and as it fell the report of the explosion came to their ears across the water; the fire had reached the schooner’s powder store, and when the smoke cleared a little they could see that she now lay on the shore in two halves, blown asunder in the middle. The foremast still stood for a moment on the forward half, but it fell as they watched it; bows and stern were blazing fiercely, while the boats with the crew rowed away across the shallows.
“A nasty sight,” said Hornblower.
But Bush could see nothing unpleasant about the sight of an enemy burning. He was exulting. “With half his men in the boats he didn’t have enough hands to spare to fight the fires when we hit him,” he said.
“Maybe a shot went through her deck and lodged in her hold,” said Hornblower.
The tone of his voice made Bush look quickly at him, for he was speaking thickly and harshly like a drunken man; but he could not be drunk, although the dirty hairy face and bloodshot eyes might well have suggested it. The man was fatigued. Then the dull expression of Hornblower’s face was replaced once more by a look of animation, and when he spoke his voice was natural again.
“Here comes the next,” he said. “She must be nearly in range.”
The second schooner, also with her boats in attendance, was coming down the channel, her sails set. Hornblower turned back to the guns.
“D’you see the next ship to aim at?” he called; and received a fierce roar of agreement, before he turned round to hail Saddler. “Bring up those shot, bearer men.”
The procession of bearers with the glowing shot came up the ramp again — frightfully hot shot; the heat as each one went by — twenty-four pounds of white-hot iron — was like the passage of a wave. The routine of rolling the fiendish things into the gun muzzles proceeded. There were some loud remarks from the men at the guns, and one of the shot fell with a thump on the stone floor of the battery, and lay there glowing. Two other guns were still not loaded.
“What’s wrong there?” demanded Hornblower.
“Please, sir —”
Hornblower was already striding over to see for himself. From the muzzle of one of the three loaded guns there was a curl of steam; in all three there was a wild hissing as the hot shot rested on the wet wads.
“Run up, train, and fire,” ordered Hornblower. “Now what’s the matter with you others? Roll that thing out of the way.”
“Shot won’t fit, sir,” said more than one voice as someone with a wad-hook awkwardly rolled the fallen shot up against the parapet. The bearers of the other two stood by, sweating. Anything Hornblower could say in reply was drowned for the moment by the roar of one of the guns — the men were still at the tackles, and the gun had gone off on its own volition as they ran it up. A man sat crying out with pain, for the carriage had recoiled over his foot and blood was already pouring from it on to the stone floor. The captains of the other two loaded guns made no pretence at training and aiming. The moment their guns were run up they shouted “Stand clear!” and fired.
“Carry him down to Mr Pierce,” said Hornblower, indicating the injured man. “Now let’s see about these shot.”
Hornblower returned to Bush with a rueful look on his face, embarrassed and self-conscious.
“What’s the trouble?” asked Bush.
“These shot are too hot,” explained Hornblower. “Damn it, I didn’t think of that. They’re half melted in the furnace and gone out of shape so that they won’t fit the bore. What a fool I was not to think of that.”
As his superior officer, Bush did not admit that he had not thought of it either. He said nothing.
“And the ones that hadn’t gone out of shape were too hot anyway,” went on Hornblower. “I’m the damnedest fool God ever made. Mad as a hatter. Did you see how that gun went off? The men’ll be scared now and won’t lay their guns properly — too anxious to fire it off before the recoil catches them. God, I’m a careless son of a swab.”