So, unsure of himself, Menander said nothing. But, quite sure of his loyalties, he squared his shoulders and stepped to Antonina's side.
John, seeing the united opposition of the entire military command of the expedition, threw up his hands in despair.
"I'm not responsible then!" The blue-eyed glare focussed again on Antonina. "You are doomed, woman. Doomed, I say! Destined for an early grave!"
John began stumping about, arms akimbo. "Dismembered," he predicted. "Disemboweled," he forecast. "Decapitated."
With a serene air of augury: "Shredded into a bloody, corpuscular mass of mutilated and mangled flesh."
Antonina, from long experience, waited until John had stumped about for a minute or so before she spoke.
"Exactly what happened, John?" she asked.
As always, once his irascibility was properly exercised, the naval officer's quick mind moved back to the forefront.
John gave the splintered cannon a cursory glance. "Same thing that usually happens with these damned wrought-iron cannons," he growled. "If there's any flaw at all in the welding, one of the staves will burst."
He stepped over to the cannon and squatted next to it.
"Come here," he commanded. "I'll show you the problem."
Antonina came around the barricade and stooped next to him. A moment later, the five officers were also gathered around.
John pointed to one of the iron bars which ran down the length of the barrel. The barrel was made up of twelve such bars—eleven, now, on this ruptured one. The bars were an inch square in cross-section and about three feet long. The corners of each bar joined its mates on the inside of the barrel, forming a dodecagonal tube about three inches in diameter. On the outside diameter of the barrel, the gaps between the bars had been filled up with weld.
John pointed to the broken welds which had once held the missing bar in place. "That's where they always rupture," he said. "And they do it about a third of the time."
He scowled, more thoughtfully than angrily. "I wouldn't even mind if the things were predictable. Then I could just test each one of them, and discard the failures. Won't work. I've seen one of these things blow up after it had fired successfully at least twenty times."
Hesitantly, Euphronius spoke up. "I notice you don't have the same hoops welded around the barrel that you have on the handcannons. Wouldn't that strengthen the barrel, if you added them?"
Antonina watched John struggle with his temper. The struggle was very brief, however. When the naval officer spoke his voice was mild, and his tone simply that of patient explanation. It was one of the many things she liked about the Rhodian. For all of John's legendary irritability, Antonina had long ago realized that John was one of those rare hot-tempered people who is rude to superiors yet, as a rule, courteous to social inferiors.
"Yes, it would, Euphronius," he said. "But here's the problem. The handcannons are small, and reasonably light—even with the addition of a few reinforcing hoops. Furthermore, the powder charge isn't really all that big. But to accomplish the same purpose with these three-inchers, I'd have to surround the barrel with hoops down its entire length. That adds a lot of weight—"
He hesitated, calculating.
"Right now, these things weigh about one hundred and fifty pounds. If you add the hoops—as I said, we'd have to run the hoops all the way down the length, not just occasional reinforcement like the handcannons—you'd wind up with a barrel weighing another fifty pounds or so. Say two hundred pounds—and that's just the weight of the barrel. Doesn't include the cradle."
"That's not so bad," commented Ashot. "Especially if you use it on a warship."
"Yes and no," replied John. "It's true that the weight wouldn't matter on a ship. The problem is with the integrity of the iron."
He glanced at Antonina.
"One of the things Belisarius told me—and I've verified it with my own tests—is that these welded wrought-iron cannons have to be properly maintained. The damned things have to be cleaned in boiling water after each period of use, or else the powder residues build up and start corroding the metal." He grimaced. So did Ashot.
Hermogenes, staring back and forth at the two men, frowned with puzzlement. "I don't see the problem," he said. "Sure, that'd be a real nuisance for a land army, having to boil water and wash out the cannons. Especially in the desert. But on a ship—"
John's eyes bugged out. Before the naval officer could give vent to his outrage, Ashot intervened.
"Don't forget, John. He's never served at sea."
John clenched his jaws. "Obviously not," he growled.
Ashot, smiling, said to Hermogenes, "The one thing you do not want to do on a ship is build a big fire in order to boil a huge kettle of water. Believe me, Hermogenes, you don't. There's nothing in the world that'll burn like a ship. All that oil-soaked wood—pitch—rigging—"
"Damned ships are like so much kindling, just waiting to go up," concurred John. "Besides, what water would you use? Sea-water? That'd corrode the barrels even faster!"
Antonina straightened. "That's it, then. We'll go with cast bronze guns for the warships. And the field artillery. We'll restrict the wrought-iron weapons for the infantry's handguns."
"They'll still blow up, now and then," warned John.
Euphronius smiled, with surprising good cheer. "Yes, John, they will. I've seen it happen—had it happen to me, once—and it's a bit scary. But my grenadiers can handle it. The one nice thing about these wrought-iron guns, when they do go, is that they blow sideways, not back. Startling as hell, but it's not really that dangerous."
"Except to the man standing next to you," muttered Callixtos.
"Not really. Don't forget—the handcannons have those hoop reinforcements. So far, every time one of the guns has blown—which, by the way, doesn't happen all that often—the hoops have kept the staves from flying off like so many spears. What you get is ruptured pieces. Those can hurt you, sure—even kill you, maybe—but the odds aren't bad." Euphronius shrugged. "That's life. We're farmers and shepherds, Callixtos. Farming's dangerous too, believe it or not. Especially dealing with livestock. My cousin was crippled just last year, when—"
He broke off, waving aside the incident. All who watched the Syrian peasant-turned-grenadier were struck by the calm fatalism of the gesture.
"We'll manage," he repeated. The cheerful smile returned. "Though I will emphasize the importance of keeping the guns clean, to my grenadiers. Even if that means having to haul a bunch of heavy kettles around."
Now, chuckling:
"The wives'll scream bloody murder, of course, since they'll wind up doing most of the hauling."
John was still not satisfied. "Bronze is expensive," he complained. "Iron cannons are a lot cheaper."
Antonina shook her head.
"We'll just have to live with the cost. I won't subject my soldiers and sailors to that kind of gamble. Let the treasury officials wail all they want."
Grimly: "If they wail too much, I'll refer them to Theodora."
Her usual good humor returned. "Besides, John, we can make the giant fortress cannons out of wrought iron. Once we get to Alexandria. It won't matter what they weigh, since they'll never be moved once they're erected to defend the city. And there'll be no problem keeping them clean. The garrison gunners won't have anything else to do anyway. Hopefully, the guns'll never be used."
John scowled. "Are you sure about this?" he demanded.
He was not talking about the cannons, now. He was raising—again—the argument he had been having with Antonina since she arrived at Rhodes. The very first instruction Antonina had given John, almost the minute she set foot on the island, was to organize the transfer of the armaments complex he had so painstakingly built up, in its entirety, to Alexandria.