"Hmm. Will that give you a tight enough gas seal?"
"Nope," Leaton admitted. "Not by itself. And drawn-brass cartridges are not feasible, right now; too big an operation. Here's what we did instead."
He opened the satchel hung over his shoulder and handed the Chief a round of ammunition. The bullet was shaped much like the rifle rounds he was familar with. Not jacketed, though, and it looked like…
"Plain lead?" he said.
"Slightly alloyed with antimony and tin. Ten millimeter, or point-four-inch, if you prefer."
Cofflin snorted, and Martha gave a dry chuckle. The metric-versus-old-style controversy was taking up a lot of time at the more recent Meetings, with the constitution on hold until the expeditionary force in Britain returned. The question of whether or not to hold Daffodil Weekend was a close second.
The rest of the cartridge was paper, and he could feel the black powder crunching within as he rolled it between thumb and forefinger. The rear felt thicker and stiffer.
"Go ahead," Leaton said eagerly. "There's a wad of greased felt at the base of the round. It packs into the gap between the head of the plunger and the chamber under the gas pressure, and seals it-well enough for one use, anyway."
Cofflin slid the cartridge into the chamber with his thumb and snapped the lever back down; an unseen spring held it snugly in its groove atop the rifle's stock. "Ayup, I see," he said admiringly.
"That's really quite clever," Martha said, her tone neutral.
The men both looked at her. She raised a brow and continued: "No, really. I'm just not an enthusiast. Guns are like tractors or can openers to me-tools. It's a gender thing, I think."
"Marian likes weapons," Cofflin said, feeling slightly defensive.
"No, she's interested in them. They're part of her work, as filing systems were for me when I was a librarian," Martha corrected. "And swords are her recreation, like squash rackets. Anyway, dear, I wouldn't deny you the pleasure of firing it."
Jared put a hand over his heart. "Cut to the quick," he said. "Put in m' place. Range is over there, Ron?"
They walked to a shooting gallery that ended in a high sand mound with a wooden target. "Prime it like this," Leaton said. He pushed the pan forward and dropped a measured quantity of powder into it from a spring-loaded flask, then flipped it back.
Cofflin raised the rifle to his shoulder, snuggled it firmly, and thumbed the hammer back to full cock. The target was only a hundred yards away, no need to adjust the sights. Squeeze the trigger gently…
Shhssst. Flame and whitish smoke shot out of the pan. Crack on the heels of that, the gap almost imperceptible. The rifle thumped his shoulder, harder than he was used to but not intolerably. More dirty-white smoke shot out the muzzle. Almost at once a gray fleck appeared on the bull's-eye, where the bullet had punched through the paper to the wood beneath; it was about an inch up and two to the right of center.
"Not bad," he said admiringly, lowering the rifle and working the lever again. It slid up, releasing more sulfur-smelling smoke. "I'm rusty, I think, to miss that far on a clout shot. How'd you load the next round?"
"Just push," Leaton explained. "The spent wad blasts out ahead of the next bullet, and as a bonus it cleans out some of the black-powder fouling. Insert the next cartridge, prime the pan, and you're ready to go again. It shoots faster than the crossbows with practice, it's less muscular effort, and it's got three times the range. More stopping power, too-that big soft bullet makes some pretty ugly wounds, and the muzzle velocity is up around fourteen hundred feet per second. And it'll punch through any practical metal armor."
He paused, pursing his lips. "It's not perfect, of course. Flintlocks are vulnerable to wet weather-we can't help that. You have to watch the fouling buildup in the barrel, clean it regularly, and not let the chamber get too hot between rounds. But it's a hell of a lot better than the crossbows; about as good as 1860s, 1870s weapons, except for the priming."
"Now break my heart," Cofflin said. Walker can't have anything like this. Not enough precision machining capacity. "Not enough ammunition?"
"Not enough ammunition," Leaton sighed. "The bullets are no problem. We can stamp them out of sections of drawn lead wire, and half the sailboats here had lead keel weights, so there's plenty of the metal. It's the powder."
Cofflin sighed along with the machinist. A wonderful rifle with no ammunition was just a rather awkward club. And you not only had to have enough to Use, you had to have enough for regular practice.
"Keep the miracles coming, Ron. We'd better get back to our baby and the job," Cofflin said.
"What's next on the schedule?" he asked, as they walked back through the factory and picked their daughter up from the cooing guard. The Indians were gone, leaving only a faint woodland smell and a hackle-raising memory.
"Lunch at Angelica's," Martha said. Brand had stayed in her farmhouse; it was the most practical headquarters for overseeing the island's agriculture. "Officially, we're going to discuss who gets the last of the rooted cuttings for the fruit trees. Unofficially, she's going to nag you about that idea of hers, putting in a farming settlement on Long Island."
"Good God," he groaned. "Doesn't she ever give up?"
"Rarely," Martha said. "It's a national characteristic."
They came out the end door of the wooden extension. A carriage with a single horse between shafts was waiting for them; it looked rather odd, low-slung, with car wheels and a wooden body, but the seats were comfortable and there were good springs and shock absorbers. They climbed into the open passenger compartment and settled themselves. The teenage driver clucked and flapped the reins, and the vehicle set off; up Washington, to avoid some street repairs, down Stone Alley, past the Unitarian church on Orange, up Cherry to Prospect, then out into open country along Milk until it became Hummock Pond Road. Cofflin shook his head slightly as the countryside slid past. Not the same island at all, he thought. Oh, the contours of the land were there, but apart from a strip along the road and some windbreaks, the scrub of bayberry, low oak, hawthorn, rose, and whatever was mostly gone-haggled-off stubs at most. Instead there were open fields divided by board-and-post fences, many with the beginnings of hawthorn hedges planted along them.
"And it looks good," he said aloud; Martha nodded in instant comprehension, looking down at the baby on her lap. Young Marian smiled toothlessly and drooled in response, stuffing a small chubby fist into her own mouth.
"Damn good," Cofflin said.
A tourist might not think so. The fields-wheat and barley and rye planted last fall, corn and oats, potatoes and vegetables put in this spring, an occasional young orchard- were a bit uneven and straggly. The long lines of field workers were just barely keeping ahead of the weeds, too. But that was life out there, dearly bought with aching hard work. That waving blue-flowered field of flax wasn't just pretty; it was rope and sails for the fishing boats that brought in the other two-thirds of their food.
"You can lose the habit of taking food for granted really quickly," Martha said. "I love the sight of those cucumbers."
"Ayup," Jared said. "But notice how sensitive we've all become to the weather?"
She looked skyward reflexively-clouds, but no rain today-and they shared a laugh. Everyone did talk about the weather now, and not just because there wasn't any TV or national newspapers. The weather was important.
"I hope Angelica doesn't go on too long about Long Island," he said, as the carriage turned off onto the appropriately named Brand Farm Road.
That was unpaved, and gravel crunched under the wheels. Gravel we've got plenty of, he thought, making an automatic note to check on how much asphalt they had left in stock for patching streets.