Pouzauges seemed to think so, too, after an interval, for with a glance at Hornblower he turned his horse and trotted towards the causeway. The town ended before the road entered the marshes, and in a bit of waste ground beside the road the party sent out in this direction had already lighted a fire, and the men were gathered round it, toasting on their bayonets chunks of meat cut from a cow whose half-flayed corpse lay beside the fire. Farther on, where the causeway became the bridge over the river, a sentry sat sunning himself, with his musket leaning against the parapet of the bridge at his back. Everything was peaceful enough. Pouzauges trotted as far as the crown of the bridge, with Hornblower beside him, and looked over the country on the farther side. There was no sign of any enemy, and when they returned there was a mounted red-coated soldier waiting for them — Lord Edrington.
'I've come to see for myself,' he said. 'The position looks strong enough in all conscience here. Once you have the guns posted you should be able to hold this bridge until you can blow up the arch. But there's a ford, passable at low water, half a mile lower down. That is where I shall station myself — if we lose the ford they can turn the whole position and cut us off from the shore. Tell this gentleman — what's his name? — what I said.'
Hornblower translated as well as he could, and stood by as interpreter while the two commanders pointed here and there and settled their respective duties.
'That's settled, then,' said Edrington at length. 'Don't forget, Mr Hornblower, that I must be kept informed of every development.'
He nodded to them and wheeled his horse and trotted off. As he left a cart approached from the direction of Muzillac, while behind it a loud clanking heralded the arrival of the two six-pounders, each drawn painfully by a couple of horses led by seamen. Sitting upon the front of the cart was Midshipman Bracegirdle, who saluted Hornblower with a broad grin.
'From quarterdeck to dung cart is no more than a step,' he announced, swinging himself down. 'From midshipman to captain of artillery.'
He looked along the causeway and then around him.
'Put the guns over there and they'll sweep the whole length,' suggested Hornblower.
'Exactly,' said Bracegirdle.
Under his orders the guns were wheeled off the road and pointed along the causeway, and the dung cart was unloaded of its contents, a tarpaulin spread on the ground, the gunpowder cartridges laid on it and covered with another tarpaulin. The shot and the bags of grape were piled beside the guns, the seamen working with a will under the stimulus of their novel surroundings.
'Poverty brings strange bedfellows,' said Bracegirdle. 'And wars strange duties. Have you ever blown up a bridge?'
'Never,' said Hornblower.
'Neither have I. Come, and let us do it. May I offer you a place in my carriage?'
Hornblower climbed up into the cart with Bracegirdle, and two seamen led the plodding horse along the causeway to the bridge. There they halted and looked down at the muddy water — running swiftly with the ebb — craning their heads over the parapet to look at the solid stone construction.
'It is the keystone of the arch which we should blow out,' said Bracegirdle.
That was the proverbial recipe for the destruction of a bridge, but as Hornblower looked from the bridge to Bracegirdle and back again the idea did not seem easy to execute. Gunpowder exploded upwards and had to be held in on all sidles — how was that to be done under the arch of the bridge?
'What about the pier?' he asked tentatively.
'We can but look and see,' said Bracegirdle, and turned to the seaman by the cart. 'Hannay, bring a rope.'
They fastened the rope to the parapet and slid down it to a precarious foothold on the slippery ledge round the base of the pier, the river gurgling at their feet.
'That seems to be the solution,' said Bracegirdle, crouching almost double under the arch.
Time slipped by fast as they made their preparations; a working party had to be brought from the guard of the bridge, picks and crowbars had to be found or extemporized and some of the huge blocks with which the pier was built had to be picked out at the shoulder of the arch. Two kegs of gunpowder, lowered gingerly from above, had to be thrust into the holes so formed, a length of slow match put in at each bunghole and led to the exterior, while the kegs were tamped into their caves with all the stones and earth that could be crammed into them. It was almost twilight under the arch when the work was finished, the working party made laboriously to climb the rope up to the bridge and Bracegirdle and Hornblower left to look at each other again.
'I'll fire the fuses,' said Bracegirdle. 'You go next, sir.'
It was not a matter for much argument. Bracegirdle was under orders to destroy the bridge, and Hornblower addressed himself to climbing up the rope while Bracegirdle took his tinderbox from his pocket. Once on the roadway of the bridge Hornblower sent away the cart and waited. It was only two or three minutes before Bracegirdle appeared, frantically climbing the rope and hurling himself over the parapet.
'Run!' was all that was said.
Together they scurried down the bridge and halted breathless to crouch by the abutment of the causeway. Then came a dull explosion, a tremor of the earth under their feet, and a cloud of smoke.
'Let's come and see,' said Bracegirdle.
They retraced their steps towards where the bridge was still shrouded in smoke and dust.
'Only partly—' began Bracegirdle as they neared the scene and the dust cleared away.
And at that moment there was a second explosion which made them stagger as they stood. A lump of the roadbed hit the parapet beside them and burst like a shell, spattering them with fragments. There was a rumble and a clatter as the arch subsided into the river.
'That must have been the second keg going off,' said Bracegirdle, wiping his face. 'We should have remembered the fuses were likely to be of different lengths. Two promising careers might have ended suddenly if we had been any nearer.'
'At any rate, the bridge is gone,' said Hornblower.
'All's well that ends well,' said Bracegirdle.
Seventy pounds of gunpowder had done their work. The bridge was cut clear across, leaving a ragged gap several feet wide, beyond which the roadway reached out towards the gap from the farther pier as a witness to the toughness of the mortar. Beneath their feet as they peered over they could see the river bed almost choked with lumps of stone.
'We'll need no more than an anchor watch to-night,' said Bracegirdle.
Hornblower looked round to where the roan horse was tethered; he was tempted to return to Muzillac on foot, leading the animal, but shame forbade. He climbed with an effort into the saddle and headed the animal back up the road; ahead of him the sky was beginning to turn red with the approach of sunset.
He entered the main street of the town and rounded the slight bend to the central square, to see something that made him, without his own volition, tug at his reins and halt his horse. The square was full of people, townsfolk and soldiers, and in the centre of the square a tall narrow rectangle reached upwards towards the sky with a glittering blade at its upper end. The blade fell with a reverberating thump, and the little group of men round the base of the rectangle dragged something to one side and added it to the heap already there. The portable guillotine was at work.