“Here they come, My Lord.”
The first of the main body appeared round the distant corner of the cliff, hurrying along the river bank. As they took in the situation they broke into a yell and a run, leaping and scrambling over the broken ground; Hornblower was reminded of hounds rushing up clamouring at sight of their quarry at bay.
“Silence, there!” he roared. “You midshipman, there, can’t you keep your men under control? Mark their names for punishment, and I’ll mention yours to Mr Sefton.”
Abashed, the seamen formed up quietly. Here came the punts, gliding like fate along the silent pool, towed by working parties scrambling along the bank.
“Orders, My Lord?” asked Sefton.
Hornblower glanced finally round the terrain before issuing them. The sun was long past its zenith as eager men clambered up the trees to fix the tackles; soon the mortar hung dangling from a stout limb while the mortar bed was hoisted out and settled in a smooth spot, the gunner fussing over it with a spirit level to make sure it was horizontal. Then, with violent manual labour, the mortar was swung over and finally heaved up into position, and the gunner drove the keys through the eye-bolts.
“Shall I open fire, My Lord?” asked Sefton.
Hornblower looked over at the distant seam in the face of the s cliff across the river. The pirates there would be watchingthem. Had they recognised this squat object, inconsiderable in size, undistinguished in shape, which meant death to them? They might well not know what it was; they were probably peering over the parapet trying to make out what it was that had occupied the attention of so considerable a body of men.
“What’s your elevation, gunner?”
“Sixty degrees, sir – My Lord.”
“Try a shot with a fifteen-second fuse.”
The gunner went carefully through the processes of loading, measuring the powder charge and wadding it down into the chamber, clearing the touch-hole with the priming iron and, then filling it with fine-grain powder from the horn. He took his bradawl and drove it carefully into the wooden stem of the fuse at the selected point – these were very new-fangled fuses, graduated with ink lines to mark the time of burning – and screwed it into the shell. He lowered the shell down upon the wad.
“Linstocks,” he said.
Someone had been chipping away with flint and steel to catch a spark upon the slow match. He transferred the glow to a second linstock which he handed to the gunner. The gunner, stooping, checked the pointing of the weapon.
“Fuse!” he said. His assistant touched his linstock down, and the fuse spluttered. Then the gunner thrust his glowing match upon the touch-hole. A roar and a billow of powder smoke.
Standing far back from the mortar Hornblower already had his face turned to the sky to track the shell in its flight. Against that light blue there was nothing to be seen – no, there at the height of the trajectory there was a brief black streak, instantly invisible again. A further wait; an inevitable thought that the fuse had failed, and then a distant explosion and a fountain of smoke, down at the base of the cliff somewhat to the right of the cave. There was a groan from the watching seamen.
“Silence, there!” bellowed Sefton.
“Try again, gunner,” said Hornblower.
The mortar was trained round a trifle on its bed. Its bore was sponged out and when the charge had been put in the gunner took a gill measure from his pocket and added a measure of powder to the charge. He pierced the fuse again, lowered the shell into the bore, gave his final order, and fired. A wait; and then a bold puff of smoke hung in the air, seemingly right in line with the seam in the cliff. The wretched people there were watching their fate creeping up on them.
“Fuse a little short,” said Hornblower.
“Range short, I fancy, My Lord,” said the gunner.
At the next shot there was a cloud of dust and a small avalanche from the cliff face high above the seam, and instantly afterwards the burst of the shell on the ground at the near edge of the river where it had fallen.