“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.”
“Easy, easy,” said Bush, a prey to conflicting emotions.
Hornblower pounding his left hand with his right fist as he upbraided himself was a comic sight; Bush could not help laughing at him. And Bush knew perfectly well that Hornblower had done excellently so far, really excellently, to have mastered at a moment’s notice so much of the technique of using red‑hot shot. Moreover, it must be confessed that Bush had experienced, during this expedition, more than one moment of pique at Hornblower’s invariable bold assumption of responsibility; and the pique may even have been roused by a stronger motive, jealousy at Hornblower’s good management — an unworthy motive, which Bush would disclaim with shocked surprise if he became aware of it. Yet it made the sight of Hornblower’s present discomfiture all the more amusing at the moment.
“Don’t take on so,” said Bush with a grin.
“But it makes me wild to be such a —”
Hornblower cut the sentence off short. Bush could actually see him calling up his self‑control and mastering himself, could see his annoyance at having been self‑revelatory, could see the mask of the stoical and experienced fighting man put back into place to conceal the furious passions within.