“Lift and carry.”
The gun lay beside the carriage on the platform
“Lift. Lift. Higher. Not high enough. Lift, you men!”
There were gasps and grunts as the men struggled to raise the gun.
“Keep her at that! Back away, starboard side! Go with ’em, port side. Lift! Bring the bows round now. Steady!”
The gun in its cat’s cradle hung precariously over the carriage as Bush lined it up.
“Now, back towards me! Steady! Lower! Slowly, damn you! Steady! For’ard a little! Now lower again!”
The gun sank down towards its position on the carriage. It rested there, the trunnions not quite in their holes, the breech not quite in position on the bed.
“Hold it! Berry! Chapman! Handspikes under those trunnions! Ease her along!”
With something of a jar the ton of metal subsided into it, place on the carriage, trunnions home into their holes and breech settled upon the bed. A couple of hands set to work untying the knots that would free the cat’s cradle from under the gun, but Berry, gunner’s mate, had already snapped the capsquares down upon the trunnions, and the gun was now a gun, a vital fighting weapon and not an inanimate ingot of metal. The shot were being piled at the edge of the platform.
“Lay those charges out back there!” said Bush, pointing. No one in his senses allowed unprotected explosives nearer a gun than was necessary. Berry was kneeling on the platform, bent over the flint and steel with which he was working to catch a spark upon the tinder with which to ignite the slow match. Bush wiped away the sweat that streamed over his face and neck; even though he had not taken actual physical part in the carrying and heaving he felt the effect of his exertions. He looked at the sun again to judge the time; this was no moment for resting upon his labours.
“Gun’s crew fall in!” he ordered. “Load and run up'”
He applied his eye to the telescope.
“Aim for the schooner,” he said. “Take a careful aim.”
The gun‑trucks squealed as the handspikes trained the gun round.
“Gun laid, sir,” reported the gun captain.
“Then fire!”
The gun banged out sharp and clear, a higher‑pitched report than the deafening thunderous roar of the massive twenty‑four‑pounders. That report would resound round the bay. Even if the shot missed its mark this time, the men down in those ships would know that the next, or the next, would strike. Looking up at the high shore through hastily trained telescopes they would see the powder smoke slowly drifting along the verge of the cliff, and would recognise their doom. Over on the southern shore Villanueva would have his attention called to it, and would know that escape was finally cut off for the men under his command and the women under his protection. Yet all the same, Bush, gazing through the telescope, could mark no fall of the shot.
“Load and fire again. Make sure of your aim.”
While they loaded Bush turned his telescope upon the flags over the fort, until the gun captain’s cry told him that loading was completed. The gun banged out, and Bush thought he saw the fleeting black line of the course of the shot.
“You’re firing over her. Put the quoins in and reduce the elevation. Try again!”
He looked again at the flags. They were very slowly descending, down out of his sight. Now they rose once more, very slowly, fluttered for a moment at the head of the Flagstaff, and sank again. The next time they rose they remained steady. That was the preconcerted signal. Dipping the colours twice meant that the gun had been heard in the fort and all was well. It was Bush’s duty now to complete ten rounds of firing, slowly. Bush watched each round carefully; it seemed likely that the schooner was being hit. Those flying nine‑pound balls of iron were crashing through the frail upper works, smashing and destroying, casting up showers of splinters.
At the eighth round something screamed through the air like a banshee two yards over Bush’s head, a whirling irregular scream which died away abruptly behind his back.