“The range is shortening and the guns are hot now,” said Hornblower; and then, louder, “Gun captains! Get your quoins in!”
He hurried off to supervise the adjustment of the guns’ elevation, and it was some seconds before he hailed again for hot shot to be brought up. In that time Bush noticed that the schooner’s boats, which had been pulling in company with the schooner, were turning to run alongside her. That could mean that the schooner’s captain was now sure that the flaws of wind would be sufficient to carry her round the point and safely to the mouth of the bay. The guns went off again in an irregular salvo, and Bush saw a trio of splashes rise from the water’s surface close to the near side of the schooner.
“Fresh charges!” yelled Hornblower.
And then Bush saw the schooner swing round, presenting her stern to the battery and heading straight for the shallows of the farther shore.
“What in hell—” said Bush to himself.
Then he saw a sudden fountain of black smoke appear spouting from the schooner’s deck, and while this sight was rejoicing him he saw the schooner’s booms swing over as she took the ground. She was afire and had been deliberately run ashore. The smoke was dense about her hull, and while he held her in his telescope he saw her big white mainsail above the smoke suddenly disintegrate and disappear—the flames had caught it and whisked it away into nothing. He took the telescope from his eye and looked round for Hornblower, who was standing on the parapet again. Powder and smoke had grimed his face, already dark with the growth of his beard, and his teeth showed strangely white as he grinned. The gunners were cheering, and the cheering was being echoed by the rest of the landing party in the fort.
Hornblower was gesticulating to make the gunners cease their noise so that he could be heard down in the fort as he countermanded his call for more shot.
“Belay that order, Saddler! Take those shot back, bearer men!”
He jumped down and approached Bush.
“That’s done it,” said the lamer.