The guntrucks 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 higherpitched report than the deafening thunderous roar of the massive twentyfourpounders. 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 ninepound 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.
“What the hell was that?” demanded Bush.