“The gun’s unbushed, sir,” said Berry.
“God—” Bush poured out a torrent of blasphemy, uncontrolled, almost hysterical. This was the climax of days and nights of strain and labour, the bitterest blow that could be imagined, with success almost within their grasp and now snatched away. He swore frightfully, and then came back to his senses; it would not be good for the men to know that their officer was as disappointed as Bush knew himself to be. His curses died away when he restrained himself, and he walked forward to look at the gun.
The damage was plain. The touchhole in the breech of a gun, especially a bronze gun, was always a weak point. At each round some small part of the explosion vented itself through the hole, the blast of hot gas and unconsumed powder grains eroding the edges of the hole, enlarging it until the loss of force became severe enough to impair the efficiency of the gun. Then the gun had to be ‘bushed’; a tapering plug, with a hole pierced through its length and a flange round its base, had to be forced into the touchhole from the inside of the gun, small end first. The hole in the plug served as the new touchhole, and the explosions of the gun served to drive the plug more and more thoroughly home, until the plug itself began to erode and to weaken, forcing itself up through the touchhole while the flange burned away in the fierce heat of the explosions until at last it would blow itself clean out, as it had done now.
Bush looked at the huge hole in the breech, a full inch wide; if the gun were to be fired in that condition half the powder charge would blow out through it. The range would be halved at best, and every subsequent round would enlarge the hole further.
“D’ye have a new ventfitting?” he demanded.
“Well, sir—” Berry began to go slowly through hip pockets, rummaging through their manifold contents while gazing absently at the sky and while Bush fumed with impatience. “Yes, sir.”
Berry produced, seemingly at the eleventh hour, the cast-iron plug that meant so much.
“Lucky for you,” said Bush, grimly. “Get it fitted and don’t waste any more time.”
“Aye aye, sir. I’ll have to file it to size, sir. Then I’ll have to put it in place.”
“Start work and stop talking. Mr. James!”