There was a frightful crash close beside Bush and something screamed past him to crash into the deck beam near kits head. Something flying through an open gunport had struck a gun on its reinforced breech. Two men had fallen close beside it, one lying still and the other twisting and turning in agony. Bush was about to give an order regarding them when his attention was drawn to something more important. There was a deep gash in the deck beam by his head and from the depths of the gash smoke was curling. It was a redhot shot that had struck the breech of the gun and had apparently flown into fragments. A large part—the largest part—had sunk deep into the beam and already the wood was smouldering.
“Fire buckets here!” roared Bush.
Ten pounds of redhot glowing metal lodged in the dry timbers of the ship could start a blaze in a few seconds. At the same time there was a rush of feet overhead, the sound of gear being moved about, and then the clankclank of pumps. So on the maindeck they were fighting fires too. Hornblower’s guns were thundering on the port side, the guntrucks roaring over the planking. Hell was unchained, and the smoke of hell was eddying about him.
The masts creaked again with the swing of the yards; despite everything, the ship had to be sailed up the tortuous channel. He peered out through a port, but his eye told him, as he forced himself to gauge the distance calmly, that the fort on the crest was still beyond range. No sense in wasting ammunition. He straightened himself and looked round the murky deck. There was something strange in the feel of the ship under his feet. He teetered on his toes to put his wild suspicions to the test. There was the slightest perceptible slope to the deck—a strange rigidity and permanence about it. Oh my God! Hornblower was looking round at him and making an urgent gesture downwards to confirm the awful thought. The Renown was aground. She must have run so smoothly and slowly up a mudbank as to lose her speed without any jerk perceptible. But she must have put her bows far up on the bank for the slope of the deck to be noticeable. There were more rending crashes as other shots from the shore struck home, a fresh hurrying and bustle as the fire parties ran to deal with the danger. Hard aground, and doomed to be slowly shot to pieces by those cursed forts, if the shots did not set them on fire to roast alive on the mudbank. Hornblower was beside him, his watch in his hand.
“Tide’s still rising,” he said. “It’s an hour before high water. But I’m afraid we’re pretty hard aground.”
Bush could only look at him and swear, pouring out filth from his mouth as the only means of relieving his overwrought feelings.
“Steady there, Duff!” yelled Hornblower, looking away from him at a gun’s crew gathered round their gun. “Swab that out properly! D’ye want your hands blown off when you load?”
By the time Hornblower looked round at Bush again the latter had regained his selfcontrol.
“An hour to high water, you say?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. According to Carberry’s calculations.”