“I could scarce believe my ears, Captain,” says my papa, “when I heard that you had signed the assurance given by your comrades of our sufficiency of munitions.”
“You can’t blame me more than I blame myself, sir,” said the Captain. “’Twas an unpardonable piece of confidence in me to take Captain Minchin’s word for the amount of the stores, without regarding their quality and condition.”
“Then you are satisfied as to the quantities mentioned, Captain?”
“By no means, sir. When my suspicions were first roused after signing the assurance, and I asked of Captain Minchin how he had prevailed upon Captain Witherington to make his returns so promptly, he told me with the greatest coolness in the world that Witherington had failed to send in any accounts at all, so that he himself had done his best to estimate what we ought to have in hand, and had assured us of possessing it.”
“Witherington ought to be hanged!” says Mr Freyne.
“Indeed, sir,” says Mr Holwell, “the poor gentleman is a most laborious, active creature. It en’t his fault that his intellects are confused by all these sudden events. With a commander that would keep an eye on him, and see that he did his duty, we should have in him an excellent good officer.”
“We don’t possess such a commander in Mr Drake,” said the Captain, “for Witherington finds all his complaints allowed, and en’t forced to do anything. Captain Minchin assured me that when he represented to the President the danger of leaving the whole charge of the Train in the care of such a man, all the answer he received was that Witherington was such a strange unaccountable creature that his honour could do nothing with him.”
“Yet the fellow makes more noise and bustle about doing nothing than the Council themselves,” said my papa. “So you have examined the stores, Captain?”
“I have, sir, if indeed they’re worthy to be called stores. There’s but three hundred and fifty barrels of powder, and the most of that bad, no bombs nor grenadoes, except a few spoiled shells that will do more damage to us than the enemy; the grape is all eaten up with worms, and there’s no cartridges ready.”
“And the guns,” says Mr Holwell, “are still without carriages, and the embrasures broken down, while any gunner that’s fool enough to try to work his piece on the Fort walls will go through the roof into the chambers below.”