“Sir! Sir! Will you try a ranging shot at the batteries when your guns bear?”

Bush ran a cold eye over him.

“Whose orders?” he asked.

“M—Mr. Buckland’s, sir.”

“Then say so. Very well. My respects to Mr. Buckland, and it will be a long time before my guns are within range.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

There was smoke rising from the fort, and not powder smoke either. Bush realised with something like a quiver of apprehension that probably it was smoke from a furnace for heating shot; soon the fort would be hurling redhot shot at them, and Bush could see no chance of retaliation; he would never be able to elevate his guns sufficiently to reach the fort, while the fort, from its commanding position on the crest, could reach the ship easily enough. He straightened himself up and walked over to the port side to where Hornblower, in a similar attitude, was peering out beside a gun.

“There’s a point running out here,” said Hornblower. “See the shallows there? The channel must bend round them. And there’s a battery on the point—look at the smoke. They’re heating shot.”

“I daresay,” said Bush.

Soon they would be under a sharp crossfire. He hoped they would not be subjected to it for too long. He could hear orders being shouted on deck, and the masts creaked as the yards came round; they were working the Renown round the bend.

“The fort’s opened fire, sir,” reported the master’s mate in charge of the forward guns on the starboard side.

“Very well, Mr. Purvis.” He crossed over and looked out. “Did you see where the shot fell?”

“No, sir.”

“They’re firing on this side, too, sir,” reported Hornblower.

“Very well.”

Bush saw the fort spurting white cannon smoke. Then straight in the line between his eye and the fort, fifty yards from the side of the ship, a pillar of water rose up from the golden surface, and within the same instant of time something crashed into the side of the ship just above Bush’s head. A ricochet had bounded from the surface and had lodged somewhere in the eighteen inches of oak that constituted the ship’s side. Then followed a devil’s tattoo of crashes; a wellaimed salvo was striking home.

“I might just reach the battery on this side now, sir,” said Hornblower.

“Then try what you can do.”

Now here was Buckland himself, hailing fretfully down the hatchway.

“Can’t you open fire yet, Mr. Bush?”

“This minute, sir.”

Hornblower was standing by the centre twentyfourpounder. The gun captain slid the rolling handspike under the gun carriage, and heaved with all his weight. Two men at each side tackle tugged under his direction to point the gun true. With the elevating coign quite free from the breech the gun was at its highest angle of elevation. The gun captain flipped up the iron apron over the touchhole, saw that the hole was filled with powder, and with a shout of “Stand clear” he thrust his smouldering linstock into it. The gun bellowed loud in the confined space; some of the smoke came drifting back through the port.

“Just below, sir,” reported Hornblower, standing at the next port. “When the guns are hot they’ll reach it.”

“Carry on, then.”

“Open fire, first division!” yelled Hornblower.

The four foremost guns crashed out almost together.

“Second division!”

Bush could feel the deck heaving under him with the shock of the discharge and the recoil. Smoke came billowing back into the confined space, acrid, bitter; and the din was paralysing.

“Try again, men!” yelled Hornblower. “Division captains, see that you point true!”

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.”

“God help us’”

“My shot’s just reaching the battery on that point, sir. If I can keep the embrasures swept I’ll slow their rate of fire even if I don’t silence them.”

Another crash as a shot struck home, and another.

“But the one across the channel’s out of range.”

“Yes,” said Hornblower.

The powder boys were running through all the bustle with fresh charges for the guns. And here was the messenger-midshipman threading his way through them.

“Mr. Bush, sir! Will you please report to Mr. Buckland, sir? And we’re aground, under fire, sir.”

“Shut your mouth. I leave you in charge here, Mr. Hornblower.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

The sunlight on the quarterdeck was blinding. Buckland was standing hatless at the rail, trying to control the working of his features. There was a roar and a spluttering of steam as someone turned the jet of a hose on a fiery fragment lodged in the bulkhead. Dead men in the scuppers; wounded being carried off. A shot, or the splinters it had sent flying, must have killed the man at the wheel so that the ship, temporarily out of control, had run aground.

“We have to kedge off,” said Buckland.

“Aye aye, sir.”

That meant putting out an anchor and heaving in on the cable with the capstan to haul the ship off the mud by main force. Bush looked round him to confirm what he had gathered regarding the ship’s position from his restricted view below. Her bows were on the mud; she would have to be hauled off stern first. A shot howled close overhead, and Bush had to exert his selfcontrol not to jump.