JК
Sharpes Siege :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 165 из 223The timbers were levered and sawn fromthe village houses, notched to take the howitzer’s trunnions, then wedged solid with wooden quoins. Now, angling up to the sky, they would arc their shells high over the walls. Or so the theory went.
The problems, apart from the shifting and settling of the timbers beneath the hammer blows of each shot, were twofold. First, the gunner must precisely gauge the weight of powder that would send the ball neatly into the courtyard of the Teste de Buch. A quarter ounce too much would send the shell searing far beyond the enemy. Second, the duration of the ball’s flight had to be estimated and one of the five fuses selected as appropriate. It was a science fleshed out with instinct, and the very first guesses of the French artillery colonel were a tribute to his experience.
He ordered five ounces of powder used, far less than a mortar would take for the same distance, and he selected the middle fuse. The first gun, firing its experimental shot, hammered down into the timbers and squirted a quoin loose, but the colonel, watching the tiny trace of smoke from the burning fuse, saw the shell arc sweetly towards the fort, then fall, faster and faster, to provoke a cracking, dirty-smoked explosion in the very centre of the enemy.
The shell was a sphere of cast-iron filled with powder. When the fuse burned to the powder, the shell exploded and fragments of iron whistled out to fill a circle, twenty yards in diameter, with possible death. The shells dropped almost vertically.
“Take cover!” Sharpe shouted through the smoke.
Two men were down, one screaming and clutching his belly, the other motionless.
A second shell hit the ramparts, bounced, and trickled down the stone ramp. Sharpe waited for the explosion.
A third shell tore through the rafters of the garrison’s offices and exploded on the upper floor. Lieutenant Fytch, shooting out of the door like a rabbit pursued by a ferret, shouted for water.
The fourth shell buried itself in the ashes and blackened timber of the burned barracks and vented those relics up and out as it coughed its dark explosion.
“We’ve got one dead, sir!” A Rifleman pointed to the second shell which had come to rest on the ramp. No smoke came from the reed which held the fuses, but Sharpe had seen such things explode quite inexplicably.
“Stay clear of it!”
There was a pause in which, Sharpe knew, the enemy was realigning the guns and ladling black powder into the swabbed barrels. Sharpe was furious with himself. For some reason he had not anticipated mortar fire and the shock of it stunned him.
The problems, apart from the shifting and settling of the timbers beneath the hammer blows of each shot, were twofold. First, the gunner must precisely gauge the weight of powder that would send the ball neatly into the courtyard of the Teste de Buch. A quarter ounce too much would send the shell searing far beyond the enemy. Second, the duration of the ball’s flight had to be estimated and one of the five fuses selected as appropriate. It was a science fleshed out with instinct, and the very first guesses of the French artillery colonel were a tribute to his experience.
He ordered five ounces of powder used, far less than a mortar would take for the same distance, and he selected the middle fuse. The first gun, firing its experimental shot, hammered down into the timbers and squirted a quoin loose, but the colonel, watching the tiny trace of smoke from the burning fuse, saw the shell arc sweetly towards the fort, then fall, faster and faster, to provoke a cracking, dirty-smoked explosion in the very centre of the enemy.
The shell was a sphere of cast-iron filled with powder. When the fuse burned to the powder, the shell exploded and fragments of iron whistled out to fill a circle, twenty yards in diameter, with possible death. The shells dropped almost vertically.
“Take cover!” Sharpe shouted through the smoke.
Two men were down, one screaming and clutching his belly, the other motionless.
A second shell hit the ramparts, bounced, and trickled down the stone ramp. Sharpe waited for the explosion.
A third shell tore through the rafters of the garrison’s offices and exploded on the upper floor. Lieutenant Fytch, shooting out of the door like a rabbit pursued by a ferret, shouted for water.
The fourth shell buried itself in the ashes and blackened timber of the burned barracks and vented those relics up and out as it coughed its dark explosion.
“We’ve got one dead, sir!” A Rifleman pointed to the second shell which had come to rest on the ramp. No smoke came from the reed which held the fuses, but Sharpe had seen such things explode quite inexplicably.
“Stay clear of it!”
There was a pause in which, Sharpe knew, the enemy was realigning the guns and ladling black powder into the swabbed barrels. Sharpe was furious with himself. For some reason he had not anticipated mortar fire and the shock of it stunned him.