Free Ship of Fire by Michael Cadnum Page B

gray-haired gunner seeking permission, the captain considering. William joined in with excited pleasure, gesturing toward the guns on the main deck.
    Most of our ship’s cannon were arrayed on the gun deck below, the gunports closed tight against the heaving of the sea. A few of the more slender, pretty weapons gleamed on the main deck, however, and Jack Flagg was giving one of these cast-bronze guns a possessive wipe with a fine white rag.
    At last the captain gave a nod of assent.
    We were well out to sea, the fleet trailing far behind, England already a receding shadow of land. The morning sun was warm, but in the shadow of mast and sail the air was bitterly cold.
    I stayed beside my master, both of us just out of the way of the gunners. “Something about the whiff of gunpowder,” William was saying, “has always set my pulse beating fast. How about you, Tom—don’t you love a great noise?”
    I had seen the bombards fired on feast days, and reveled in the amounts of smoke the cannon made. In truth, I had always considered myself a young man who loved the reports of such war engines, along with drums and the minstrel’s pipe.
    But this morning I felt the slightest fever of anxiety, some ill-humor quickening in me, and making me wish for calm and quiet. I didn’t want to dampen my master’s boyish joy in anticipating the gunfire, however. “Nothing, sir, pleases me so much as a deafening noise,” I joked, my feet planted wide against the restless sea.
    The long, narrow gun I had observed the day before—the one that had nearly been damaged in an accident—glinted brighter than ever in the sunlight. The master gunner fed the round opening at the end of the barrel with a carefully measured amount of blue-black powder.
    Jack used a long wooden rod to tamp this powder into place, and then forced a wad of cloth after it, running the rod in and out. A small shot, no bigger than a quail’s egg, was set into the mouth. So closely did this ball fit the circumference of the barrel that careful effort was required to force it all the way down. The master gunner himself tapped the rod home to satisfy himself that the gun was well charged.
    â€œThe worst thing in a gun is windage,” my master explained to me knowingly. “That’s the space between the ball and the inside of the gun. Too much windage and the shot flies feebly.”
    â€œIf the gentleman would be pleased,” said Ross, giving my master a nod. He indicated a smoking wick, held by one of the mates, a smoldering, glowing stub of knotted fiber the man blew on to keep alive.
    â€œIt would please me,” said William, “if Tom here would be allowed the honor.”
    Ross Bagot looked at me with a ponderous dignity, a glimmer of good humor in his eyes. “Are you sure this young gentleman,” asked the master gunner, “is equal to the task?”
    â€œAnything I could do,” said William, “young Thomas here could do with the same steady hand.”
    The master gunner smiled.
    I hesitated, like anyone of good sense, before such a momentous act. But I did not stay my hand for more than a heartbeat or two. I accepted the glowing wick, and heard the gunner’s instructions even as I braced myself for what I knew would be a very loud report.
    But then the gray-haired gunner gripped my arm.
    He hissed into my ear, “Stand straight!”
    Feet shuffled as an air of respectful quiet—even nervous fear—swept the men. I stood as squarely and calmly as I could, my eyes searching for the cause of this sudden alarm.
    A gentleman in a scarlet doublet gazed down at us from the quarterdeck.
    He surveyed us for a long moment.
    He wore a closely trimmed red beard, and sported yellow kid gloves on his hands, a gold-knobbed sword at his hip. Many of the men had seized their caps from the deck and thrust them onto their heads, a show of respect. Every one of us recognized Admiral