sea.
Hunter knew that a hurricane bore the same relation to a fierce storm that a wild wolf bore to a lapdog.
Before she could reply to his outburst, he turned away, leaning on a pastpin. He knew he was being too harsh; his own concerns were rightly not hers, and he had every reason to indulge her. She had been up all night treating the burned seamen, an act of great eccentricity for a well-born woman. He turned back to face her.
“Forgive me,” he said quietly. “Inquire of Enders, and he will make arrangements for you to go ashore, so that you can carry on the noble tradition of Ptolemy and Leonardo.”
He stopped.
“Captain?”
He stared into space.
“Captain, are you well?”
Abruptly, he walked away from her. “Don Diego!” he shouted. “Find me Don Diego!”
…
DON DIEGO ARRIVED in Hunter’s cabin to discover the captain drawing furiously on slips of paper. His desk was littered with sketches.
“I do not know if this will succeed,” Hunter said. “I have only heard of it. The Florentine, Leonardo, proposed it, but he was not heeded.”
“Soldiers do not attend an artist,” Don Diego said.
Hunter glowered at him. “Wisely or not,” he said.
Don Diego looked at the diagrams. Each showed a ship’s hull, drawn in profile from above, with lines running out from the sides of the hull. Hunter drew another.
“The idea is simple,” he said. “On an ordinary ship, each cannon has its own gun captain, who is responsible for the firing of that single gun.”
“Yes…”
“After the gun is loaded and run out, the gun captain crouches behind the barrel and sights the target. He orders his men with handspikes and side tackles to aim the gun as he thinks best. Then he orders his men to slide the wedge to set the elevation - again as his eye thinks best. Then he fires. This is the procedure for each individual gun.”
“Yes…” the Jew said. Don Diego had never actually seen a large cannon fired, but he was familiar with the general method of operation. Each gun was separately aimed, and a good gun captain, a man who could accurately judge the right angle and elevation of his cannon, was highly regarded. And rare.
“Now then,” Hunter said, “the usual method is parallel fire.” He drew parallel lines out from the sides of the ship on the paper. “Each gun fires and each captain prays that his shot will find its mark. But in truth, many guns will miss until the two ships are so close that almost any angle or elevation will hit the target. Let us say, when the ships are within five hundred yards. Yes?”
Don Diego nodded slowly.
“Now the Florentine made this proposal,” Hunter said, sketching a new ship. “He said, do not trust the gun captains to aim each volley. Instead, aim all the guns in advance of the battle. Look now what you achieve.”
He drew from the hull converging lines of fire, which came together at a single point in the water.
“You see? You concentrate the fire at one place. All your balls strike the target at the same point, causing great destruction.”
“Yes,” Don Diego said, “or all your balls miss the target and fall into the sea at the same point. Or all your balls strike the bowsprit or some other unimportant portion of the ship. I confess I do not see the value of your plan.”
“The value,” Hunter said, tapping the diagram, “lies in the way these guns are fired. Think: if they are pre- aimed, I can fire a volley with only one man to a gun - perhaps even one man for two guns. And if my target is within range, I know I will score a hit with each gun.”
The Jew, aware of Hunter’s short crew, clapped his hands together. “Of course,” he said. Then he frowned. “But what happens after the first volley?”
“The guns will run back from the recoil. I then collect all the men into a single gun crew, which moves from gun to gun, loading each and running it out again, to the predetermined marks. This can be done relatively quickly. If the men are trained, I could fire a second volley within ten minutes.”
“By then the other ship will have changed position.”
“Yes,” Hunter said. “It will be closer, inside my point. So the fire will be more spread, but still tight. You see?”
“And after the second volley?”
Hunter sighed. “I doubt that we will have more than two chances. If I have not sunk or disabled the warship in those two volleys, we shall surely lose the day.”
“Well,” the Jew said finally, “it is better than nothing.” His tone was not optimistic. In a sea battle, warring ships usually settled a contest with fifty broadsides or more. Two well-matched ships with disciplined crews might fight the better part of a day, exchanging more than a hundred broadsides. Two volleys seemed trivial.
“It is,” Hunter said, “unless we can strike the aft castle, or the magazine and shot-hold.”
Those were the only truly vulnerable points on a warship. The aft castle carried all the ship’s officers, the helmsman, and the rudder. A solid hit there would leave the ship without guidance. The shot-hold and magazine in the bow would explode the warship in a moment.
Neither point was easily hit. To aim far forward or aft increased the likelihood of a harmless miss by all cannon.
“The problem is our aim,” the Jew said. “You will set your marks by gunnery practice, here in the harbor?”
Hunter nodded.
“But how will you aim, once at sea?”
“That is exactly why I have sent for you. I must have an instrument for sighting, to line the ship up with the enemy. It is a question of geometry, and I no longer remember my studies.”
With his fingerless left hand, the Jew scratched his nose. “Let me think,” he said, and left the cabin.
…
ENDERS, THE UNFLAPPABLE sea artist, had a rare moment of discomposure. “You want what?” he said.
“I want to set all thirty-two cannon on the port side,” Hunter repeated.
“She’ll list to port like a pregnant sow,” Enders said. The very idea seemed to offend his sense of propriety and good seamanship.
“I’m sure she will be ungainly,” Hunter said. “Can you still sail her?”
“After a fashion,” Enders said. “I could sail the Pope’s coffin with m’lady’s dinner napkin. After a fashion.” He sighed. “Of course,” he said, “you’ll shift the cannon once we’re in open water.”
“No,” Hunter said. “I’ll shift them here, in the bay.”
Enders sighed again. “So you want to clear the reef with your pregnant sow?”
“Yes.”
“That means cargo topside,” Enders said, staring into space. “We’ll move those cases in the hold up on the starboard railing and lash them there. It’ll help some, but then we are top-heavy as well as off-trim. She’ll roll like a cork in a swell. Make the devil’s own job to fire those guns.”
“I’m only asking if you can sail her.”
There was a long silence. “I can sail her,” Enders said finally. “I can sail her just as pretty as you wish. But you better get her back in trim before that storm hits. She won’t last ten minutes in weather.”
“I know that,” Hunter said.
The two men looked at each other. While they sat, they heard a reverberating rumble overhead, as the first of the starboard cannon was shifted to the port side.
“You play long odds,” Enders said.
“They are the only odds I have,” Hunter replied.
Firing commenced in the early afternoon. A piece of white sailcloth was set five hundred yards away, on the shore, and the cannon were fired individually until they struck the target. The positions were marked on the deck
