Читать книгу The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism (Vol. 1-4). The History of Sea Voyages, Discovery, Piracy and Maritime Warfare онлайн

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When 400 pieces of artillery were playing on the rock at the same moment, Elliott returned the compliment with a shower of red-hot balls, bombs, and carcases, that filled the air, with little or no intermission. The Count d’Artois had hastened from Paris to witness a capitulation. He arrived in time to see the total destruction of the floating batteries and a large part of the combined fleet. Attempting a somewhat feeble joke, he wrote to France:—“La batterie la plus effective était ma batterie de cuisine.” Elliott’s cooking-apparatus and “roasted balls” beat it all to nothing. Red-hot shot has been entirely superseded in “civilised” warfare by shells. It was usually handled much in the same way that ordinary shot and shell is to-day. Each ball was carried by two men, having between them a strong iron frame, with a ring in the middle to hold it. There were two heavy wads, one dry and the other slightly damped, between the powder and ball. At the siege of Gibraltar, however, matters were managed in a much more rough-and-ready style. The shot was heated at furnaces and wheeled off to the guns in wheelbarrows lined with sand.