He had reached the far end of the foundry, and passing through a double door and then across the narrow lane he brought his visitors into an even larger building. It was an arms depot. Here were rack upon rack of sabres and muskets, trays of pistols, bundles of pikes and an array of blunderbusses. Clusters of bandoliers hung on pegs, and disposed here and there on the floor were heaps of body armour, corselets, greaves, and helmets of many different styles and in varying condition. ‘The Emperor hates to have any war material thrown away,’ confided the gun founder. ‘Half of this stuff is so antiquated as to be useless, like that arquebus over there. But when Moulay comes on an inspection he’ll suddenly ask to see some piece of equipment which he remembers from months earlier, and there’s all hell to pay if it can’t be produced immediately. You there!’ He called out to a lad who was replacing an old-fashioned Spanish helmet in a chest. ‘Don’t put it in like that. Wrap it first in paper so it keeps its gleam.’ Hector noted that the gun founder had spoken in English. ‘Does everyone in the foundry use English?’ he asked. ‘I should hope so,’ answered the Irishman. ‘I’ve got a score of youngsters working here for me, and every one of them is English. It’s another quirk of Moulay’s. Every time his people capture an English youngster, the lad is assigned to work with me in the Arsenal. My guess is that Moulay thinks the English make the best gun founders and gunsmiths.’
‘And do they?’ Hector enquired.
‘Depends who you speak to. The French gun foundries at Liège are among the most advanced in the world, and the Spaniards would claim that they make the finest musket locks. The Italians write well about the theory of gunnery; while the Dutch are great innovators. And from what I witnessed in the Grand Seignor’s foundry outside Istanbul, I can assure you that the Turkish topcus as they call their gun founders are no slouches.’
They entered a room, clearly Allen’s office, which was partitioned off from the rest of the armoury. Looking around, Hector noticed a shelf of books and pamphlets on the art of gun founding and the manufacture of powder and rockets. Sean Allen carefully closed the door of the study behind them, opened a cupboard and took out a large green glass flask and several glasses. ‘One of the privileges of my post,’ he explained, as he removed the stopper from the flask and began to pour. ‘It’s a blessing that the making of incendiaries can require spirits of alcohol. Take the repair of spoilt gunpowder, its restoration as you might call it. We get a great quantity of bad gunpowder brought to us. Either it got wet while on campaign with the Emperor’s army, or maybe it was captured out of some foreign ship and we find that it got damp from lying in a ship’s hold for too long. The Emperor is very pleased to receive such tribute, but unless the gunpowder is repaired it is useless. So what do we do?’
The gun founder took a gulp from his glass, walked over to the bookshelf, and took down a volume. It was written in Latin and entitled The Great Art of Artillery. Clearly Allen was an educated man.
‘It’s all written up here,’ continued the gunsmith. ‘We make up an elixir of two parts brandy with one measure each of white wine vinegar and purified saltpetre, and add half measures of oils of sulphur and samphire. Then we sprinkle the elixir over the damaged powder and put it out in the sun to dry. When the powder is completely dried out we package it again in barrels, and place it in dry store. Then it’s as good as new.’ He closed the book with a snap and took another mouthful of his drink. ‘Of course there’s always brandy left over, and it’s amazing what a thirst a man works up when he is in the heat of a gun foundry.’
Noticing that Hector had barely touched his glass of brandy he went on, ‘Drink up! Surely you’re not an abstainer. That would be a disappointment, what with your coming from the old country.’
‘No,’ replied Hector, ‘Dan and I did profess Islam when we were slaves in Algiers but that was under duress. And anyhow we saw plenty of Turks who came to drink in the bagnio’s taverns. Neither of us care much for religion.’
‘Very understandable. Half the captives here in Morocco take up Islam just to make life more bearable. It’s mostly the fanatics who refuse.’ The gun founder produced paper and pen from his desk. ‘Now, give me a description of the mortar that you saw on the galley.’
‘Maybe it will be easier if Dan draws a picture of it for you,’ suggested Hector. ‘He’s good with pen and ink.’
‘All right, then,’ answered Allen, handing the pen to the Miskito and he watched as Dan quickly sketched out the mortar and its sledge. ‘Ah! I see the fault. The gun carriage was wrong. If it had been designed so that the mortar rolled back when it was fired, and was not pinned in place, it would not have shattered the foredeck. Perhaps a rocker or a curved slope to absorb the recoil would have done the trick.’ Taking back the pen from Dan, he quickly drew an improved gun carriage. ‘That’s one problem likely solved,’ he said, ‘but that’s not what the Emperor wants. He’s after those exploding bombs, and as noisy and spectacular as possible. Can you tell me anything about them?’
‘They were about twelve inches in diameter and a perfect globe,’ answered Hector, ‘except for the hole where they were filled and fused. At that point there was a collar like the neck of your brandy flask though much shorter. The globes were already packed with gunpowder when they were loaded on the galley, but if one of them needed topping up, we poured in more gunpowder through the hole, then plugged it with one of the fuses.’ He went on to describe the different fuses that were tested, and finally added, ‘The bombs had small handles on each side of the fuse so when Karp and I were loading them into the mortar, we could get a grip to lift them. Each bomb must have weighed maybe forty pounds.’
Allen looked pensive. ‘I imagine the hollow globes were cast, and not made from wrought iron. Cast iron bursts with more destructive power, throwing smaller shards of metal and doing more damage. But the thickness of the wall of the globe has to be just right, and the gunpowder inside calculated nicely, as well as being of the highest quality.’ He sighed, ‘And that is going to be my main problem here. Getting hold of the right powder to make the bombs. As I said, much of the stuff we hold in stock here is repaired powder, and that would never do.’
‘I worked in a quarry once, in Algiers,’ ventured Hector, ‘and I remember how the ordinary corned powder was unreliable. The powder we used on the galley to top up the bombs, as well as for the charges inside the mortar, was fine-grained and very black.’
‘Would you recognise it again if you saw it?’ asked Allen.
‘I think so.’
‘Then come with me,’ said the gun founder. ‘You others can stay here and pour yourselves some more drinks. We won’t be long.’
Allen took Hector to a low, squat, windowless building, half sunk in the ground and made with immensely thick walls of stone. Unlocking a heavy wooden door, he led the young Irishman inside the gunpowder magazine. It was two-thirds empty, with perhaps a hundred barrels and kegs of gunpowder set out on the earth floor.