Chapter 9

Outside Factorium

Hortensius scrutinized the percussion cap and fuse assembly inside the cone of the shell. His calloused hands, stained with grease and gunpowder, made minute adjustments as he muttered under his breath. Around him, his team of assistants peered over his shoulder as he finished examining their work.

“The wire seems to be under a lot of tension,” Hortensius said, pointing at the device inside the nose of the shell.

The setup was actually quite simple. A percussion cap with a wire above it holding a striker. The theory, according to the Consul’s notes, was that on impact, the wire would bend enough to allow the striker to hit the percussion cap, which would, in turn, detonate the gunpowder in the body of the shell. A wooden dowel extended from the side to a grooved, circular piece of the shell body. When turned in one direction, it held the striker in place, so it didn’t get jostled and hit the percussion cap while in transport.

To Hortensius’s eye, however, it looked as if the wire was too taut and did not have a lot of give to it.

“The ranges in the Consul’s notes were imprecise, or at least were very wide,” one of his aides said. “There were notes that said we would have to make adjustments based on testing, as the quality of the gunpowder made it impossible to estimate the exact tension needed. We were concerned that the initial kick of the round being fired would be enough to cause it to strike prematurely, so we opted for the high end of his range.”

“But it should be enough to go off upon impact, yes?”

“We believe so,” the aide said.

Hortensius did not find his tone convincing, but that was what this test was for, after all.

“Well, I guess there’s one way to find out,” he said, stepping back.

His men quickly reassembled the shell and carried it to the waiting howitzer, which had been designed to fire remotely using a pull cord and fuse assembly of its own, with the men in a trench quite a distance away for safety. Carrying the round to the weapon, they turned the safety wedge at the front, which would allow the striker to hang free, and slid the shell into the artillery tube before running back to join him and the rest of the observers in the observation trench.

“Now’s the moment of truth,” he said as another assistant gathered up the pull cord and looked to him for approval.

There was a brief moment of silence after the assistant tugged the rope; then the cannon boomed and the round sailed downrange. Hortensius viewed the landing area through one of the newest spyglasses, watching as the shell smashed into the ground, sending up a geyser of dirt and debris.

And then nothing.

They all waited, watching the round sit there, half-buried in the dirt, doing nothing. Hortensius lowered his spyglass and turned to his assistants, a rare frown on his face.

“I don’t know what happened,” the aide said, looking past him nervously at where the test shell sat, unexploded.

“Someone’s got to go retrieve it so we can examine it to determine what happened,” Hortensius said.

The men all looked at each other. They knew he was right, but none of them wanted to be the one to actually go out and retrieve the weapon. The safety was removed and it had impacted. There was no telling how unstable the round was.

After a long stretch of everyone trying to avoid his gaze, Hortensius said, “Fine, I’ll do it myself.”

Instantly, his team erupted in protest.

“No, you can’t. It’s too risky and you’re too important,” one of his assistants said.

“I appreciate that, but someone has to check on the round, and if no one else will do it, it’s my project, so I am responsible,” he said, turning to walk up the ramp out of the trench.

“I’ll do it,” one of the younger men on the team said, pushing past him.

Hortensius couldn’t help but feel a twinge of guilt. They were all good men and he knew he was pushing them so that one of them would put himself in danger.

But it had to be done.

The lad made his way through the testing field, past craters and divots from past tests, cautious as he approached the unexploded shell. The men around Hortensius all seemed to hold their breath, waiting to see if their young friend would be ripped to pieces if the shell finally exploded.

But it didn’t. He reached the shell and knelt beside it. Hortensius hadn’t been specific, but he was a smart lad and began disassembling it there, instead of trying to haul the entire shell, and the danger it represented, back with him. They watched as his hands moved over the shell, removing its cap carefully before finally standing up and lugging the heavy metal nose of the projectile back with him.

The boy was covered in sweat when he made his way back, and Hortensius was sure it wasn’t just from the exertion.

“Let’s have a look,” he said as they sat the artillery cap in front of him.

The wire had bowed slightly, but not enough for the striker to hit, dangling just above the primer cap.

“Well, that doesn’t work, does it? It looks like we went a little too far on the amount of tension we put on the wire.”

“No, Master Hortensius, it doesn’t,” an aide said. “We can adjust it now and try again.”

“You don’t have any of the precision tools with us to do that,” Hortensius pointed out.

“I think I can get it to the correct balance,” the man said.

Hortensius considered it. There was a risk there, for sure, but the setup was specifically the way it was because testing any new shells was dangerous. And taking it back to the shop and retooling the test shells and trying to test them internally would add more days. If they could get it right now, they could move it to production faster, and get the new shells out to the Consul in time to be useful.

“Fine. Go ahead.”

The young man pulled out tools and began working on the shell cap, removing the striker and wire, putting in a new wire and carefully adjusting the tension, testing it with his finger and adjusting it several times. It was slow, careful work, and the man stayed amazingly focused, considering his boss plus many of his peers were watching him closely.

“Done,” he said, stepping back.

“Good. Attach it to a new shell and let’s test it.”

The men all sprang into action, reattaching the shell cap and securing it, making sure the safety screw was in place and set. Hortensius stayed where he was, letting his men work, carrying the shell back over to the howitzer, unlocking the safety, and sliding it into place.

The Consul had said that there were better methods for both detonation and more stable gunpowder that would make something like the safety mechanism unnecessary, but as it was, there was real worry about a strong jostle bending the wire and setting off the primer. Which could be catastrophic if it was stored with other rounds.

So, for now, they would have to work with this safety mechanism and look forward to days of more reliable munitions.

His men reattached the firing cord and scurried back to the trench, jumping into it and getting into position. Seeing that everyone was ready, his assistant pulled the cord.

It was as if the world exploded as the howitzer literally ripped itself to pieces, the concussive wave knocking some of them back, even though they were standing in the trench. Thankfully, everyone had ducked down, looking downrange, and no one was injured aside from a few bumps and bruises, but Hortensius was sure his ears would be ringing for several days as the sound around him was muted somewhat following the terrific explosion.

“Is everyone alright?” the manufacturer asked, helping some of his men to their feet.

When it was clear that everyone was alright, they hurried out of the trench to examine the gun. The barrel was ripped open like a peeled fruit. It didn’t require much to figure out what had happened, all eyes turning to the aide who’d wired the fuse assembly.

“I’m sorry, the tension must have been too light,” he said, almost sheepishly.

“It’s fine, son,” Hortensius said, placing his hand on the man’s shoulder. “It might not have been possible to get it exact. I hate to say it, but we are not going to be able to wing our way to a solution, as the Consul likes to say. Let’s gather all of this up and take it back to the factory to examine. I believe we’re going to have to do a lot more small-scale studies before we attempt to take it to the test phase again.”

The men didn’t have to be told twice, hopping to their jobs as they began to collect debris so they could, hopefully, reassemble everything and determine at what point the explosion happened, and if the shell had traveled down the tube at all or blown on the instant of contact. They knew how much powder was in the weapon, which meant they should be able to determine how close they had been to getting the projectile out before it exploded, which might give them an idea of the baseline of how far off they were.

What was certain, though, was that the Consul wasn’t getting his projectiles anytime soon.

Carthage

It was dark but not really late, and yet the streets of Carthage were almost completely deserted, a sign of the chilling effect of Eoghan’s curfews. No one dared stop her, although that was most likely due more to Claudius’s presence than her own. While she liked the mystique that her position gave her, and the extra fear it put behind her name, it did make cowing the average praetorian harder.

She didn’t bring Claudius along to ease her passage, however. She’d sent him on an errand the day after they arrived in Carthage, and he’d finally come through. Or so she hoped.