at the sight. Full of confidence was I; such confidence as might have inspired the friends of Mr. Sayers when they anticipated the appearance of their champion against his herculean antagonist, or the backers of Mr. Mace in his encounter with an opponent still more overwhelming. With a heart therefore beaming with patriotism, and a pocket not devoid of sherry and sandwiches (for hunger reaches a long range), I betook myself on the appointed day to the retired village of Bexhill.
The platform at the Bexhill railway station is not an exciting spot. I have long hardened my heart against the appeals of Mr. Thorley; no amount of advertisements will ever persuade me to buy another gallon of parrafin oil; no letters of enormous size shall induce me to go to Brighton and back for half-a-crown. Cut off, therefore, from the only subjects of contemplation which presented themselves, I was vastly relieved by the arrival of “the special” from Dover, conveying two neat Armstrong guns of twelve pounds, each as trim as a London swell’s umbrella, and not much bigger; but with horses and men and officers, in numbers quite out of all apparent proportion to the engines to be employed.
It was soon very evident that my observations were not likely to be interrupted by the overcrowding of anxious spectators, for no one was present excepting a few small boys and one or two clergymen, those constant attendants upon all gratuitous exhibitions, from a fatal accident to a fantoccini-show. Fortunately, also, it now began to pour with rain, and continued to do so for the rest of the day. Fortunately, I say, because, by this means, curious and inquisitive individuals who might have been attracted by the presence of the military were kept in-doors, and I was also enabled to offer the shelter of my umbrella to a young officer of Engineers, who appeared to know more about the experiments to be made, than any one else; and from him I gathered the interesting information that the object of the day’s work was to test the power of a 12-pounder Armstrong, as a breaching-gun opposed to solid brickwork at a short range, in comparison. with; some similar experiments recently made in France with rifled cannons of the same calibre.
And now my mind began to waver. Was I most anxious that the English gun should beat the Frenchman, or that my old friend, the Martello tower, should maintain its character against the onslaught of the most powerful English weapon of modern warfare? I hardly know myself to what conclusion I arrived; but I think—I think that, on the whole, my sympathies were on the side of the tower. That bathing-machine mistake was still sticking in my throat.
In vain did we remain at the railway station in hopes that the rain would cease, or that the select committee of the Board of Ordnance who were to superintend the proceedings would arrive; each break in the clouds, each approaching fly, was regarded with the most intense interest, but with equal disappointment. The fine weather never came; the select committee never came, at any rate to the railway station. Certainly, in the course of the afternoon, two damp individuals were found seated on an empty hamper under the shelter of the tower, and these were reported to be the long-expected committee, select at least in their numbers, and it is to be hoped in their language too, for they must have gone through a great deal in the way of wind and rain before we arrived.
To reach the scene of action it was necessary to undertake a walk of about a mile and a-half along the sea-shore. Every one was wet through, but that did not matter: the guns were soon in position, and every preparation made for the attack from a distance of only seventy-one yards.
All was ready—the guns were pointed, and every eye was anxiously directed to the tower, on the top of which were observed—greatly to the surprise of the civilians at any rate—two individuals coolly watching our proceedings with the utmost indifference to the apparent danger of their situation.
“We are going to fire!” calls out the officer in command.
“Fire away!” replied the intrepid spectators whom he addressed.
I could have embraced those men with enthusiastic admiration. There were others besides myself who had confidence in the strength of the tower, who did not object to an Armstrong gun peppering away at seventy-one yards range, while they comfortably smoked their pipes in the interior. That one touch of nature made me feel considerably more than kin to them in a moment.
“Fire away!” was their reply. And we did fire away accordingly. Bang!—smash!—a good deal of smoke—a little brick-dust—a neat round hole about six inches in diameter, and there stood the sturdy little fort firm, defiant, and smiling. More smoke, more brick-dust, more neat round holes. Thirty-two rounds have been fired. The first part of the experiments is concluded; the tower does not look much the worse for it. We now begin anxiously to probe the wounds and measure their depth.
“What is the extreme penetration?” I asked.
“Twenty-six inches,” says the artilleryman in charge of the measuring-rod.
“And pray, sir, what was the extreme of penetration of the French rifled cannon at the same distance?” I inquire of my friend of the Engineers.
“Nearly four feet,” is the reply.
Upon which piece of information I immediately retired and found it necessary to catch a train which would be returning presently. I was not altogether easy in my mind at the idea of the Frenchman leaving us behind again; but I felt a certain inward satisfaction at the toughness of my little Martello.
The question in my mind was, is the unsuccessful result of the odious comparison with the French gun due to the inferiority of our cannon, or the impregnable strength of my tower?
To the strength of the tower, of course.
And with this assurance I went home and passed a good night’s rest with a perfect sense of security from invasion, and a full confidence in that form of defence which I hope never again to hear mistaken for bathing-machines.