Ship of Fire by Michael Cadnum

Drake, and I sensed that each of us felt caught in the midst of some unready act.
    Captain Foxcroft hurried up the steps to the side of his lord. We could all see his greeting, and hear, in our respectful hush, the word of explanation. “The surgeon’s mate, getting a whiff of gun smoke, Admiral, if it please you.”
    The Admiral Drake looked right into my eyes. Perhaps he remarked to himself the similarity in our coloring, both of us with the same red hair. He gave me a smile. This pleased me greatly, and I stood as straight as any man on deck. Then he took us all in with another glance before he spoke in a quiet voice.
    I caught the sound of Admiral Drake’s words, his accent like the folk of my home town near the River Tavy. “Yes, Captain Foxcroft,” he said, “give the men a taste of black powder.”
    â€œTouch it into the hole, there, in the breech of the gun,” whispered the master gunner with fresh excitement. “Now, young sir, if it please you. Right in there,” he added fervently, pointing with a gnarled, big-knuckled forefinger.
    Not me, I wanted to protest.
    Just then—with the storied sea-knight looking on, and every other crew member on the ship casting their eyes my way with envy and anticipation—I could not move.
    William leaned toward me. “Come on, Tom—it’s as easy as kiss-the-duchess,” he said with a wink.
    I hesitated, blowing nervously on the glowing wick. Jack Flagg smiled and rolled his eyes. I was grateful for the good humor of his mock-scowl: hurry!
    I stepped forward, wasting not a further moment, and I thrust the glowing wick into the touch hole.
    I held my breath.
    Nothing happened.
    I thrust the wick in farther, all the way in, my knuckles on the cold gold-brown bronze of the gun.

Chapter 19
    The next moment, I was lying flat on the wooden deck.
    In my surprise, I did not know why I was there. High above me loomed the mainmast, a sail billowing with the breeze, rigging taut and black against blue sky. I puzzled out what must have happened.
    A sick fear gripped me.
    I was coughing by then, the thick stink of sweet-acrid sulfur in my nostrils. I tried to lift my head but I could not control the sinews of my neck and arms. Even my eyes were failing me, stinging with the smoke. Jack was kneeling beside me, and seamen gazed down at me, their features creased with concern.
    I was nearly deaf, too, even as I struggled onto one elbow, and worked myself to my feet, Jack helping me. I read the words on his lips, but even then took a shaky moment to comprehend.
    An explosion.
    A gun had burst. The gun, the one I had fired.
    I understood this all now.
    I put my hands to my head, reassured to feel my skull in one piece. Jack was beseeching me to tell him if I was hurt badly. I could not answer, upright on my weak, unsteady legs. Like a drunkard far gone in wine I pieced together what I would say, some weak jest, as soon as I could move my lips.
    I groped across the deck through metal fragments that my hands and booted feet struck and knocked aside, bits of what looked like a bronze bell shattered and strewn about the planks. I did not know fully what I sought, or what person. I felt my way through the thick, parting smoke, and fell to my knees beside the stretched form of my master.
    I seized his hand and rubbed it, to work life into his pulse, as I had seen done by William himself in reviving a patient suffering a swoon. I tugged at his arm, and spoke, my voice muffled and strange in my own ears.
    I implored him to speak to me.
    Hands stretched out, other men coming to my aid, but I did not have a glance for them, or a thought. I bent down over my master hearing my own, foreign-sounding voice like a sound from many fathoms down, calling for him to look at me. I begged him to turn his eyes and look into mine. I put my hands on his chest, and on the pulse points of his neck, but my senses were too unsteady to be trusted, a ringing sound in