portfire

The Collector nodded to Ford who was standing by with the portfire.

He inspected it carefully, waiting for the pitch to cool,then gently pressed the portfire.

Sharpe looked through the hole in the wall and saw the gunner carrying the portfire to the barrel.

He could smell the gunsmoke, though, and he saw the red portfire move as the gunner put it aside.

Another gunner had snatched up the portfire.

Fifteen minutes was themaximum burning time for a portfire, and fifteen minutes, sixteen by now, had elapsed.

As soon as he had fitted them he put a square of canvas over each one, the portfire sticking up through a slit in the centre.

Sharpe plucked the portfire from its barrel and blew on its burning tip till the fuse glowed a brilliant red.

No, he'd have to use a barrel, jamming the long cylindrical tube of the portfire into the bung-hole,then wedging each barrel among the bags of powder.

Early powder burning fuses had to be loaded fuse down to be ignited by firing or a portfire put down the barrel to light the fuse.

Edwards inspected the pitch in case it was too hot,then gently poured some on to the marline wound round the portfire in the bung-hole, filling up the circular depression.

A quill filled with a finely mealed powder stuck from the cannon's touch-hole, and a portfire smoked and fizzed inside a protective barrel at the back of the gunpit.

And the little minichure cannon I had had such a little bitty touchhole that didn't nobody make primers for it, you had to use a portfire or a kitchen match, mostly."

Then he ordered Ram to serve out the reddest shot he could find in the furnace, watched it loaded and, motioning the pensioners back, himself took the portfire and touched it to the vent.

He cut out the circle with the scissors and then with the same preoccupied air of a schoolboy pushing a pencil through a square of paper, slipped the portfire into the hole, making sure it was a tight fit.

No shots had come for a long time and their own infantry had made a perfunctory search, and the French were probably feeling safer, for the gunner foolishly tried to revive the portfire by whipping it back and forth a couple of times until its tip glowed a brighter red.

He then wound on more turns of marline, pushing them down with the pricker, and poured on more pitch, using the pricker to shape it so that when it set there would be a little mountain of pitch stuck up on the barrel with the portfire sticking out in place of a peak.

Three men stood round the gunner's mate holding leather buckets of water and each with strict orders to douse the powder-filled barrels at a word from Edwards, who picked up one of the pieces of leather and, standing a portfire on it, marked out the circular shape of its base using the tip of the brass pricker.

He worked his index finger in the powder until he made a cavity three inches deep, picked up the portfire and pushed it through the leather washer and into the powder until the portfire stuck up out of the bung-hole like a candle on a cake.