twenty minutes past four
It was , therefore , earnestly urged that this man be instantly removed ; and in order that this might be done , the discharge of the motor-bomb would be postponed half an hour . The officer received this message , and was disposed to look upon it as a new trick ; but as no time was to be lost , he sent a corporal 's guard to the fort , and there discovered an Irish sergeant by the name of Kilsey , who had sworn an oath that if every other man in the fort ran away like a lot of addle-pated sheep , he would not run with them ; he would stand to his post to the last , and when the couple of ships outside had got through bombarding the stout walls of the fort , the world would see that there was at least one British soldier who was not afraid of a bomb , be it little or big . Therefore he had managed to elude observation , and to remain behind . The sergeant was so hot-headed in his determination to stand by the fort , that it required violence to remove him ; and it was not until twenty minutes past four that the Syndicate observers perceived that he had been taken to the hill behind which the garrison was encamped . As it had been decided that Repeller No. 2 should discharge the next instantaneous motor-bomb , there was an anxious desire on the part of the operators on that vessel that in this , their first experience , they might do their duty as well as their comrades on board the other repeller had done theirs . The most accurate observations , the most careful calculations , were made and re-made , the point to be aimed at being about the centre of the fort . The motor-bomb had been in the cannon for nearly an hour , and everything had long been ready , when at precisely thirty minutes past four o'clock the signal to discharge came from the Director-in-chief ; and in four seconds afterwards the index on the scale indicated that the gun was in the proper position , and the button was touched .