Inferno (6 page)

He had a light cord tied to his trouser belt at the back, which he used to pull in an oilskin bundle floating on a pig's bladder. It contained a warm jacket, a short spade and a pick.

Throwing a quick reassuring wave, he crunched forward, sizing up the task.

The ship lay sagging and spiritless, the ribs gaunt and jagged, weed slimed and decayed. The decks had long since collapsed and the timbers been driven clear; the outline of the frames was now stark and unrelieved. Stirk moved past the beached hull towards the bow and entered the cave proper. It was dim and stank richly of seaweed and brine. Every step on the shards and pebbles echoed sharply.

He shivered: up this far he might be coming on the bones of long-dead sailors – or, worse, trespassing on the haunt of mermaids and sirens. Every nerve on edge, Stirk fought down his fears and entered the wreck through the skeletal ribs. It was almost unrecognisable, a jumble of anonymous weathered timbers and decay above the tide-line and below it more of the same, green-slimed.

He stumbled about inside, looking for anything that could bring life to the remains, but it was quite bare. The ship's bottom timbers curved away and he made out foot-waling above it; the decks overhead were completely gone. The wreck had been scoured clean.

It was a bitter blow. Here and there were shapeless, encrusted masses but a few exploratory blows with the edge
of the spade showed them to be mast stumps, the iron of fittings, a tangle of heavy cable nearly eaten away – nothing resembling a treasure chest.

Shuddering with the bite of the wind he stumped about, trying to think. It was no good hacking at the wreck – these were the last vestiges, the hold and bottom timbers. Nothing more was below it.

If anything had fallen out, could it be on the tiny beach next to the remains? He clambered out and at random attacked the hard-packed silty sand and rock fragments.

Half an hour's solid work revealed nothing more than sand fleas, a pair of energetic little crabs and a rapidly filling hole.

He straightened, glancing out into the brightness of the sea.
Maid
was there, dutifully ‘fishing', while
Aileen
would be out of sight around the point expecting a signal. All aboard were waiting for his sudden cry of discovery.

Wearily he went further down, nearer the water and began again. After twenty minutes he knew he was beaten. Neither in the wreck nor outside it was there the slightest sign of treasure. If there was any, it would take an army of diggers and even then …

He paused to think. It was odd. Wrecks he'd seen, even old ones, had in them at least a few sad and poignant reminders of those who had lived and died in them. A barnacled pewter tankard, galley pots, a trinket, masses of rigging and blocks from the boatswain's stores, fittings, bottles.

Why had this ship been picked clean as a whistle?

His brow furrowed as he pondered the mystery. Then the answer burst in with a finality that put paid to the whole venture. The conger eel!

They were all nothing but a crowd o' loobies. If the eel
had swallowed the coin, by definition it must have been under water! He smacked his forehead in realisation.

Stepping back a pace or two from the wreck he sighted down it. Sure enough there was a slight but definite incline. Over the years the seas had surged into the cave and, bit by bit, washed all that was movable down into the ocean. In despair he went to the water's edge and stared bitterly at the innocent waves. In the depths, within yards of where he stood, was their treasure – but as far out of reach as though it were on the moon.

‘C
hair says brother Laurie shuts his trap an' gets the ale. Meetin' has a mort o' thinking t' do.'

‘Aye! A right settler for them as don't deserve it!' spluttered Jeb. ‘Why, if we'd have—'

‘For Chrissakes!' roared Stirk. ‘Put a reef in y'r jawin' tackle! 'Less anyone has somethin' t' offer, keep y'r gob shut!'

It wasn't meant to be like that, and the frustration was keenly felt by all of them. To know a fabulous treasure lay almost within arm's reach was too much to bear.

‘We throws out a grapnel an' drags it up?' McFadden offered.

‘Don't be a ninny, Laddie! They're not in the chest any more – that's how y'r conger got one. They's scattered about over the bottom o' the sea.'

Jeb sullenly interjected. ‘Y' told us once how in the Caribbee there's natives as dive f 'r coins you throw in the sea. What's wrong wi' us—'

‘'Cos we ain't divers! Born to it, they is, like fish. And in
them seas it's as clear as glass an' they can see what they're a-doing.'

The shareholders of Dunlochry Treasure Company slumped back.

Laurie came back with the ale. ‘Has ye done wi' your havering?'

Too depressed for words, Stirk only growled at the lad.

‘Then why don't ye ask Mr Paine? He's a knowin' gent, won't mind helpin' us out.'

‘We can't. 'Twould mean a-tellin' him what we're doin', an' he's down on it.' But as he spoke Stirk realised that Kydd wouldn't turn them in: the worst that could happen would be a refusal to help.

‘He's at the hall, suppin' whisky while the young lasses dance,' confided Laurie.

‘Go an' ask him t' step this way, it's important. Mind ye say it politely, like.'

Kydd soon arrived, a look of concern on his features. ‘Laurie said you'd a serious problem, Toby. I hope I can help.'

Stirk cleared his throat. The others crowded forward, silent and watchful. ‘It's like this'n, Tom.' He swallowed and avoided his gaze. ‘When I asks ye for a steer wi' the coin, I didn't tell it all, an' it's gettin' to me as I wasn't square with ye.'

‘Oh?' Kydd said carefully, drawing up a chair.

‘Well, ye're right an' all, we've found treasure.'

‘Ah! And you want to know where to hand it in.'

‘Not as we should say, Mr K—, that is, Mr Paine. See, we've found it but can't get at it an' was hopin' ye'd see y'r way free to givin' us some advice.'

Kydd frowned. ‘Let's be clear on this, Toby. You say—'

‘Tom, mate. We found a wreck right 'nough, Spanish
Armada an' all. Nobody knows of it. Ye can't get at it from the shore-side, so everything's still there. So we gets together a little venture an' goes out to dig it up. Trouble is …'

He tailed off at Kydd's look. ‘Toby. You're asking me to compound a felony by assisting you to—'

‘No, no, mate! Whatever we does, that's our own business. All we're askin' is a course t' steer. Nothin' to clap t' your tally a-tall!'

‘Oh?'

‘Well, could be there's not one piddlin' syebuck there, but we has a notion t' try, is all.'

‘Go on.' The liberal measures of highland whisky he'd enjoyed at the hall were doing nothing for his concentration but he heard Stirk out. The least he could do was to give his opinion to an old shipmate.

M
aid
bobbed to her anchor off the cave, and Kydd strained to see what he could of the wreck. It was on a small pebble beach within a terrifying twist of rock and had the sombre dignity of centuries about it.

He surveyed the area carefully, squinting as the pain behind his eyes became intrusive – generosity in the matter of libation at his offer of counsel had not been stinted. The incline was certainly enough over time to account for the wreck washed clean, but had the contents been scattered on the seabed below?

The first thing was to make soundings.

They had brought a coracle with them and Stirk set out in it. Under Kydd's direction he paddled it on a straight course and lowered a lead-line at regular intervals.

Kydd soon had a picture: the beach incline led into the sea and quickly levelled to a flattish firm silt undersea plain, at this state of tide, of the order of three fathoms deep over a respectable area. There must have been high-water springs when the ship struck for it would never have cleared it
otherwise. There was every possibility that whatever had been brought down had settled and gone no further.

On its own, however, this was not enough. The area was within two buttresses of rock, which would have protected it from the worst of the seas, but the most insidious foe would have been tide scour, currents regularly swirling back and forth about the craggy points as the water ebbed and flowed. It would not have been long before loose objects had tumbled into deeper water.

Kydd took in the situation carefully. Tides were always local and could take any number of courses, even down to individual outcrops of rock. Here, with the tide on the make, he could see from the pattern of ripples that, while it passed offshore, the little bay itself was not disturbed.

Almost certainly the relics were strewn within twenty or thirty yards of the end of the wreck – in but three fathoms of water.