Hoare and the headless Captains

Prologue

"Coom back 'ere, you Boye!"

On the moor just west of Dorchester, the shepherd watched his dog's behavior in astonishment. Never before had it quit work and run off like that. Even the bellwether looked up as if in surprise.

The shepherd reached out and cut a switch from a nearby pollarded willow as it blew in the heavy westerly.

"Coom oop then; coom!"

From within the Nine Stones Circle, Boye howled. The shepherd felt the hair rise on his nape. He dropped the switch, took a firm grip of his quarterstaff. The dog almost never howled, and the Circle was an uncanny place.

The shepherd stopped between two of the standing stones and gulped.

The dog Boye crouched in a great double pool of congealed blood between two bodies in naval uniform. One corpse lay at the foot of a huge ashlar at the center of the trodden circle. Its severed head lay beside it, gaping at the racing clouds. The other body sprawled on its back across the rough, flat stone, its arms dangling on either side of the makeshift altar. Its head was nowhere in sight. Between the corpses, its own head thrown back, the dog howled again into the wind.