The Death Ship of Dartmouth

Chapter Two

The appearance of the cog as she sailed into Dartmouth’s harbour was so peculiar that the men found their eyes drawn away from the corpse at their feet. Even Hamo, who was no sailor, found himself distracted and turned to stare into the haven with all the others.

‘Christ Jesus and all His saints,’ he murmured.

Everyone had seen ships which had been knocked about in foul weather, but from the look of her, this was no simple disaster of wind and wave. Some other fate had overcome her, and Hamo had an idea he knew what it was. The timbers looked more black than pitch alone could have made them; the rigging, even to the cooper’s untutored eye, was odd, as though it was all freshly replaced, and that in a hurry, while the mast was much too short.

In front of the cog was the Christopher, John Hawley’s ship, and the sight of it made Hamo’s lips twist into a grin. Yes, if Hawley had seen a rich prize like this, he would do his best to rescue her, in the hope of being able to keep her. Never a man to turn his nose up at a profit, was John Hawley.

‘Wake up, you churls!’ bawled Ivo le Bel, the local sergeant. ‘Let’s get this over with. Hamo, I know you want to get down there and sell some barrels, but that can wait, by God’s pain! Sweet mother of Christ, look at his head!’

Hamo glanced back at the corpse just as Ivo le Bel clambered out of the hole. The sight made him swallow hard to keep his breakfast down. At his side, the scruffy stranger with his leather apron was making a fuss.

‘What’s he doing here in the road?’ he whined. ‘I just don’t … Ach, if a man has to fall and kill himself, why should he wander up the road until he finds my hole and falls into that? Aren’t there enough damned wells around here to fall into?’

Ivo le Bel shot him a look. ‘Shut up, Paviour. There’s nothing to be done about this, least of all whining. We’ll have to get the Coroner here as soon as possible.’

‘Good. Is there one in this borough?’

‘Here?’ Ivo gave a loud chuckle. ‘No, we’ll have to send for one. We’re not big enough to justify our own down here.’

‘Oh, no! I’ve got to get cracking with my work, or I’ll be late. This is going to take days!’

Ivo shrugged. ‘You can do what you want, man. It’s no affair of mine. But if you try to move this body, I’ll tell the Coroner and the Sheriff. There’s no getting away from it. This poor fellow fell into your hole last night and brained himself on the rocks.’

Hamo the cooper peered down again. The trench here was quite deep, it was true. Alred, the paver, was here with his apprentice and labourer to mend several stretches of roadway that had begun to fall apart in the last few years; the burgesses were sick of the complaints from people saying that their carts couldn’t travel up here any more. A sum had been agreed, and this Alred Paviour contacted. The man had travelled all the way down from Exeter. If anyone could mend the roads hereabouts, it was a professional like this Alred.

However, it had to be admitted, he had left the road here in a state last night. The street was in constant use, and yet he’d lifted a large area and left only one wooden trestle at each side to stop people from falling in during the hours of darkness. That was plain foolish, when there were so many taverns along this stretch. Look — the Porpoise was only a matter of yards away!

His eyes went back to the strange ship in the harbour. He saw the enormous splash as the anchor dropped into the water, even as a rowing boat started off from the shore. It headed for the Christopher, at the same time as a boat was launched from John Hawley’s cog. Hamo could hear shouting, for noise always travelled clearly over the water here, but his ears could not discern any words. The little boats rocked on the gentle swell, men discussing the damaged cog, no doubt, and then the Christopher’s rowing boat lurched forward to the shore, while the second began a leisurely perambulation of the strange ship.

‘It’s not my fault,’ the paver was grumbling on. ‘The fool should have seen the barrier.’

‘What barrier?’ Ivo demanded.

‘I had trestles and timber set up to stop anyone falling in — I’m not stupid!’

Ivo glanced about them. ‘There’s only the one trestle, so far as I can see. Where’s the rest of the stuff, if you were so careful to put it all up? Because if you can’t produce it, the Coroner’s going to assume that you are lying, and that you put this man’s life in danger.’

‘Someone must have stolen them!’

‘Really? I wonder if the Coroner’s going to believe that. If no one else saw them, you’ll be fined heavily.’

‘I saw them, Sergeant.’

Ivo snapped his head around, but Hamo was already grinning to himself. He recognised that voice.

‘Ah. Morning, Bailiff,’ Ivo said warily.

The Saint John was sound at the waterline and below. That much was clear enough. The flames hadn’t caught hold completely.

Henry Pyket was a good shipwright, and he had experience of rescuing cogs which had been badly damaged either in battle or foul weather. First, and most important, was to view the exterior and see whether the vessel was still seaworthy. His concern was to have her beached quickly for safety if necessary, but if she was not too badly damaged, and he could have her looked over at leisure, then so much the better. He was busy with other work to complete just now.

Henry was the first shipwright on the scene, by good fortune. As soon as the ship had started up the river towards the haven, one of his carpenters had called him to look at her, and he had realised that there could be money in a job with this one. He’d shouted for a rowing boat and two men and was leaving the jetty even as Hawley’s cog, the Christopher, dropped anchor.

Hawley was in his own boat and on his way to meet Henry in a few moments. As soon as they were within hailing, Hawley gave a shout and his four oarsmen lifted their oars and drifted. The nearer man glanced over his shoulder to gauge the distance, and then let his oar drop to push Henry’s boat gently away before they could collide.

‘We found this cog floating without a crew,’ Hawley called. ‘Can you give her a good look-over? I don’t want the cargo lost.’

‘At once.’

If there was any risk of her sinking, Henry needed to get the ship out of the water as soon as possible so the cargo could be saved. On a cog this size, there could be enough to make a good profit for all involved in the salvage.

From this initial glimpse, he reckoned that she was safe enough. The smell of burned pitch and scorched wood was very strong, though, and he wrinkled his nose as well as his brow as he rubbed his chin reflectively. ‘Take us nearer.’

As the oarsmen heaved, Henry opened his jack. The breeze was cool, fresh off the sea, but the sun was blazing down on them from between the clouds, and he was feeling hot. He pulled off his cowl and scratched at his thin, lank hair, idly pushing his head into his cowl again as they slowly encircled the ship and he could see her from every angle, until he snapped an order, and they rowed in to the ship’s sides. There, he studied the strakes closely, peering at the caulking, reaching out and feeling for himself how well she was coping. When he nodded to himself, he heard a snigger from behind him.

‘You concentrate on your oars, Jankin.’

‘She’s riding low. Must have a good cargo aboard,’ Jankin said, ignoring him.

‘Perhaps.’ Henry couldn’t be bothered to argue with his son today. Better that he should concentrate on the cog herself.

A small ship, this. But then few ships in this part of England were large. There were none of the great vessels which a man could see down south in Castile or even over in Yarmouth on the east coast. Some there were at least 200 tuns, using the standard measure. All ships were assessed in terms of how many standard Gascon ‘tuns’ they could carry. Each of the enormous wine barrels weighed somewhere in the region of a ton, and they provided a handy measure against which to assess ships.

From the look of her, this ship would hold twenty or so tuns. Master Hawley’s ships were all about forty tuns, like the Christopher here, but Master Pyckard, another local merchant and shipowner, liked smaller ones that could navigate the smaller ports, saying that they could hurry over the seas, empty themselves speedily, and return. He had three of them, the Saint John, the Saint Simon, and the Saint Denis. There had been one more, the Saint Rumon, but she had sunk some fifteen years ago, when there had been a sudden squall.

Poor old Paul — he had lost his treasure, his beautiful young wife Amandine, in that freak storm. Never been the same again since, really.

‘Master Hawley did say she was carrying a lot,’ Jankin persisted. ‘Look how low she is in the water, Father.’

The young man’s voice held that hint of greed familiar to all those who eked a living at the coast. While they lived in fear of the sea, they depended upon it too, and although sometimes it could rise up and destroy them, at other times it would bring them a generous harvest. A single shipwreck could supply enough to maintain an entire community for months. Here, safe in the haven, they rarely found wrecks from the sea, but when a good seaman like John Hawley captured a prize, the effects would ripple through the town.

‘I heard him. Let’s just make sure she’s safe first,’ Henry said, eyeing the sheer above his head and shaking his head. It made no sense that a man would attack a ship, kill the crew, and then leave the valuable craft with all her cargo aboard. What kind of a fool would do that?

Henry Pyket was a heavy-set man of almost forty, with a great pot-belly, his tanned face square and kindly, with oddly gentle eyes. Few men in charge of a good-sized shipbuilding business were known for their generosity and charity, but Henry had always been different.

Taking a grappling iron, he swung it contemplatively in his right hand, the one which was missing two fingers, before hurling it aloft. It snagged, and he tugged, but it came free and rattled over the decking, from the sound of it, until he saw the top spike appear over the sheer. Then it gripped as he put his weight on the rope, and he nodded to the oarsmen as he stepped forward, and hauled himself upwards, his legs walking him up the strakes to the sheerline.

Once there, he clambered over with the ease and skill of a sailor, standing on the blackened decking and gazing about him.

‘Begin at the bottom,’ he muttered to himself. That was the rule which his master had always stressed when he was still an apprentice, and he was strongly reminded of it now. Then, he and his master had been surveying a French hulk, and although they did not know it at the time, the hull was sorely stressed and damaged. From above, it looked fine: the line of the decking was straight enough, the mast stood firm in her rigging, and she rode high enough in the water, but when they went into the hold and saw the water slopping about, they understood that the strakes were dangerously loosened, and that they must either stabilise the leaks or evacuate her quickly.

This one was riding smoothly enough, just rising gently on the swell, and he felt hopeful that they would not have to do too much to keep her cargo secure. He walked to the coaming before the hold, and glanced over the edge. Barrels and bales moved about, and he could hear the sloshing of water, but there was no great invasion, so far as he could see. It was only the very bottom that was truly wet. Still, best to be sure.

There was a ladder, and he gripped it firmly, looking around. All about him up here was blackened. Much of the decking would need to be ripped up and replaced. He wasn’t sure if the damaged mast would survive a strong blast. Best replace that too, just in case. In the prow lay a filthy mess of blackened canvas, and thin wisps floated about every so often as the wind caught them: burned sails. There were metal rivets and shreds of leather about the place, too. It was almost as though … but that would make no sense.

Reluctantly, for Pyket was never happy on ladders — give him a strong hempen cable for preference, he swung himself over the coaming, and let himself down into the dark depths.

Here he was shin-deep in cold seawater. As he stood there, sniffing, listening, he could feel the movement of the ship through his bare feet. The creaking and groaning of moving strakes was deafening, and the steady lapping of water in the bilge and at her sides was magnified until it sounded as though waves were hammering at her. More troubling were the five barrels which had been dislodged from their moorings and now floated about, threatening to crush him if he was careless. The great bales were massive; he felt sure from the smell that they were full of cloth. An experienced seaman could recognise the odour of different cargoes without difficulty.

It was not that smell that made him scowl, though. No, it was the overwhelming stench of oil. And the atmosphere of terror that even to his stolid mind seemed to pervade the vessel.

Bailiff Simon Puttock smiled, and Ivo le Bel quailed.

The Bailiff was a tall man with calm grey eyes in a slightly pale face. In the past, when he had been Bailiff to the Stannaries of Dartmoor, he had been responsible for maintaining the King’s Peace over the wild lands, and he had travelled widely, his features burned to the colour of old oak. Since he had been promoted to this new position at Dartmouth, he had been forced to remain indoors more often, which he deplored. For him, far better that he should be able to wander the open moors, free of concerns and God-damned figures. He couldn’t return yet, though. Not for a while.

For all that Simon would prefer to be at home in Lydford, there was something attractive about the noises of this busy, industrial port. The slow, steady creaking of timbers as ships rolled from side to side, the trickle and slap of small waves, the howl of the wind on a cold evening when a man was already in a warm house by his fire, all were welcome. The assault on the nostrils was less so, though. There was a permanent stench of fish from the salting yards where they were gutted, spread and dried, and it was not enhanced by the odour of rotting flesh where the fishguts lay in the middens, to be dug over by the great seagulls. Tar and seaweed, hemp and coal smoke, all smothered the town like an unwholesome blanket, and at the same time there was the perpetual din of the smiths, carpenters, shipwrights and others, all of whom seemed to delight in as much clattering and crashing of metal and wood as possible.

‘Sir Bailiff, I hadn’t seen you there.’

‘I’m no knight, Ivo — you know that. Why are you in charge? Did you find the body?’

‘This is my tithing, Bailiff. I am responsible to the Coroner when he arrives.’

‘Fine. What happened?’

‘This fellow says he put up boards to protect people, but the victim still fell in. He must have struck his head — look.’

Simon winced at the sight. The man’s head was a mess: he had fallen forwards, clearly, and his left temple was a bloody, blackened wound.

‘As I said, I watched the paver here put up his warnings. Some thieving bastard must have stolen them, leading to this accident.’

The man lay in the hole with his head at a curious angle, his legs twisted together. The left arm was under his body, while the right was flung out into the middle of the hole. His head was resting near the wall, the wound right by a rock which had been smeared with his gore.

Simon asked, ‘Does anyone know him?’

There was a ripple as all shook their heads.

‘Ivo, have you sent for the Coroner?’

‘I was about to.’

‘Hurry, then,’ Simon said, and he set off for the pie shop down near his chamber, where his clerk would be waiting for him.

As he crossed the street, he saw old Will the gaoler — a tatty, degenerate-looking man with a paunch like a bishop and a threadbare white beard — walking up to the gaol in the market square. There was no one there so far as Simon remembered, but Will was a dedicated man. The gaoler was generally amiable, and called ‘old Widecombe Will’ because he had been the youngest son of a farmer from that little vill. Bored with prodding cattle to pull the plough, he had preferred to run away to sea. At least, that was his tale.

It was not entirely true. He had been a farmer’s boy, although the legitimacy of his birth left a little to be desired. Also, rather than leaving his home from boredom, there was the matter of Millicent, the maid from the neighbouring hamlet, who had grown suddenly large with child. Still, in essence he had not lied. Now the father of six other (legal) children, and four grandchildren, he had a certain position in the town, and he was immensely proud of it. And part of his responsibilities for this year was the maintenance of the simple gaol.

The Bailiff sighed. Another day of numbers and reports lay ahead. Oh well. He knew he must remain patient. Before long, with fortune, he would be able to go back to Lydford. To his home, his beautiful wife Meg and their children. They would be missing him, as he missed them. He was needed there.

At the door to the pie shop, he hesitated, recalling that body in the hole. There were some details that looked out of place. Surely … but no. The fool of a sergeant must have moved him; there was nothing to worry about. Yet the scene stuck in his head, even as he entered and chose a good beef pie.

Henry splashed through the water, running his hands over the strakes. There was no apparent leaking, and as he passed down the hull, he began to relax. All about him was the constant noise of running water, trickling, dripping, slopping about, but that was the normal sound of a working ship. The important thing was, he could see no holes or broken strakes, and by the time he had reached the stern, and had stumbled only once over a rib, he was feeling much happier. The second side of the ship appeared to be as safe, but he was nothing if not assiduous.

It was as he stepped over the rib, planting his foot carefully down in the water, that he felt something brush against him. He screamed shrilly as he took in the sight of the corpse under the water, with its gaping mouth, pale, dead eyes and the hand that moved gently as though beckoning Henry to join him in death.