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.
Chapter 12
Maid 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.
Chapter 13
As the Dunlochry Treasure Company reconvened, the chair recognised Mr Paine as counsellor.
‘We’s awaiting y’r report, Mr Paine,’ Stirk stated respectfully.
‘Well, Toby, it’s not-’
‘It’s Mr Chair,’ McFadden said importantly. ‘If ’n I has to, he must.’
‘But of course! Mr Chair, this is not good news for your little endeavour. It’s my judgement that whatever the wreck held is indeed on the seabed – and is, therefore, sadly, quite out of reach. My advice is that the venture be now wound up.’ He felt a stab of sympathy for them and a small twinge of disappointment. If they’d been luckier it would have been an interesting diversion.
‘Hey, now – that’s not what we want to hear.’
‘I’m sorry, Laddie.’
‘We want t’ know how to get up our treasure, not how’s about it’s so difficult.’
‘You’re talking about salvage. Like Royal George where they recovered so much.’
‘Aye, that’s it!’
‘Sadly, this is not within your means. They used one of Dr Halley’s diving bells, which I’d be sanguine are not readily available to the ordinary folk.’
‘If we need ’un we’ll find ’un, never fear on that.’
‘They’re tons’ weight of bronze, or is it copper? Never mind, your Aileen could never lift one.’
‘So we rafts the Maid to her! Look, Mr Paine, we thanks ye for your advice, right kindly in you, an’ we’ll get it on ourselves.’
‘I really think-’
‘Thank ye again, Mr Paine, and if we needs your services further, we’d be obliged if we c’n call upon ye.’
Kydd took his leave and the meeting turned to the matter before them.
‘I heard o’ them diving bells,’ Jeb enthused. ‘Marvellous things, they. Ye sit inside, lowers down and next thing you’re in among all the fishes but dry as a bone. Goes right down to the bottom o’ the sea and all ye does is pick up what you wants!’
‘Sounds like what we needs. Where we goin’ t’ find ’un?’
‘Hold hard, y’ bugger. Think on this – it’s goin’ to take a hill o’ chinks to hire. Where’s that comin’ from?’
‘We puts in equal dibs.’
‘And if Maid an’ Aileen both can’t swing it between ’em we has to find a bigger barky. This is gettin’ a mort ticklish f ’r me, Laddie.’
‘Ye’re givin’ up afore we starts?’ McFadden said scornfully. ‘A day’s work an’ we’ll be rich as Croesus and all I hear is groanin’ about a few guineas.’
‘Well, tell me this – where’s one o’ your divin’ bells t’ be found, then? They’ll all be in the south, Portsmouth, London, never in these pawky islands.’
‘Ah! That’s where ye’re dead wrong, mate. Five year back, when Fox sloop piled up on Colonsay they had in a bell at the trot, and all her guns up in a week.’
‘You’re sayin’ as they has a diving bell at the ready, like?’
‘Well, nearest navy is t’other side o’ Scotland, Leith. That’s only about five hundred sea miles to bring it, what do y’ think?’
‘Well? Where is it, then?’
‘Can only be Tobermory. There you has the whole o’ the Western Isles before ye, anything runs ashore.’
The meeting came to order and it was resolved that an expedition to Tobermory be mounted without delay to locate a diving bell.
Chapter 14
The little coastal track meandered interminably along the west shore of the isle but it was what Kydd craved – deep rural silence and solitude, with a sublime view of the sea and islands. In a wafting fragrance of peat and heather, it was working its magic on his soul.