Michael Jecks - The Death Ship of Dartmouth

‘It’s not just a matter of competence, Bailiff. Adam was his longest-serving and loyal servant.’

‘So if someone wanted to ruin Pyckard, removing this man would have been very effective?’ Simon mused.

‘Certainly he’ll be missed more than Vincent and Odo. They were vicious brutes. Few will mourn their passing.’

‘What of this Danny?’

‘He was a good lad, I think. Youngish, with a small family over towards Hardness. Moses was his elder brother, and Adam too was related to him somehow, I believe. They were brothers-in-law, maybe? I can tell you this: Adam was a powerful fighter, and if he saw someone hurt Danny, he’d have made the man pay. He looked after Danny from the day Pyckard took him in.’

‘He was an orphan, Pyckard said.’

‘Yes. His mother had died, then his father lost his life at sea. Pyckard took both the boys in after that, but it was Adam who looked after him really.’

Simon said tentatively: ‘I have heard that some sailors … they miss their women and can fall prey to …’

Stephen laughed aloud. ‘If you’d seen Adam, you’d know that was nonsense! No, he was a kindly man, that’s all. And he’d been devoted to his master from the early days when Pyckard had nothing.’

Simon sighed heavily. ‘Hard to imagine that so many can be taken away so suddenly. It wouldn’t be so bad if they’d all died in a gale, I suppose, but to be wiped out by pirates so incompetent that they fail even to steal the cargo, that is astonishingly pointless and wasteful. Poor bastards!’

John Hawley went up the rope to the ship with the agility of a man who had been a sailor for almost as long as he could walk, climbing hand over hand without pause. Once on deck, he glanced about him at the work going on even as Cynric bellowed that their master was aboard.

‘Cynric — what have you found?’

‘No more bodies, master. There’s some as said they’d prefer not to come here if there were,’ Cynric said with a chuckle. In his belt beside his dagger he had a long end of rope with a heavy knob plaited into the end. He tapped it happily. ‘They changed their minds, though.’

‘Is it obvious whose ship she is?’

Cynric looked at him from the corner of his eye. ‘As clear as you could want.’

Hawley nodded expressionlessly. It wasn’t any surprise. He’d had no doubt as soon as he’d seen the ship on the horizon, and even after the fire, most men from the town would recognise her outline as the Saint John . The cargo had been checked last evening, too, so it had been plain enough. If no one had recognised her, he could have claimed the whole value, perhaps. It would have been a good prize.

‘We may be able to claim salvage, of course,’ he wondered aloud.

The laws concerning the sea were variable and confusing even to those who lived by them, but if a ship was lost by her master and then her cargo or the ship herself were rescued, her saviour could claim half the value of the ship and her load. Likewise if she was wrecked, a man who found her could claim half. It was the only way to ensure that wreckage which could be of value to the King was reported.

Cynric was eyeing him again from the corner of his eye, and Hawley sighed, ‘Come on, then. What is it?’

‘You won’t like it.’

‘Maybe not. What’s new?’

‘Your clerk. Did you know he’s been gaming regularly?’

Hawley shrugged. ‘All men gamble every so often. It’s like breathing the air, drinking ale or laying a wench.’

‘He’s been losing a lot.’

‘Oh no! Not at the Porpoise?’

There were many establishments in Dartmouth catering for sailors who might have a couple of pennies to spend, but few, if any, had a reputation to match that of the Porpoise. The men there were without any doubt the worst fixers, felons and fiddlers known to any game which aspired to an element of chance. Hawley wrinkled his nose. ‘Any idea how much?’

‘Pyket reckons he owes them several marks.’

Hawley whistled. ‘I didn’t know he could afford that kind of misfortune.’

‘I don’t think he can.’

‘I see.’ The merchant clapped Cynric on the shoulder, took a last look about the deck then swung over the side again, slipping quickly down the rope and letting himself back into the little boat, which set off immediately for the shore. When it was beached, he sprang out and made his way homewards.

‘Wine!’ he shouted as he walked in, and went through the front room to the smaller counting-house behind. Here he found his clerk Peter running his pen down a long list of numbers, his face scowling with concentration.

‘Ah, master!’ he said as soon as he caught sight of Hawley. He continued to the bottom of the page and carefully scrawled a note with his metal scribe on a waxed tablet, before turning to the shipman.

Hawley grinned at him as he sat on his chair at the far wall. He had too many enemies to trust an open door at his back, and preferred always to sit with a wall behind him, any doorways before him, and a strong blade always within reach. ‘Come on, then. What’s the best of it and what’s the worst? Any bad news for me?’

Peter Strete was the least likely-looking clerk Hawley had ever met. Usually they were scrawny, tedious fellows, but this Peter fairly bubbled with good humour: a cheerful man with smiling face, rosy cheeks and bright blue eyes, his manner seemed to show that he saw the best in everyone. He was occasionally prone to introspection, becoming a little quiet — usually in the mornings. Hawley now wondered whether those little moods had any connection with his gaming losses?

‘Well, master, I doubt you’ll regret collecting the Saint John in a long month of Sundays. If you succeed in winning her whole value, you’ll be taking on a hundred stones of weld, seven barrels of potash, eight hundred iron spurs, three posnets … Not a bad result.’

‘What’s the likelihood that Pyckard can win it back?’

‘Depends how keen he is to bother. Any legal argument is likely to last months. We can string it out, too, so he’s bound to be dead first. Actually, I doubt he’ll bother. It’s a good win for no expense, but there’s little of real value. The main thing is, the ship herself.’

‘Good. There’s no one to dispute our claim either, since he has no family left. Right! Do you arrange for the ship to be refitted at our expense, and we’ll get the thing back over to Britanny and sell her cargo. If she’s still seaworthy, we’ll soon know it. My only concern is, she’s slow. Perhaps it would be better to have her valued as well, so we can decide whether to sell her off and take the money.’

‘We don’t want anyone taking her, do we?’

‘Like the men at Lyme, you mean?’ Hawley said with a cynical lift of his eyebrow. ‘I don’t think there’s any risk of that. Do you?’

‘No, sir.’ He bowed and walked from the room.

As his servant disappeared into the screens passage, Hawley glanced down at his cash boxes. Strete had no money of his own he reminded himself. All he had was what Hawley gave him. If he was losing money in gambling, he must have found a source of cash.

‘Have you robbed me, old friend?’ Hawley murmured aloud. ‘Because if you have, I swear you’ll regret every penny!’

The arrival of the Coroner late that afternoon spelled the end of Simon’s concentration for the day.

‘You Puttock?’ he boomed as he walked into Simon’s hall, and the Bailiff looked up with irritation from the numbers he and Stephen were so carefully trying to add up.

To Simon, the Roman numerals only made sense when they had been added and the total was already inserted at the bottom of his rolls. Just now, looking at the long list of pounds, shillings and pence, his head was spinning. He could hardly read the difference between one pound and ten on a tally-stick, his eyes were so tired. His response was abrupt.