Julian Stockwin - Inferno

‘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.

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.

A flock of sheep across his path scattered in alarm and he spotted a figure in highland smock standing against the skyline, watching him.

He rounded yet another foreland and saw, far out on the glittering sea, a fishing boat with patched ochre sails on its way round to Dunlochry. He watched as it went about, each action economically one after the other, not all together, smart navy fashion. She would have only a tiny crew.

He looked more closely: was it Maid back from a fruitless search for a diving bell?

He felt a stab of remorse. Toby Stirk had been a true friend and shipmate, bringing him without question into the warmth of his family, but now the old salt was way out of soundings. Kydd’s paltry advice was little return for what he’d given.

There was no way he could be involved in the venture, of course. As a king’s officer it would be a scandal if it were ever known. However, he could still give counsel and that right willingly, although he doubted he would be asked again.

He began to walk back.

By the time he reached the village Maid had moored and her crew were sitting on the jetty.

When they saw him they got up and hurried across.

‘Mr Paine. Sir. We has t’ talk wi’ ye.’ Stirk’s battered hat was in his hands.

‘Aye, an’ urgent, like, if y’ please,’ added Jeb.

‘Very well. At the Lion?’

‘No! This’n is serious. Don’t want no prattin’ gabblers hearin’ what we’ve to say to ye.’

It seemed that only on Maid at her buoy could they talk freely.

Kydd sat in the place of honour on the fore windlass.

‘Shut y’r geggy, Jeb, an’ let me tell ’im,’ Stirk demanded, then laid it out for Kydd.

Tobermory was a rising and important maritime town with a small dockyard to care for the little fleet of storm-tossed naval sloops guarding the northern approaches to the kingdom. This had been their first port of call, and he’d been right in his hunch that there was a diving bell in town. His informant, a blacksmith taking a wet before an afternoon at the anchor shop, was positive: he’d forged a grappling hook for the beast.

The second part was more delicate. Stirk’s story had been ingenious: he had with him a Dutch philosophical gentleman who prayed he might set eyes on such a wonder, if it were at all possible.

The master attendant’s clerk had been most sympathetic, nodding bemused at the heavily disguised Laddie but regretted that for the last two years the thing had been on the books over at Leith, called on only when needed. And he knew of no other bell in the Western Isles – that is, no king’s bell.

Picking up on the last, Stirk prowled the few slips and only shipyard and even asked about in ships’ chandlers, sailors’ flophouses and the like. On his way back to Maid he had been stopped by a ragged messenger, who took him back to one of the chandlers.

The man had quickly disposed of Stirk’s tale and put it to them that they had a treasure map or similar, which had given them certain knowledge of the whereabouts of a rich sunken wreck. Why else would they be looking for a diving bell?

Brushing aside their protests, he put a proposition to them: they were never going to secure a diving bell in all of Scotland, and in any case it would provoke intolerable curiosity if they did. But he had a solution. For a consideration he would provide the means to recover the hoard.

Years ago, a Mr Lethbridge of Newton Abbot, the legendary Wrackman, had invented a diving engine quite different from Dr Halley’s bell. In it he had successfully brought up much wealth from a Dutch East Indiaman in Madeira, more from wrecks at Cape Town and other parts, and had retired a rich man. His son had followed him and they’d even come to Scotland with the diving engine and, among other feats, had lifted thirty-five elephant teeth, worth a fortune, from a sunken East India Company merchantman off the Isle of May.

The son had got into difficulties and eventually gone bankrupt, but had left a complete diving engine with this very chandlery establishment as pledge against his debts. It had been kept safe against its redeeming but the son had died without claiming it – and it lay locked away on the premises ready to do its duty once more.

So what was it to be? To walk away from a fortune, or allow the respectable Jacob Meares to join the venture with a proven apparatus for the salving of treasure?

‘Ye said as how ye’d not be spare wi’ your advice, so now we’s askin’, Mr Paine,’ declared Stirk.

‘Ah. I’m not sure how far I can help, as I’ve no knowledge of these, er, engines and such.’