John Preston - The Dig

I parked my bike outside the museum. There was a woman behind the desk who I didn’t recognize. I asked if Mr. Bright-ling was in. Oh, no, she said in a shocked voice, sounding as if he’d either died or emigrated years before. I didn’t inquire which. I just explained who I was and asked if I could have a look in their storeroom.

She wasn’t at all happy about this. She spent a while wobbling about on the edge of refusing, glancing at her watch and explaining how the museum was due to close in less than half an hour. They did stay open later, she explained — until six, in fact. However, that was only on a Wednesday, which wasn’t a great deal of help. Not with this being a Thursday.

“It could be important,” I said. “Very important.”

Still she wouldn’t budge, though. In desperation, I said, “Mr. Reid Moir sent me.”

That did the trick, of course. The change in her was instantaneous. “Why didn’t you say so straightaway?” she wanted to know. I muttered something about not wishing to make a fuss. Afterwards, she set about being as helpful as could be, showing me through into the storeroom, apologizing for the mess and offering me a cup of tea.

I turned down the tea and set to looking through the drawers. Although the room was small, there were cabinets stacked up from floor to ceiling on all four walls. There was only just enough room to allow the door to open and shut. She wasn’t wrong about the mess. I remembered that old Bright-ling had never been much of a one for cataloguing. Nor had his successor made much effort to improve matters, not by the look of it. In one drawer alone I found a boxful of Bronze Age arrowheads, three half-hunter watches — one missing the back of its case as well as one of the hands — and a container of Joyce’s anti-corrosive percussion gunpowder, along with several packets of mustard seed apparently from the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem.

After half an hour my mouth was dry and I wished I’d accepted that tea. Still, it was too late now. I was crouched down, searching through one of the lower drawers, when I saw a piece of purple cloth. It was all tattered round the edges, with threads coming away. I picked up the cloth and realized it had been rolled round something. Something heavy and cylindrical.

When I unrolled the cloth, there it was. I took out the first piece of iron that I’d found at Sutton Hoo and compared them. The one in the drawer was smaller, but the same shape. Any fool could have seen that. Underneath it was a typed label giving the date of discovery, along with the place where it had been found: May 1870, Snape Common.

I turned the label over. Handwritten on the back was an identification. Or a possible identification at least — whoever had written it had stuck a question mark on the end to cover themselves. I must have stayed staring at the label for several minutes. Trying to take it in and think through the implications. Steady on, Basil, I told myself. Easy does it. But even as I was doing so, I could hear my heart thumping. As for my mouth, it was drier than ever.

Rolling up the piece of iron in the purple cloth, I put it back in the drawer with the label. On my way out, I thanked the woman behind the desk for her help.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” she asked.

“Not sure exactly,” I told her.

“I do hope you haven’t had a wasted trip,” she said. “Do be sure to give my regards to Mr. Reid Moir, won’t you?”

“Oh, I will,” I promised. “I will.”

Needless to say the blasted ferry was on the opposite bank when I got back to Slaughden. I had to stand and wait while it idled its way across. On the way back it began spitting with rain again. I cycled as fast as I could. By the time I’d covered the eight miles to Sutton Hoo House I was wheezing away like Puffing Billy.

John and Will were waiting inside the shepherd’s hut. Mrs. Pretty’s boy, Robert, was in there too. I can’t say I was best pleased to see him. Right at that moment, I didn’t want any distractions.

“Any joy, Baz?” asked Will.

“Come with me, will you, lads,” I said. “And bring the tape measure.”

We went back outside. Before we started, I remembered to take a note of the time. It was just after five thirty. Next, I knelt down where John had found the first piece of metal. I took the tape measure and measured off six inches to the second patch of colored sand. Then, carrying on in a straight line, I looked for another pink patch six inches away.

There was nothing. I brushed around to make sure. No, definitely nothing. I couldn’t understand this. It must be there, I thought — it has to be. Then I realized I was being an idiot. Naturally they wouldn’t be in a straight line. They’d have to widen out as they went along. Of course they would.

Moving half a pace to the left, I tried there. This time, I had to go a little deeper, but soon the pinkish sand began to show through, just like before. Within half an hour I had uncovered five patches of pink sand. All of them were the same distance apart, but spreading out towards the edge of the trench. Each one set a little deeper than the one before.

“What is it?” the boy kept asking. “What have you found, Mr. Brown?”

I didn’t want to tell him. But it wasn’t just him. I didn’t want to tell anybody. Not for a little longer. Once I did, everything would be out in the open. Then there’d be no going back. Besides, I told myself, I needed to uncover one more patch before I could be sure.

Again, I marked off a six-inch gap in the same widening line and scraped away. Sure enough, I hadn’t been going long when another smudge of brownish-pink sand started to appear. There beneath it was another piece of metal. This time, though, I left it where it was.

I looked up. The three of them were crowded round, staring down. I could see the boy was bursting to ask another question. Before he could open his mouth, I said, “I think it’s a ship.”

John Jacobs was the first to say anything. “A ship?” he said. “How do you mean a ship?”

“A ship that’s been buried in the mound.”

He started to laugh. “What would anyone want to bury a ship for?”

“Probably because it’s a grave.”

“Whose grave?”

“I don’t know that, not yet. But someone important, I’d say. It must be. They wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble for any little squirt. Think of all the work for a start.

“They’d have had to drag the ship all the way up the slope from the river. That piece of metal you found there, John — that’s a rivet. These pink patches show where the other rivets are. See how they’ve rusted and colored up the soil.”

“But, Baz, if it’s a ship, what’s happened to the hull?” asked Will.

“All rotted away,” I said. “But look here—” and I pointed to where a ridge of hard sand ran from one rivet to the next. “You can see where the strakes were. They’ve left this imprint. That’s all that’s left. That and the rivets.”

All of them wanted to know how old this ship might be. I told them that I couldn’t be sure about that either. It might be Viking, I said. Or maybe older still, I added.

“Well, I’ll be—” said Will, and pulled himself up short.

I looked up at him and grinned. “Quite.”

I’d been intending to let Mrs. Pretty know what I had found, of course. But Robert must have run back to tell her before I had a chance to do so. One moment he’d been jumping up and down, waving his arms about. The next he was walking along with his mother, tugging away at her sleeve.

When she reached the mound, I showed Mrs. Pretty the rivets and the patches of sand. Then I told her about finding the other rivet in Aldeburgh, as well as the note explaining how it had come from the ship-burial at Snape.