‘Sorry,’ Paul muttered, picking up the club hammer and bolster chisel. Turning to the side, he began hammering out another row of old bricks. The wall, now being just below head height, allowed him to peer inside the enclosure. Through the fine cloud of brick dust choking the air, Paul caught a glimpse of something. Material? A bag, perhaps? He pushed his head further into the cavity and squinted, but the conspiracy of darkness and grimy air prevented further clarity. Stepping out of the fireplace, he began to rummage in his tool-bag.
‘Here you go, mate,’ Ian said, returning with a pint of beer.
‘Oh, lovely—cheers,’ Paul said, reaching for the cold glass and taking a long glug. ‘Nope—definitely not too early for that! I was just looking for a torch—looks like there might be something between the walls.’
‘Tell me it was glistening and golden,’ Ian quipped.
‘Afraid not,’ Paul answered, returning to his tool-bag. ‘More like a bunch of old rags.’ He found the torch—not a particularly powerful one, but it would do. He took another swig of beer, set it down on the nearest table then ventured back inside the fireplace.
‘Well?’ Ian asked.
‘Give me half a chance!’ Paul returned, angling himself so that he could get both his head and hand inside the cavity. He switched on the torch. The muted yellow light pushed through the granular air, settling on a rounded grey object. It took a moment for his brain to decipher what he was seeing. ‘Oh, Christ!’
‘What is it?’ Ian demanded.
Paul shifted the beam of light to another similar object, protruding from the material that he had seen earlier—clothes. Specifically, two uniforms. Containing two skeletons. ‘I think you need to phone the police.’
Chapter One
11th February 1821, Romney Marsh, Kent
It was shortly after two o’clock in the morning at Camber, on the westerly edge of Romney Marsh on the Kent and Sussex border, that the receding tide brushed the hull of the nameless galley for the final time, releasing it to the wet shingle beach. The boat—ten oars, thirty feet in length and painted stark white—could scarcely be seen on this cold, moonless night. Beside the galley queued the last dregs of the men, whose original number had been nigh on two hundred. The men had been quarried for their bestial strength from the surrounding countryside and who, upon reaching the boat, would be saddled up with two one-hundred-pound barrels of smuggled brandy. The line of men trudged back up the beach between two long flanks of batmen armed with clubs, flails and pistols, before pushing on into the dark and desolate marshes beyond.
Next, it was the turn of Samuel Banister. He moved closer to the boat and looked up at the blackened face of their leader, Cephas Quested, but the darkness retained his features.
‘Ready?’ Cephas barked, his breath heavy with liquor. Without waiting for a response, he passed the rope straps, which held two half-anker barrels, over Samuel’s head. The barrels thumped hard onto his chest and back, thrusting the air from his lungs. ‘Off!’
Samuel side-stepped away from the boat, struggling to catch his breath. He moved as quickly as he could up the beach, but the waterlogged shingle sucked his boots down with each stride. This, his third night of smuggling—if the other two were to be equalled—was going to be long, arduous and punishing. But he had little choice; he was twenty-two years old with a pregnant wife and young boy at home. One evening of running contraband earnt him eight shillings—almost one week’s labour on old Banks’s farm.
‘Move on, will ya!’ the tubman behind him snarled, elbowing sharply past.
Samuel’s grunted, breathy response was lost to the sound of a pistol firing noisily into the air above them. Then, chaos. Every man on that beach knew the implication of the gunfire: it was a beckoning call from the blockade officers for help. The tubmen in front of Samuel suddenly quickened their pace up the beach, whilst the batmen protecting them readied their blunderbusses and muskets with guttural, opprobrious roars.
‘Hold! In the name of the King; hold, I say!’ a voice shouted from nearby.
Samuel paused for the briefest of moments and turned to await Quested’s orders. His muscles tightened as he glimpsed movement in the sea behind the galley; a boat full of blockade men was already sailing towards the shore.
An indistinguishable command was bellowed from the galley and the batmen on either side of Samuel began angling their weapons in the general direction from which the pistol had been fired. Seconds later, a sharp volley of muskets and shot cracked open the air, firing onto the position of the blockade men.
A cacophony of shouting from all around him competed with the resonance of gunfire.
Ducking down as much as the barrels strapped to him would allow, Samuel pushed harder up the sloping beach, cursing the shifting, enveloping stones under his feet. Behind him, the two lines of batmen began to fold into one rear-guard, the torrent from their weapons continuing to pound the blockade men’s position.
Finally, the shingle levelled out and Samuel stopped to take breath. He turned to see that the blockade ship had landed on the beach and a group of a good dozen officers had poured forth onto the stones. The rear-guard of batmen desisted firing and began to run towards Samuel and the rest of the fleeing tubmen.
‘Move, you buffle-headed dunty,’ one of them bawled at Samuel.
Walland Marsh that lay before him had absorbed the rest of the tubmen into its bleak desolation. He needed to move fast, but the barrels of brandy were holding him back. If he ditched them now, he could certainly outrun the blockade officers, but without
