The Death Ship of Dartmouth: (Knights Templar 21) by Michael Jecks Page B

only returned when the devil had taken her crew. Poor fellows. Stephen had said there were eleven of them, too. All with wives and children, no doubt. All who would now struggle to make a living.
    There were some men who fully deserved such a fate, no doubt, but Simon could not help but wonder at the wholesale nature of this destruction. It was a proof of the danger that all men lived with at all times, and a warning to make sure that they shrived themselves when they could, so that their souls might leave them with full confidence. No man knew the moment of his death, and these poor sailors were a prime example of that fact. If only they had been to church before they sailed, and had given Confession full honestly. Perhaps one or two did. Maybe they were already up in heaven. Simon heard a fox call, and closed his eyes, only to openthem wide at a scratching behind his wall. No, it was a rat or something. Nothing else.
    Christ’s ballocks, but he must calm himself. The whole town was the same. Everyone was jumpy and fretful. No surprise, really, when a man considered how sailors depended so much on their instincts. To learn that some eleven men had been lost, one of them found dead in the hold, but the others gone as though they had never existed, that was terrifying. There would be many families tonight who would have no sleep.
    One of them was Widecombe Will’s. Simon had seen Will later in the afternoon, when people began to realise whose ship it was. Will was with one of his daughters: Annie. She saw the ship and shrieked with horror. Her man Ed had been one of the crew. Simon recalled him – a game lad, brawny and powerful. Now Annie was on her knees, throwing dust from the road in all directions as she squealed and groaned.
    ‘You don’t know it’s the
Saint John
,’ Will was saying.
    ‘You think I don’t recognise my Ed’s ship? He was only going to be out for a couple of days, and now look at it! Everyone knows it’s his ship! My Ed! My Ed! He’s gone!’
    The ship was one of Paul Pyckard’s. There was little doubt of that, as soon as they’d been able to take Pyckard’s clerk and servant, Moses, to the ship and had checked the cargo against the manifest which recorded all the goods loaded. She was clearly the
Saint John
, and if they needed further proof, the sight of Danny’s corpse was enough.
    Although Simon felt squeamish at the sight of all dead bodies, it was those who had died from fire and water thatmost repelled him. Today, seeing that poor, whitened face, the flesh cold and soft as a fish’s, Simon could have turned and thrown up. It was bad enough to be on a ship, without the added churning in his belly caused by the dead sailor.
    ‘Who is he?’ he’d demanded as the nausea began to fade slightly.
    ‘I think his name was Danny. He came from Hardness,’ Hawley said dispassionately. He stood with his legs set firmly on the deck as though his boots were nailed to it, unconcerned by the rolling or the body. ‘Leaves a widow and three children, if I’m right.’
    Henry Pyket had been brought back from the shore, and was sitting shivering on a coil of ropes. ‘I didn’t bring him up here until I was told to, Bailiff. I don’t want to be fined for moving him when it wasn’t my fault.’
    ‘Shut up!’ Hawley grated. ‘The Bailiff has better things to do than worry about your hurt feelings.’
    ‘It’s not a problem, Master Shipwright,’ Simon comforted him. ‘If the Coroner tries to be difficult, tell him to speak to me. You couldn’t have left the corpse down there in the hold. There was no point in that. Better that we took him out and brought him up here.’
    ‘Then it’s on your head,’ Hawley noted with satisfaction.
    ‘I’ll support your decision,’ Simon said sharply. He turned to the shipwright. ‘He was under the water, you said?’
    ‘I stepped on his arm, poor devil. He was there, under the surface, with a bale of wool on top of him.’
    ‘From the look of