by Nick Hawkes
Archie looked at Benjamin with his bleak eyes. It was an eloquent reply. You idiot. I was trained for violence. I chose it as a profession…and I’m very good at it. Benjamin raised a hand to acknowledge the folly of his remark and dropped his head. “What now, then?”
Archie pushed himself back from the bench. “I think it’s time for a bit of sword drill.”
“Sword drill?”
Archie nodded.
S - strengths of a course of action
W - weaknesses of a course of action
O - option chosen
R - resources allocated
D - delegate responsibilities
D - do the task
R - review its effectiveness
I - improvements—any needed?
L - lock in your achievement
L - look for new opportunities.
He slapped the table. “Get a piece of paper.”
An hour later, Benjamin reached for the newspaper and pulled it toward him. He read the number under the advert and punched it into his phone. Archie was standing at the end of the bench. He’d crossed his legs and was looking at the ceiling, giving every appearance of being at ease.
After the fourth ring, Benjamin’s call was answered.
“Nick Mercurio speaking.”
Bastard. You hit her. “Good evening, Mr. Mercurio. I believe you have a Chevrolet Corvette for sale—almost new, I understand.”
“Three months old: only twelve hundred on the clock. It’s a good deal—virtually a new car…without the on-road costs. It’ll save you ten thousand on a new car.” Mr. Mercurio paused. “When would you like to see it?”
Presumptuous…a salesman…how useful. “Well…what’s the time? Four-thirty. I’m running out of time today…and I’ll be looking at another car this evening. So, how about I come around first thing in the morning, say eight o’clock? Would you be able to take me for a decent test-drive then? I can tell you that if I like it, I’ll be buying it on the spot.”
Come on, come on, Benjamin pleaded. Let your greed trump your diary.
“Oh! Right. Hang on a moment.” There was a pause. “Yes, yes, I’ll move an appointment and see you tomorrow morning.” He gave his address.
Gotcha! “Thank you, Mr. Mercurio.”
“Please call me Nick.”
I want to call you a wife-beating, dishonest thug. “Right…Nick, if you could have the Notice of Disposal with you ready to sign, that would be good.” He paused. “My name, by the way, is…Mr. Benjamin.”
“See you tomorrow, Mr. Benjamin.”
But Benjamin had hung up. He put the phone down on the top of the workbench and stared at it.
Archie pushed himself off the bench. “You did well.”
Benjamin breathed in deeply. “Now what?”
“You’ve got half an hour to nip down to the op-shop and get some passable clothes.”
“And then?”
“A meal and some sleep. We’ll need to be on the road by three in the morning.”
Chapter 5
A westerly change was pushing away the lingering evidence of a fine day. Shafts of light now fell from a turbulent sky onto the leaden sea, patterning its bleakness with pools of molten silver. Felicity turned her face into the wind and sought out its freshness.
She had gone for a walk to seek out better company than her thoughts. It had been an emotionally demanding day. Felicity was now standing at the end of Griffiths Island, looking out to sea. She had passed no one else, only a nankeen heron standing in the shallows of the lagoon, fishing for shrimp. Higher up the shore, a flock of seagulls had hunkered down for the evening, their feathers occasionally lifting in the wind.
She loved it here. The wild beauty of the coast and the purity of the sea rarely failed to invigorate. Sometimes they even entertained. It was not uncommon to find fur seals playing in the shallows. They often saluted her with their rubbery flippers as they rolled onto their sides to inspect her with bright eyes and bristly noses.
None today. She felt a little bereft.
Being bereft was rather too uncomfortably similar to being lonely—and she refused to let herself explore that. Everything was still too raw. And yet…what an extraordinary man! The strength of his arms pulling her free; his tanned skin and curling dark hair. Above all, his tenderness…and a sense of something that she couldn’t define, a sense of being…understood. Yes, that was it.
She let her mind play among her recent memories. They felt…safe. What had Benjamin called the mysterious carved stone that had so nearly killed her? The Atlantis stone. She smiled. Nice. Even though the flat stone was encrusted with all sorts of marine organisms, there was clear evidence that it had been deliberately carved. She had pulled it from the deep, and although obviously not from the fabled city of Atlantis, it would nonetheless have a story to tell. In all probability, it would include real drama, quite possibly a wrecked ship. She shivered. The southern coast on which she lived wasn’t called ‘the ships’ graveyard’ for nothing. She just hoped that the stone had come from her ship, the one she’d been researching for so long: the mysterious mahogany ship.
Felicity looked at her watch. She had left the Atlantis stone soaking in a dilute ammonia solution for twenty-four hours to loosen the marine deposits that were growing on it. Enough time had elapsed now for her to wash it off, together with the organic material that had been loosened. The painstaking work of swabbing the stone with hydrogen peroxide and picking off the remaining marine growth would then follow—and she was anxious to make a start.
A large silver Audi was parked in front of her brother’s home. It wasn’t quite parallel to the curb; she wished she could straighten it. A tall, balding man in a gray suit unfolded himself from the front of the car as she walked up the driveway. She paused to let him catch up with her.
“Ms. Anderson?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Andrew Carter. I’m a lawyer with the Khayef Group of companies. We occasionally offer funding to people researching topics that are in the national interest.” He smiled. “It’s our way of contributing back to society. We’ve heard that you’re doing research into the mahogany ship.” The man’s eyes never left Felicity’s face. “It may be mutually beneficial for us to speak.”
“Oh.” Felicity was in shock, and wondered how the man knew of her work. She’d been careful to keep her investigation confidential. Almost as quickly, her mind then turned to the parlous state of her finances. Anything that might help her right now would be welcome.
“Please come inside, Mr. Carter.” She led the way down the hallway, pausing occasionally to push the children’s toys against the wall with her toe. The sound of children squabbling came from one of the bedrooms.
“Please excuse the mess. Three children live here.” She led him through to the back of the house. Her bedroom and office were located in a room that had been created by enclosing a section of the back veranda. “Take a seat,” she said, pointing to the only armchair. She sat herself in her office chair and waited for him to speak.
Mr. Carter cleared his throat and began. “The mahogany ship is one of the great unsolved mysteries of early Australian colonial history. We would look very seriously at funding anyone who was researching it.”
“Plenty of people have researched it,” Felicity said carefully. “No one has found definite evidence of it—yet.”
“But you believe it exists, or at least once existed?”
Felicity nodded.
“Why?”
“There’s a lot of cumulative evidence for it, Mr. Carter.”
“I would appreciate a summary of that evidence, if you wouldn’t mind.”
Felicity guessed that the man was testing her. Their conversation was, in a very real sense, an examination. She drew a deep breath and began to speak.
“The town of Port Fairy was originally called Belfast. It began as a whaling station owned by the firm of Hewett and Company, which employed about one hundred people. Three me
n from the station were once in a whaleboat that was swamped by a wave and sunk. One of them drowned. His companions buried him and then walked back to Belfast. On the way, they reported seeing a ship up in the sand hills opposite Tower Hill.”
“Was the sighting investigated?”
“There is the account of John Mills, who, along with his brother Charles and a sixteen-year-old whaler named Hugh Donnelly, visited the site to check it out. Evidently, they found the ship. John reported that its wood was as hard as iron.” Felicity shrugged. “John’s evidence has a fair deal of credibility because he went on to become the harbor master at Port Fairy.”
“Would you say that this was enough evidence to prove the existence of the ship in a court of law?”
“Probably not, although there is other evidence to suggest its existence.”
Carter pursed his lips. “And what other evidence is that?”
“A Captain John Mason visited the location in 1846 and reported seeing a vessel of about one hundred tons’ displacement in the Hummocks. Only the hull remained, and the timbers were old and bleached.” Felicity pushed her hair away from her face. “Eight years later, Alexander Rollo from the village of Panmure also reported seeing the vessel in the Hummocks. He said it was eighty meters inland behind the sand dunes.”
“Do you know the nationality of the ship?”
“It was probably Portuguese. A local woman reported seeing a wrecked ship made of wooden panels rather than the usual long planks. It was a method the Portuguese used to build their caravels in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.”
“But how certain can we be?”
“Nothing is certain, Mr. Carter. There is real discrepancy about where the ship actually was.” She shrugged. “There’s also a possibility that more than one ship was wrecked. The only thing we are certain of is that a good number of people have recorded seeing a wrecked ship west of Warrnambool.”
Felicity swiveled her chair around, tapped on her computer keyboard, and uploaded a file. She referred to it as she spoke. “A fellow called James Jellie reported seeing a wreck in 1848. He was out riding and saw it by a large sand hill near the Merri Creek. And then there was Mrs. Manifold, wife of a Warrnambool magistrate. She saw the remains in 1860 when she was out riding.”
Felicity scrolled down the computer screen. “We have a report from a Mr. Furnell who reported seeing a ship buried in sand when he was standing on Tower Hill. He was the local Inspector of Police, so his word should have some credence.” She swung back around on her chair and faced her visitor. “The evidence for at least one ship up in the sand dunes is overwhelming.”
“Ms. Anderson, this is important: What concrete evidence is there that the ship is Portuguese?”
“The evidence is only circumstantial at this stage. The most widely accepted theory suggests that the vessel is a missing ship from a Portuguese flotilla of three ships led by Cristóvão de Mendonça. The expedition sailed from Lisbon in 1519 for Goa, India, under the captaincy of Pedro Eanes. Once Mendonça arrived, the Portuguese Governor of India appointed him to lead the ships to the Moluccan Islands and beyond…to look for the Isles of Gold.”
Felicity rested an elbow on the desk and arranged three pens into a straight line. “Secrecy was vital because they were sailing in waters deemed to be Spanish under the Treaty of Tordesillas.”
The grandfather clock in the hallway chimed six o’clock. The children were fractious, wanting their tea. Felicity could hear her sister-in-law calling out from the kitchen for them to be quiet.
She wondered how much she should reveal to her visitor. The Atlantis stone was soaking in the very next room which her brother used as an office. It was sitting in a medical specimen tin on a workbench. She decided it was too early to tell anyone about it. The stone may have no significance at all.
Felicity did, however, want to present herself as a worthy candidate for a research grant, and so she pressed on. “There’s some evidence that Mendonça may have lost a second ship from his flotilla. A ship similar to the one seen here was uncovered in a violent storm at Raupuke Beach, New Zealand, in 1877. The possibility that it is linked with Mendonça was indicated by the fact that local Maoris found a bell on the west coast of the North Island in 1836. It was inscribed with Tamil script, suggesting it came from the region of Goa in India, where Mendonça began his voyage.”
“I didn’t know that.” Carter nodded slowly. “This information might be important.”
“Really? I’m glad.” Felicity wondered why it would be important to him, but she let it pass. She continued. “The link with New Zealand was made more likely when the Kiwis dredged up a Portuguese helmet from the top end of Wellington Harbour. It’s on display in the Dominion Museum.”
Felicity could hear the children being called for tea. There was a clatter, a banging, and the patter of tiny feet. Felicity arranged the three pens into a triangle. “Why did you come to see me, Mr. Carter?”
The man looked at her steadily before replying. “I’m aware that plenty of people have searched for the mahogany ship, including Monash university, but to my knowledge, no one is currently searching for it—except you. Would I be correct in thinking that?”
“Um, I think so. But how did you know about me?”
“We contacted the local newspaper. They thought you were probably researching it. They usually know what’s going on.”
Felicity was surprised. She couldn’t think how the local newspaper could possibly have known.
“Ms. Anderson, if you find any evidence that this mahogany ship is Portuguese, will you contact me as soon as possible? I’m instructed to say that the Khayef Group will pay handsomely for the information.” He smiled. “There would be a bonus if you told us about it before anyone else. We’d love to be the ones to make your research findings known publicly.” He pulled an embossed card from his top pocket, scribbled on it, and gave it to her. “This is my personal number. Please let me know of any progress you make…and I’ll be in touch in the next few weeks with a funding proposition.”
After a typically chaotic tea with her brother’s burgeoning family, Felicity returned to the back room and began using medical tweezers to pick away the marine growth on the Atlantis stone. It came off with great reluctance. She brushed on the hydrogen peroxide, let it fizz on the grubby surface, and continued the tedious task of picking the growth off with fine tweezers.
By midnight, she knew that she had uncovered something very special indeed.
The flat stone had indeed been carved, but the carving was incomplete. It had been a work-in-progress just before it sank off the rocky cliffs of Warrnambool. Half of the engraved letters were in deep relief, the others were not. They had only been chiseled roughly in readiness for carving. What was in no doubt at all was the meaning of the carving. The words Ilhas do ouro—land of gold—had been etched under the carving of a two-masted, lateen-rigged sailing ship.
Felicity could barely contain her excitement. She wanted to wake everyone in the house and tell them…what? What could the significance of her discovery be? Would it, she wondered, earn her a generous grant from the Khayef Group and provide her the material she needed to write a book? Wow! That would be wonderful. She wanted to run across town and tell Benjamin about the Atlantis stone…that all the drama it had caused off Thunder Point had been worth it.
She stared at the stone. Its color and shape began to niggle at a memory, something she had seen during her honors research into the mahogany ship. What is it?
Felicity leaned back and rubbed her eyes. They craved sleep, but she was high on adrenaline. This stone could, in all probability, have come all the way from Portugal, around the bottom of Africa…
That’s it! She remembered.
Africa.
Felicity picked up the specimen tray containing the Atlantis stone and walked through to her private living area. She placed the tray on the desk, booted up her computer, and began to search through the data she had collected for her thesis
three years earlier.
Eventually, she found it. It was an account written by a science journalist who had discovered a fragment of stone engraved with Mendonça’s name in South Africa. The stone had been clearly dated 1524.
Felicity searched through her file of stored images until she found a picture of Mendonça’s stone. It was very similar to the Atlantis stone—too much alike to be a coincidence.
She reached for her phone and photographed the Atlantis stone in its steel tray. After uploading the image to her computer, she put the images of the two stones side by side. She reduced the size of the Atlantis stone image and moved it alongside the African stone. The ragged edges of the two stones matched perfectly!
Felicity sat back in her seat and ran a hand through her hair. Both stones had once been part of the same stone! How could that be? Mendonça’s stone was dated 1524, a good two years after one of his caravels had foundered on Warrnambool’s beach.
Something was wrong.
Felicity didn’t know whether she should laugh with delight at what she had discovered, or cry in frustration that her theory about what had happened was blown to pieces.
In the end, she went to bed.
Chapter 6
Benjamin tried not to feel too self-conscious in his linen jacket, open shirt, and brown slacks. It wasn’t easy as it was all quite alien to him. He sighed and pushed the button on the intercom of the double-story unit rising above him.
“Yes?” came a tinny response through the grill.
“Mr. Mercurio, Mr. Benjamin here to look at the Corvette.”
“Ah, right on time. Good. I’ll come down.”
The car was sitting in the driveway. The metallic gray monster looked poised to strike. Benjamin had never driven anything like it. Archie had researched the car on his phone and schooled Benjamin on what to expect during their drive through the early hours of the morning.
Nick Mercurio was a large man with long sideburns and fashionably untidy hair. His gray suit didn’t quite hide a small paunch. He shook Benjamin’s hand and waved toward the car. “There she is: six point two liters of grunt, delivering three hundred and twenty-one kilowatts of power.”