LAST ASSAULT ON OAK ISLAND 5

Chapter 5

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Nov 03, 2022

If you’re just joining this story, you may want to start from the beginning.

Oak Island’s terrain had once been dominated by forests thick with red oaks, giving the land its namesake. Now the coastline north of Smith’s Cove to Joudrey’s Cove was covered with softwoods. Varying hues of white pines, spruce, and other firs mixed into a menagerie of conifers. Periodically a red oak raised its head among the evergreens, but most had been cut down during the 200 years of the hunt for either space or to be used as scaffolding for pit operations.

At the eastern tip of the island was the lighthouse. Inland from that were the Clemens and Yearbright operations. The latter undertaking was on such a grand scale that the tons of earth dredged up from the shaft were deposited in a circle, giving the 100-foot area the appearance of a small, flattened volcano.

Lauren and Carlos could hear the echo of both drills as they walked along Smith’s Cove. The sun was high in the mid-morning sky, allowing the island an unusually warm and arid day.

This part of the island had fallen victim to the pit’s secret earlier on in the years of hunting. During the mid-nineteenth century, one operation discovered why the pit’s shaft was always flooded. Whoever had engineered the original pit had booby-trapped the shaft by digging a flood tunnel to Smith’s Cove. A whole series of filters and box drains designed to keep the Money Pit flooded were found at low tide. The discovery had led many treasure hunters and operations managers alike to wonder how the original engineers would retrieve what they had so thoroughly buried.

“This could have more to do with the find than the pit itself,” Carlos said as he and Lauren stood on the shore. They looked out over the half-submerged rubble of cobblestones, chunks of broken rock wall, and weather-beaten wood from an old cofferdam that had once breached the mouth of the cove. "I think it holds so many answers."

Lauren surveyed the water lapping at the shore sand. “If there was anything here, it would have been found by now. A couple operations dug the whole area up several times already.”

He laughed easily. “My dear, they’ve done the same thing to the pit and never found anything either.”

“True.” She frowned, gazing over the blue waters interrupted by the debris from past operations.

“The tunnel that kept the original shaft flooded gulched out here,” he continued as they picked their way across the uneven part of the shore. “If there was anything of value—monetary value—buried in the pit, it would have been found by now. Admiral Brielle couldn’t have buried it there.” His tone turned thoughtful. “How would he get it out? Unless there was another way in. A safer way. Now if this flood tunnel could be shut off, they could walk it up to the pit.” His gaze ran from the water inland. “Well, perhaps not. It would be difficult to get a chest through a slot that narrow.

“Another problem,” he added with a frown when Lauren took his arm as he slipped, “—thank you, dear—is the general populace. The mainland was inhabited during the American Revolution, and well, too. Halifax was founded in 1748 or 1749, and Dartmouth a year later. It was swarming with English, Scotsmen, and neutral French.”

They paused midway across the cove. “Loyalists to the British Crown flooded the province all through the war,” she added. “No one would have thought it odd to see a British ship hanging around.”

“Right. A British ship wouldn’t be too out of place,” he agreed. His eyes squinted over the water. “But an operation of the size of one it would take to dig the pit would attract attention. We’re only forty miles from Halifax, to say nothing of the workers themselves. How would you go about conducting a large scale excavation without explaining it to the workers? Especially a ship’s crew who knew they were sailing for the Colonies. How do you convince them to sail past the colonial harbors over a hundred miles north, cooperate in a dig, and then keep quiet about it? The planning it would take to accomplish such a feat.”

“Maybe they didn’t keep quiet.” She pulled at his arm as the water seeped around their feet. “If only one man in a crew of ninety said anything, Brielle’s secret would be out.”

They left the rocky beach and walked slowly toward the dock. Her arm was hooked under his in a daughterly manner in case prying eyes were watching.

“How many of the crew was still alive when the Lady Grey got back to Britain?”

Carlos sat down on the shallow end of the dock. “I don’t know. We haven’t got that far yet.” His eyes opened wider, appraising her with curiosity. “You’ve been thinking.”

She shrugged, nodding. “It would be simple for Brielle to let Stuart be killed in the privateer attack—if there ever was one.” She sat beside him. “Any of the crew who wouldn’t cooperate with Brielle’s plans could have been dismissed that way, too. He could have promised the loyal ones a cut of the payroll when they went back, or maybe he kept them so drunk they forgot, or maybe they died of disease.

“It wouldn’t look too suspicious to limp into the British harbor with only a handful of the original crew,” she said, trying to recall what Rudy had told her earlier. “A fleet of sixty-five ships with over 3,000 men aboard sailed form France in the 1740s for Nova Scotia. By the time they got here, the armada had lost most of the ships and nearly 2,000 of the crew. It would take little imagination for Brielle to pass off missing crew as the result of disease or accident.”

He nodded. His focus was beyond the cove. In the distance, a few boats were trolling fishing lines. “If he was greedy enough to conduct an operation like stealing a government payroll, he wouldn’t blink at cutting a few throats. He’d need a small crew to manage the ship. They’d be well-paid for their silence.”

“Carlos,” she began thoughtfully, “why did we come here? I know we’re here to look at the diary, but why not just have it sent to the museum? You said Rudy already sent copies of a few pages to convince Stends and Cooper it was worth the trip. It would have been a lot cheaper.”

“You’re right there.” He watched the fishing boat drop a planer board over the side. “Lauren, I know Brielle dug that blasted hole in the ground. The copies Rudy sent of the coded pages match the inscription on the rock they found in the pit in 1803.”

“The ‘Forty feet below...’ rock?”

“Yes. Brielle vanished in 1781, long before the rock was even found,” he said. “That’s too great a coincidence to be overlooked. There are too many coincidences in that diary to be ignored. Once we translate enough of it we can really get to work. If that means leasing the land the pit is on, we’ll have to stand in line for our turn. Personally, I don’t think it’s there.

“But there’s going to be a lot of preliminary legwork,” he continued. He felt his shirt pocket for his pipe, then grumbled at having forgot it. “That’s where you and the Captain come into play. You two can snoop around without looking too suspicious, if we do this right. There may be land to secure and you two can do that without raising a lot of questions. Hopefully it will be in some obscure place that holds no interest for either Clemens or Yearbright. The less attention drawn to our presence here, the better our chances are of doing this discreetly.” He shook his head. “That’s the only way to do something as over-exposed as the Money Pit.”

“The anniversary is going to make things difficult, if not impossible.” She watched one of the boats on the water approach the dock.

“In many ways, yes,” he said. “But it’ll also work for us. It’ll give you a good excuse to ask questions without being too obvious. In fact, it would be unnatural to not show some interest. And we better do it quickly, before some fortune hunter stumbles onto it by sheer accident.”

“I wish you would have told me about it sooner.”

He ignored her obvious shift of interest. “You already knew about the Money Pit, Lauren.”

“I meant everything else.”

“The Captain.” Carlos’ face softened. “I was afraid you’d decline the assignment if I told you that part before we left. I can’t bear the thought of attempting something like this with Beth.”

She frowned at the mention of one of the other students who also worked as Carlos’ assistant.

“But if you want out of it,” he said slowly, “I’ll have to settle for her or Allison.”

“Trade daughters in the middle of the play? You couldn’t,” she said with a smile. “Miles would notice.”

“Mmm. So would Captain Maruso.”

They both looked to the boat that was docking. Two couples stepped off. The women’s voices were high and excited. They pointed inland with jerky motions and one commented on the noise of the drills in the distance.

Carlos put a hand over Lauren’s as her arm slipped over his. “Time to go.”

The day dissolved slowly into evening, but Lauren did not notice until Rudy was asking Carlos about a nightcap. When Carlos agreed to this suggestion, she took their notes up to her room.

The diary hadn’t mentioned anything about Oak Island, Nova Scotia, or the pit yet. It only casually touched on the payroll, in fact. Brielle spent most of his writing space complaining about the Lady Grey and his wounded pride. He did, however, make several comments on Stuart’s resourcefulness and potential ingenuity.

Lauren could imagine the two of them, Admiral Brielle and Jonathon Stuart sharing a meal of officers’ rations in the captain’s cabin, complaints turning to plots. They would be drinking fine brandy, using silver flatware, exchanging exaggerated stories.

Probably, she thought with irony, the same silverware that was still aboard the ship when it docked in Britain. It was the one factor Brielle had overlooked in his exhaustive ploy.

But Brielle hadn’t been hanged for treason to the Crown although he had been tried and found guilty. She wondered whether he bought his way out of prison or escaped by his own wits.

She paused at the window before pulling the shade down after catching up on Carlos’ notes. Only the hall light behind her shone on the second floor, but it made her feel conspicuous to anyone bothering to look in. She was about to move away from the window when a glint from the slope outside caught her eye. It flashed again, a brief light in the darkness compared to the sweeping beacon of the tower.

She pulled the shade down to undress, but instead of fumbling in the scant light to change as she intended, she found a windbreaker and went downstairs.

She waved to Carlos and Rudy in the parlor. “I’m going out for some air.”

“Don’t go too far,” Carlos said, looking at her from over his glasses.

“I’ll stay close,” she said.

She left out the kitchen door that faced opposite the slope.

At the edge of the house she watched for the light again. When it came she made her way up the gentle incline, mind running along thoughts of who could be out there and whether they’d be armed. The residents of the island weren’t too trusting.

She crossed the dirt roadway without seeing any traffic and wove into the pines. The trees were spaced far enough apart to see through in the milky moonlight and she stepped carefully, quietly. She hadn’t gone far when the silhouette of a pickup truck and someone sitting on its bed came into view.

She moved cautiously toward the vehicle, grateful the man was facing away. She knew it wasn’t Maruso. When she drew closer she recognized the white truck Miles had used the day of the tour.

She stopped a few yards from the pickup’s cab. “What are you doing out here?”

Miles was off the truck and facing her immediately, binoculars strap still about his neck.

“Lauren.” He laughed uneasily. “What are you doing here?”

“I asked you first.” She walked to the opposite side of the truck bed, hoping to put him at ease. She wasn’t at all sure he wasn’t concealing a gun. “What were you looking at?”

He blinked hastily, then shrugged. “I really wasn’t looking in your window, Lauren. I was watching to see if Maruso came by tonight.”

She feigned surprise. “Why?”

He frowned. “I want to know if I’m wasting our time Saturday.”

She would have felt touched had she not known he was playing a role just as she and Maruso. She paused at the lowered tailgate. “Lewis and I—”

“Lewis?”

She laughed. “What did you think I called him?”

He chuckled, shrugging lopsidedly. “I just didn’t know his name was Lewis. Sorry. Go ahead.”

“We haven’t seen each other in a long time—really didn’t correspond much either. I knew he was working the island, and Rudy said I should come up with Dad,” she told him, trying to remember what she had rehearsed the night before. “He said Lewis asked about me, and,” she shrugged, faltering, “I kind of wanted to see him again, I guess.”

“You wanted to see him." Miles actually looked disappointed. "I sort of thought it was the other way around.”

“Well, he didn’t seem to mind me coming with Dad,” she said. “I’m afraid I’ll have to back out of lunch Saturday, Miles.”

He was mildly surprised. “Do you have plans for the Cabot Pageant?”

She nodded. Miles was swift, if insincere. “So far. We kind of left it open.” She didn’t like the way the conversation constantly hung around Maruso. She was telling too many lies to remember accurately.

“You’ll let me know if the pageant’s off between you and Lewis?”

“Sure.” Lauren moved to the slope, hoping she’d given the right impression.