Preview: LAST ASSAULT ON OAK ISLAND 17
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Carlos made great headway in the Brielle diary Thursday and Friday, covering lengthy passages in the time he and Lauren were not tending the light or Rudy and escorting tours. The literal content of those pages, however, scarcely revealed new developments as to the actual burial of the payroll.
And there were no hints at a map or definite pirate flags.
Brielle did go into detail about the original pit's construction, and this was as remarkable a discovery as the whereabouts of the treasure itself. Stuart's plans had called for a 170-foot hole dug straight down from the designated oak tree, but Brielle argued the depth was too great. Stuart persisted and the depth was kept.
At the same time, the flood tunnel from North Cove, which was presently Smith's Cove, was also being burrowed 500 feet away at a twenty-two percent gradient. It was two-and-a-half feet wide by four feet high, serviced by a railway of wooden skids to remove dirt, and lined with stones. It would meet the pit Brielle was constructing at about the 100-foot mark.
At this point, Stuart awkwardly admitted an incorrect calculation to the admiral; he intended the flood tunnel to engage the pit at 150 feet, not 100, and the gradient to Smith's Cove had been factored in to that depth. After another day of recalculation and Brielle's insistence, Stuart suggested they line the bottom of the pit with clay and cap it with a thick metal plate. Brielle ordered his men to fill the pit to a depth of 130 feet. The diary had now reached an entry date June 21, 1777.
Lauren stretched her cramped fingers, yawning in the humid air of the small kitchen. The warm rain outside made the page of her notebook curl at the edges and the radio wove in and out of fuzzy stations.
"He's only had three dates in the last eight pages," she noted with exasperation to Carlos also seated at the table. "The last was the seventeenth. He must be lumping them together because of the long shifts."
Carlos agreed. "Bring out the side view you drew yesterday." He looked over the sketch she placed on the table by their notes. He consulted a compass, and then read silently for a moment from the diary.
The only sounds were the rain outside and Rudy cracking his knuckles at the end of the table before dealing himself a game of solitaire.
"Good," Carlos said after a moment of reading. "This air shaft Williams oversaw was 170 feet south-southwest from North Cove, and intercepted the flood tunnel at about fifty feet down. Same entry, note that Brielle mentions digging a second air shaft 100 feet north of the pit along the tunnel. Also, this is where the flood gate will be located, but he gives no details yet." He frowned, reading silently for a moment. "This flood tunnel wasn't very straight."
"Hold it," Rudy said, abandoning his card game spread out over his end of the table. "Where's that first air shaft again?"
Lauren repeated the location. "Have you heard anything about it?"
He nodded slowly. "I think so. There was a woman who fell into an old closed up sinkhole in the late 1880s or so. She was plowing with oxen, I think it was, and the ground collapsed about four meters. A couple different companies tried to dig it up or blow it up later. They call it Cave-In Pit."
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