devilstone chronicles 01 - devils band (19 page)

He also decided to provide a Gutenberg periscope for the helmsman. The famous printer had invented this device to allow pilgrims to catch a glimpse of sacred statues being paraded around the streets of Bamberg during religious festivals and Thomas reckoned it would be a simple matter to incorporate one into his vessel. However, Gutenberg couldn’t help with the problem of air supply.

If Thomas’ boat couldn’t use snorkels, his only other option was to find a method to produce the clean air that all land creatures needed. How to do this was a question that had perplexed students of the Natural Sciences for centuries and during his apprenticeship Thomas had assisted Agrippa in several experiments designed to isolate this ‘quintessence of air’. By placing rats and mice in sealed glass jars and watching them expire, they’d deduced that the act of breathing must extract something from the air and once this substance had been exhausted what
remained was toxic to life. They’d repeated their experiment, placing various concoctions in the jar with the rats, in the hope these elixirs would purify the air but the animals continued to suffocate.

Thomas felt sure that Leonardo must have been aware of this problem and had devised some way to overcome it other than a snorkel. If da Vinci had indeed discovered the secret of purifying air, then it had to be contained in his notes so Thomas returned to the pages of
The Munich Handbook
. He studied the diagrams and text until he found the answer in a short monograph on mining. For some reason, Leonardo had turned his skills to the problems of rescuing miners from deep shafts where the air had become foul and had suggested heating saltpetre would release the fabled ‘quintessence of air’. The saltpetre, Leonardo claimed, would not only produce clean air to breath, it would remove the poisoned atmosphere from a mine – or an underwater boat.

Thomas could barely believe his luck and resolved to test the theory without delay. He sent for a flask of saltpetre and, as this mineral was used to make gunpowder, de la Pole’s gunners had a plentiful supply. He also called for two rats, two wide-necked glass wine jars and a length of twine. Again the castle had no shortage of rats, jars or string and these were delivered to Thomas’ chamber within the hour. He placed the caged rats and the other items on a table and covered them with a red cloth and when all was ready, he sent for Bos, Quintana and Prometheus.

Exactly as Nagel had promised, Thomas’ companions had been welcomed by de la Pole, and had been appointed
sergeants in the Black Band, so he was not surprised when the three men appeared at his door dressed in the black livery of their new employer. Chillingly, Quintana and Prometheus looked perfectly at home in the garb of ruthless mercenaries and even Bos had reconciled himself to wearing the uniform of his hated enemies if it served a higher purpose. The men greeted each other warmly and were in good spirits until Thomas began to explain the White Rose’ plan to row an army up the Thames in boats that could travel underwater.

“By the big black beard on the Queen of Spain’s mother surely you jest?” said Quintana incredulously.

“Have you lost your wits in the few days you’ve been absent from our sobering presence?” Prometheus added.

“Are you planning to use witchcraft? I’ve warned you before Englishman, I’ll have no part in any compact with Satan or his servants. Have you forgotten that the Lord Jesus preferred to walk over stormy seas, not under them?” Bos said disapprovingly but Thomas insisted such a thing was possible and did not require anyone to sell his soul to The Devil.

“I can assure you witchcraft has nothing to do with building an undersea boat. When a barrel of wine falls off a quayside and floats just below the water’s surface is it magic or the work of Satan? No, it’s simply the nature of things. All we need to do is build a barrel large enough to take thirty men into the heart of London and seal it so water cannot enter. Can that be so hard?”

“If water cannot enter then neither can air and after a few minutes, anyone inside your ship of fools will die,” countered Bos.

“The Frisian is right, no man can remain alive for long once he’s been shut inside a barrel. Have you forgotten that the infidel Turks use this as a way to execute those who have offended their Sultan,” said Prometheus sternly.

“But I can show you how it
can
be done” said Thomas with a smile. The others looked at each other in disbelief as their friend went to the table at the far end of the room and removed the red cloth that covered the cages with a flourish. The rats squeaked at the sudden arrival of daylight and began to scrabble at the floors of their tiny prisons.

“Rats, glass jars what’s all this junk?” enquired Bos, looking at the equipment suspiciously.

“Now gentlemen, for the first time in history, I shall demonstrate how rats may survive in a sinking ship,” said Thomas with a broad grin.

The experiment was relatively simple. First, Thomas took a small copper jug and heated it in the fire, before filling it with some saltpetre. The hot metal caused the grains to give off barely visible fumes and Thomas quickly placed the jug in one of the glass jars with one of the rats. So the animal didn’t knock over the jug, Thomas tied one end of a length of twine around its belly and the other to the jar’s cork so the creature hung in mid-air over the jug of smouldering saltpetre.

In the second jar, he placed the second rat suspended from its cork like the other but without the saltpetre. He then sealed both jars with candlewax poured over the corks. When all was done, Thomas and the others settled down to watch. At first both animals writhed and
wriggled as they tried to free themselves from their glass coffins but gradually the movements of the second rat became sluggish then stopped. The dead rat hung limply from its rope like a hanged man but the first rat continued to struggle long after the demise of the other.

“What sorcery is this, why does one of these vermin die and the other live?” Bos gasped.

“The saltpetre releases the quintessence of air when heated,” explained Thomas but even he could scarcely believe the success of his experiment. He’d duped both de la Pole and Albany with his faked necromancy but here there was no trickery or deceit. He’d managed to make fresh air and with this secret he could sail a vessel underwater all the way to the New World if he wanted.

“My God Thomas, you are indeed a marvel, with such knowledge think what we can steal,” said Quintana appreciatively

“Then you’ll all join me?” Thomas asked.

“I’ve no love of the water but the poet Virgil teaches us that fortune favours the brave,” added Prometheus.

“And God said unto Noah build me an ark, for you alone are righteous in this generation,” said Bos.

11

THE BOAT

T
he White Rose needed no experiments or justification through scripture to convince him that his plan could not fail. He’d already made detailed plans for his submarine fleet and his strategy called for at least four boats, each capable of carrying thirty men beneath the Thames.

The crew of one boat would seize the king’s palace at Greenwich whilst the second proceeded to Westminster to capture Henry’s seat of government. The men in the third boat would lay siege to The Tower of London, to prevent the garrison coming to the king’s aid, whilst the crew of the fourth vessel would seize St Paul’s Cathedral and proclaim the restoration of the House of York. With the centres of Tudor power neutralised, de la Pole and the rest of his invasion force would proceed up the Thames in normal ships and arrive a few hours later.

As soon as Thomas presented his design for the underwater boat, the delighted de la Pole ordered work to
begin. The wooden stalls of Haute Pierre’s stables were removed to create workshops and the best shipwrights and chandlers hired from the city’s boatyards. The workmen looked at each other and rolled their eyes heavenward as Thomas explained his drawings. To a man, the carpenters and tanners believed the boat would be a death trap but if a group of crazy Englishmen wanted to drown themselves in the Moselle who were they to try and stop them? De la Pole paid well and had promised every man an extra purse of florins if they finished the boat by St Benedict’s Day.

Besides paying generous wages, de la Pole tried to keep his plans secret by making his workmen swear terrible oaths but there was little that could be done to disguise the sounds of hammering and sawing that the echoed around the castle’s wall. Worse still, the White Rose’s neighbours began to complain to the city authorities about the foul smells that came from the vats of boiling glue and pitch set up in the castle’s courtyard. De la Pole had to resort to colossal bribes and threats of retribution from the French king to quieten the city council but in spite of these problems the boat slowly began to take shape.

Surprisingly, building the vessel proved to be quite simple and even fitting the buoyancy tanks required no greater skills than those already possessed by any competent boatbuilder. The vessel’s frame was a series of circular wooden ribs of diminishing sizes fastened to two curved keels, an upper and a lower, with the largest of these ribs in the centre. Planks were steamed, bent to fit around the ribs and nailed ‘clinker fashion’ to the ribs. These ‘strakes’
were caulked with oakum, and covered with a leather skin before the whole structure was coated with pitch. This created a watertight cylinder fifty feet long with tapered ends at the bow and the stern.

“It looks like a turd,” said Quintana disapprovingly as he and the others surveyed the completed hull.

“That should come as a relief, as you’re used to being in the shit,” said Prometheus.

“It’s a coffin and we are doomed for the Leviathan is a monster of the abyss and God shall break it in pieces,” said Bos, ominously.

“But God is to be praised for having made all things, including the Leviathan, so come let us finish God’s work,” countered Thomas.

With the hull complete, the shipwrights set about fitting the taps to the flotation tanks. De la Pole had agreed with Thomas that the underwater boats should be taken across the channel aboard larger ships and launched once they’d reached the mouth of the Thames. As each boat’s entrance hatch only had to remain above water long enough for the crew to board, the valves to flood the tanks could be no more complicated than brewer’s spigots, which could be opened by turning a simple handle. Thomas ordered three of these spigots to fitted along the side of each tank and another in the top. Without this fourth tap the pressure of air inside the tanks would prevent them from filling. The extra tap would also give the man opening them a measure of control and more time to clamber back inside.

It seemed like sacrilege to deliberately puncture such a precisely built craft but Thomas insisted the workmen
bore more holes along the hull’s centreline for the boat’s oars. He’d calculated nine pairs of oars, each rowed by three men, would be sufficient to propel the vessel at sufficient speed to counter the river’s current. The rowers would also serve as marines to assault the bastions of Tudor power whilst a captain, a bosun-sergeant and a helmsman completed the crew. It was Prometheus who raised the question of how Thomas intended to raise the vessel once it had submerged, whereupon the new Noah proudly revealed his system to use heavy millstones as counterweights to the water in the tanks. The stones would be fastened to the boat’s keel and when it was time to attack, the weights would be detached so the lightened craft bobbed back to the surface like a cork.

The equally sceptical Quintana asked how the crew could release these millstones from inside the boat whilst it was still submerged. Thomas smiled and showed him several large wooden plugs shaped like inverted mushrooms. Each millstone rested on the broad cap of its plug whilst the stem fitted tightly into a hole drilled through the boat’s keel. The plugs were held firmly in place by cross-pegs so, by using mallets and spikes, they could be knocked out of the keel from the inside. The air inside the craft would prevent water rushing in whilst new plugs were hammered into the holes.

Bos pointed out that, with the millstones detached, the vessel could not submerge for a second time but Thomas remarked that if their attack failed this would be the least of their worries. With the ballast tanks, millstones and oars now finished enormous wheels, eight feet in
diameter, were fitted to the trestles which had supported the craft during its construction so it could be dragged to the river. The boat was now ready for its maiden voyage and, just as de la Pole had ordered, the final nail had been hammered into place on St Benedict’s Eve.

Though St Benedict was the man who’d urged monks to live a life of poverty, chastity and obedience, the men of Haute Pierre marked his feast day with a great banquet to celebrate the completion of the vessel. Tables were set up in the stable yard and those that had laboured long and hard ate and drank in the shadow of their strange looking ship. Thomas and his companions joined Richard de la Pole and the Duke of Albany at the table of honour and whilst the Scottish duke eyed the vessel with a look of deep suspicion the White Rose was overjoyed with his completed craft. He asked how soon the other ships of his underwater fleet could be ready and Thomas informed him that if the first boat tested successfully, the other three could be completed in a matter of weeks.

“You’ve done well Master Thomas but she needs a name,” said de la Pole as he chewed roasted meat from a large mutton bone.

“Might I suggest
The Hippocamp
, after the merhorses that pulled Poseidon’s chariot?” said Thomas.

“Splendid! A toast gentleman, to
The Hippocamp
, the boat that shall carry my army into our enemy’s capital just as Odysseus’ wooden horse carried the Greek heroes into Troy,” said de la Pole happily. He tossed the remains of the mutton leg he’d been eating to one of his hunting dogs, raised his wine cup and took a long drink.

“If I remember Homer, not one of Odysseus’ men returned to Ithaca alive, all of them perished because their captain had angered the gods,” replied Albany as he reluctantly raised his own cup.