Free The Skull by Christian Darkin Page A

nature. As he passed close to the wall of the nearest house, one of them let out a long moan. William froze to the spot. If anyone had heard, then the game was up. Anyone hearing a cow here would assume it had got loose and was munching through their vegetable store. They would be sure to run out after it. He held his breath.
    Nobody came. He grabbed the reins and led the animals away as quickly and quietly as he could, down the little rough track away from town and towards the beach.
    He’d only gone a little way when he suddenly heard a shout up ahead, and then another. Someone was coming. He looked around frantically. The ground was flattening out on to sand dunes. Maybe, if he could get the cart off the track quickly enough, and if whoever was coming kept their eyes on the path…
    It was a huge risk, but it was the only chance he had. He tugged on the reins, and the creatures tugged back. They wouldn’t move. He pulled again, harder this time, but the animal closest to him just tossed its head. He yanked with all his strength, but it was too late.
    Three figures stepped out of the darkness in front of him. They were fishermen – he could tell by their dress – and they were walking straight towards him. One was carrying something heavy-looking in one hand. He swayed a little as he walked, and his friend steadied him.
    As the three men stopped in front of him and slowly looked his cart up and down, William saw theman was carrying a bottle. This could get ugly. He looked around for the best direction to run.
    The three men didn’t say anything for a few moments, then the man at the front leant forward to William and slapped him on the shoulder.
    â€˜Bonsoir!’ he said in a loud voice.
    â€˜Bonsoir,’ William replied cautiously.
    â€˜Bonsoir!’ the others chorused. The three men smiled broadly and staggered on past him. They were so drunk they could barely stand. William thought they probably didn’t see anything odd about him driving his cart to the beach in the early hours. If they remembered it at all tomorrow, they’d never recall what he looked like, or guess what was under the sacking in the back of the cart.
    He hurried on to where the sand dunes widened out to the shoreline. There was plenty of cover here, but he would have to work fast. He secured the animals and ran off up the beach to where his boat was hidden. It was a twenty-minute run to where the sand gave way to broken rocks, before he could wade out into the icy water and around a jutting cliff to the secret place where the boat was hidden.
    Once he’d retrieved it and dragged it back into the water, he rowed as hard as he could to bring itback down to the sand where he could load it. He grounded it on the beach and used a couple of planks of wood to form a makeshift ramp from the sand up into the boat.
    William led the two animals down into the water and released them from the cart. He would have to get it on to the boat by himself. He pulled it around to line the wheels up with his ramp. He was already worn out from the walk, the run and the rowing. It wasn’t an easy job.
    The cart was a small one and didn’t really need two animals to pull it, but for one young man alone it was a struggle to manoeuvre it up the ramp and into the boat. Each time he inched the wheels out of the sand and on to the wooden planks, it would slip back or jolt off the side of the ramp. But he kept trying and eventually managed to get the wheels over the side of the boat. The cart dropped suddenly into the hull with a sharp crack, but luckily neither the cart nor the boat suffered any significant damage. William stood back to assess his efforts. The cart was sitting high in the boat. The shafts stuck out to one side. This would never work. He would have to turn it.
    He grabbed hold of one of the shafts and pushed the cart around, edging it a little at a time until theshafts faced along the length of the boat. He tipped