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his appearance by lowering his head and hunching his shoulders, he walked through the gate. The two men he had heard talking were heading away, one each end of a long wooden ladder, toward the slip on which a framework of props and wooden scaffolding surrounded the hull of a newly built ship. Slowing his step, Gabriel peered about him, signalling his uncertainty.
    ‘Looking for someone?’ The suspicious shout was accompanied by a sudden loud hiss.
    Glancing round, he saw clouds of steam billowing from the open doorway of a squat stone building with a slate roof and a wide doorway. Made of weathered vertical planks, the door was mounted on two wheels that ran along an iron rail parallel to the front wall. The steam evaporated to reveal a thickset man wearing a filthy leather apron that covered him from chin to ankles. In the background, Gabriel saw glowing coals on the forge hearth. An anvil and a large water butt stood on the beaten earth floor, and metal of varying lengths, shapes, and sizes was propped against the walls or lay in small, rusting piles. The sleeves of the blacksmith’s shirt were rolled up, exposing brawny forearms, and in one huge fist he held a long-handled pair of tongs that gripped a still-steaming bar of metal.
    Softly Gabriel cleared his damaged throat before calling out, ‘Foreman?’
    The blacksmith stared hard at him for a moment, then gestured with the bar to a similar building opposite.
    With a nod, Gabriel crossed to it, and knocked on the open door.
    ‘Yo!’ The voice was gruff and preoccupied. Ducking his head, Gabriel paused in the doorway.
    ‘Come in if you’re coming. I can’t see a bleddy thing with you blocking the light.’
    Gabriel stepped inside. The small room contained a big table, a battered cupboard, and a scarred wooden armchair on whose seat was a crushed cushion of faded pattern and indeterminate colour. The table was strewn with half-models of ships, each mounted on a flat piece of wood a few inches larger; two broken blocks, an assortment of copper bolts, a sail-maker’s metal palm, a fid for splicing rope, and some pieces of wood. Several leather-bound ledgers were stacked untidily on the cupboard’s top.
    A year ago he would have been surprised at the lack of paper, for there were no drawings or plans, but he was wiser now. The navy might use drawings, but small shipyards worked from three-dimensional half-hulls that showed the desired length, width, depth, and sheer. These were then scaled up; the lines of the model drawn out full size on the lofting floor, after which wooden templates were made of the principal timbers such as frames and stem and stern pieces.
    Standing behind the table, scratching his scalp through the wiry grey frizz that surrounded his head like a halo, the foreman looked up, gave a slight start, and muttered, ‘God a’mighty.’ Planting his knuckles on the table, he stuck out a pugnacious chin. ‘Well? What do you want?’
    Aware that short men found his size both intimidating and a challenge, Gabriel did not approach the cluttered table, remaining instead at the back of the small room. ‘A job.’ Wincing inwardly at the hoarse growl that was all he could manage, he saw that beneath the bushy brows the foreman’s pale-blue eyes were as sharp as a gutting knife as they swept over him from his coarse linen shirt, battered leather waistcoat, and stained breeches to his topboots. The foreman’s gaze lingered a fraction too long; as it flicked up once more, Gabriel recognised suspicion and waited for the question. To his surprise, it didn’t come, but the foreman’s voice was terse.
    ‘Wassamatter with your voice? Got a sore throat?’
    Gabriel’s lips twitched. He gave a brief, ironic nod as he leant forward and turned down the top of the bandage just enough to reveal the edge of the horrific wound.
    ‘Bleddy ’ell.’ The foreman grimaced. ‘How did you get that?’
    ‘Prisoner,’ Gabriel rasped. ‘In France. Stole the boots when