The Thuck Code

A subsequent examination, carried out by the team's forensic archaeologist, revealed that William Thuck was around five feet six inches tall, had a shock of red hair and a small 'goatee' type beard. He would have walked with a slight stoop, been plagued by arthritis, and probably the occasional headache as a result of a hairline skull fracture. However, none of this was apparent at the time of the exhumation. It was merely noted that the skeleton was of middling height, wore a gold ring on the middle finger of its left hand, and a gold chain about its nect, attached to which was a large and somewhat corroded copper disc. This was at first thought to be some kind of religious token, but there was great excitement when, upon subjecting the disc to a preliminary clean, the following cryptic message was found on its obverse side:

1:19 2:9 2:16 3:8 3:12 4:6 5:21 5:36 6:7 7:4 8:28 9:22 10:19 10:29 11:3 11:32 12:17 13:3 13:4

And upon its reverse side, the following words:

The mouth is stopt, the roar is still'd, with wood and iron the throat is filld

Mowbray and his team had clearly stumbled across a three hundred year old mystery. An informal meeting was held later that day to try and decipher the message. The general consensus seemed to be that the numbers were a code of some kind, the first number of each pair referring, perhaps, to a page in a book, and the second to a line, word or letter number. The poem on the disc was probably a clue, or confirmation of the coded message. If the code was designed to be deciphered at some time in the future, the team came to the conclusion that the most likely key lay in the Bible. A brief look at the King James Bible revealed that there were three books with thirteen chapters (thirteen being the highest pre-colon number in the 'code'). The Book of Nehemiah in the Old Testament was checked, as were 2 Corinthians and Hebrews in the New. In each case, the first number was held to denote the chapter, and the second either a word or letter position. Which ever way the team looked at the problem, the message produced was total rubbish.

A further brainstorming session was held after a break for tea, at which, following some quite bizarre suggestions, one of the genealogists casually mentioned the fact that Thuck's tombstone inscription was thirteen lines long. This theory was duly put to the test. This time there was no mistake. Their reward was this message:

O LORDE BELOW ME SEEK IT

This, coupled with the poem on the disc, led to only one conclusion; something was buried below Thuck's coffin. Mowbray immediately re-started the dig and, only a few minutes later, struck a solid object. As the soil was cleared away, he recognised the familiar shape of a cannon.

A seventeenth century cannon was possibly the last thing Mowbray and his team expected to find. It was fortunate that one of his colleagues, Dr. Judi Flowers, was an expert on historic ordnance. She was given the job of examining the piece once ithad been lifted. The two things she immediately noticed were that the touch-hole (that part of the cannon where the powder is ignited) had been filled with lead, and the muzzle stoppered by the insertion of an oversized ball, which appeared to have been hammered into place. It was obvious that the weapon had been sealed with the intention either of concealing, or preserving, something therein. Subjecting the cannon to x-ray photography would have been pointless and, since the piece was in no way unique, she decided to cut it open. She obtained specialist cutting gear, and the rest of the team waited with great anticipation while the end of the barrel was removed.

In the next post, the contents of the cannon are revealed.