The Gun House Secret 


The rain had begun long before dusk, sweeping inland from the Solent in thick sheets that blurred the horizon. By the time Emily Thorne reached the gate of The Gun House, the road through Hamble was empty and slick with leaves. 


She hesitated, the iron key cold in her hand. The white house loomed ahead, half-swallowed by mist, its crooked porch and leaded windows dim with age. She had inherited it only a month before, following her grandmother’s quiet death in the nursing home. Though she had visited once as a child, what she remembered most was the smell: damp timber and sea air. What she had forgotten was the weight of silence. 


Inside, the boards creaked beneath her boots. Dust drifted like ash in the lantern’s weak glow. Every room seemed paused in mid-breath, a faded portrait of some unsmiling ancestor here,a clock stopped at quarter past two there. On the mantle sat a rusted ship’s bell engraved with the initials J.F. 


Her grandmother’s will had called the property “a historical curiosity.” The village, however, had other names: The Gun House, Fullerton’s Folly, The Queen’s Vault. They said the four cannon halves were buried at the front was a show of pride by Admiral Sir John Fullerton, who had once served aboard Queen Victoria’s royal yacht. Yet older locals whispered another tale: that the cannons marked not honour, but concealment — the resting place of men who had crossed the smugglers centuries before. 


Emily had laughed when she’d first heard it. But tonight, with the wind moaning through the rafters and rain clawing at the shutters, she did not laugh. 


Driven by curiosity, she made her way to the cellar. The steps were slick and uneven, carved from stone that glistened with damp. The lantern cast trembling shadows across the walls. At the bottom she found what she expected, the smell of salt, the scuttle of something small, the slow drip of rainwater from the ceiling. 


And yet, something else. 


One flagstone near the far wall rang hollow beneath her step. 


Crouching, she brushed the dust aside and pried at the edge with a rusted chisel she had found by the stairs. The stone lifted easily, revealing a small cavity beneath. Inside lay a bundle wrapped in oilcloth, stiff with age. 


Her breath caught. She drew it out carefully, unwrapping the layers until a leather-bound journal fell open in her lap. The ink had faded to brown, but one name remained clear on the first page: 


John Sturgess — 1787. 


The first line read: 

“The river gives, and the river takes. May God forgive what I have done.” 

As the wind howled above, Emily read. 


1787 — Hamble-le-Rice 


The spring tide was low, and the moon was new, a night for quiet trade. John Sturgess stood at the mouth of the cellar tunnel, lantern light glinting off wet stones. Beyond, the Hamble lay black and soundless. 


He was not a cruel man, though some would later say so. Once a naval officer, proud and principled, he had fallen on hard times. When the first barrels came ashore, brandy from France, tea and silk from the Channel Islands — he told himself it was necessity. When more followed, and his name began to carry weight in whispered company, he told himself it was providence. 


The cottage, built by his grandfather, had a deep, cool cellar and a passage sloping discreetly toward the river. It had once stored supplies, then lay abandoned. The villagers said the tunnel was haunted, that the river spoke there with the voices of the drowned. Sturgess had let them believe it; fear was a useful ally. 


That night the tide brought danger as well as profit. 


“Light lower,” he ordered. The men obeyed, three fishermen, their faces drawn with hunger. They worked silently as the first barrels were rolled ashore, the smell of salt and tar thick in the air. 


“Fourteen in all,” one of the rowers whispered. “Fine Cognac, straight from Charente.” 


Sturgess nodded. “Bring them in. Quick.” 


But one man hesitated — Thomas Dane, barely twenty. “John, the excisemen were seen near Netley last night. They’ll sweep this shore by morning.” 


Sturgess’s jaw tightened. “Then we’ll be ghosts before dawn.” 


 


The journal’s later pages grew darker. 


November 1787 — Dane betrayed us. They took him at dawn. The river claimed him; they said it was justice, but I saw fear in their faces. The river keeps what it’s owed. 


January 1788 — Dane’s brother came to me in the night. He knew. He would have taken all — the brandy, the silver, the secret. I could not let him. May God forgive me. 


 


Emily looked up from the faded words. The storm had eased to a misty drizzle. She went outside, guided by the small map pressed between the journal’s pages, the cellar, the garden, and a faint line leading toward the riverbank. 


Near the old stables, the earth was soft. Taking a spade freom the stables  she dug, slowly at first, then faster, until the spade struck iron. 


A chest, small and rusted, the lock long gone. Inside lay a pistol, a silver signet ring, and several Spanish coins. Beneath them, wrapped in linen, were fragments of bone — human, brittle, and pale. 


Emily replaced them carefully. There were no jewels, no treasure, only the remnants of a life lived under the weight of conscience. She realised then that Sir John Fullerton, who had later owned the cottage, must have discovered this same secret. The four cannons outside the house were not trophies of service, but memorials. Markers of graves long forgotten. 


By dawn she had contacted the police, the local museum and the county archaeologist. Within a week, the site was cordoned off. Excavation revealed the remains of a collapsed smuggling tunnel and artefacts of the late Georgian trade: French glass, brandy stoppers, fragments of musket fittings. 


The Hampshire Chronicle ran a small article: 


“Important discovery at Hamble-le-Rice sheds light on 18th-century river trade. Items connected to John Sturgess and later occupant Sir John Fullerton reveal a forgotten chapter in the village’s maritime history.” 


Emily donated the journal and its contents to the museum, where they were later displayed under glass. Scholars debated whether Sturgess had been a smuggler, a reluctant accomplice, or merely a man trapped by circumstance. 


For Emily, the finding brought peace. The Gun House, once heavy with rumour, became a subject of study rather than superstition. In time, it was listed for its historical significance, its tunnels mapped and preserved. 


Today, visitors to Hamble may still see the four old cannons standing guard by the garden wall — their brass plaques inscribed simply: 


“The Gun House, 1787 — In Memory of Those Lost to the River Trade.” 


 


Historical Note 


While The Gun House Secret is a work of fiction, the story draws on Hamble’s genuine maritime history. During the 18th century, the Hamble River was a known route for the illicit transport of brandy, silk, and tea from the Continent. Smuggling tunnels, river cellars, and hidden storage vaults were common features of coastal dwellings. Sir John Fullerton, who lived in the area in the late 19th century and served on Queen Victoria’s royal yacht, provides a historical anchor to this imagined tale of guilt, discovery, and remembrance.