The Days were quarrymen who built roads and did repairs on the Cobb They had block-like chests and massive arms and short stocky legs, and they walked with their chests thrust forward and their arses pinched They didn’t say much, nor show any surprise when they come to the crocodile staring at them from the cliff face with its saucer eye They treated it as the work it was, for all the world like they were cutting a block of stone to be used as paving, or for a wall, and didn’t have a monster locked in it They ran their hands over the stone round the skull, feeling for natural fissures they could hammer wedges into I kept quiet, for they had more experience than me with cutting rock I would learn much from them over the years, once my hunting begun to include cutting large specimens from the cliff face or stone ledges that were uncovered at low tide The Days were to cut many monsters for me when I couldn’t do it myself They took their time, despite the short afternoon light and the tide creeping up and them only given half a day off for the work Before each blow, they studied the rock surface Once deciding on where to place the iron wedge, they then talked about the angle and force needed before at last using the hammer At times, each tap was delicate and seemed to have no effect on the rock Then Billy or Davy—I could never tell which was which—used all his might to strike the blow that brought out another chunk of cliff As they worked, a crowd gathered, both people who had been out upon beach already and children who seemed to know we were there almost before we arrived—including Fanny Miller, who would not look at me, but hung back with her friends It’s impossible to keep secrets in Lyme—the place is too small and the need for amusement too great Even a freezing winter day won’t stop people coming out to watch something new The children ran along the shore, skimming stones and scrabbling about in the mud and sand Some of the grown ups searched for fossils, though few knew what they were doing Others stood and chatted, and a few men gave advice to Davy and Billy about how to cut the rock Not everyone remained the four hours it took to get the skull out, for once the sun went behind the cliffs it got even colder But quite a number did stay In the crowd was Captain Cury, come up the beach from Charmouth When the Days finally managed to prise loose the skull, in three sections—two of the snout and eye, one with part of the head behind the eye socket—and laid it out on a stretcher made from cloth hung between two poles, Captain Cury stood over it with the others and examined the monster He was paying special attention to the jumble of verteberries at the back of the skull Their presence hinted at a body that must have been left behind in the cliff It was too dark now to see back into the hole where the skull had been We would have to come back when it