It lay on its side, stern pointing towards the sky, the gaping hole where its back had broken tilted down so that, at a casual glance, it looked to have rammed its prow deep into the sandy bottom. Marius leaned against a nearby rock and viewed the keel from what felt like a safe distance, although why he should feel safe when surrounded by open water rather than the ship’s wooden hull was something he couldn’t explain. Even from distance, it was massive. It was hard to gauge this far under water, with the silty bottom swirling about him in the dark, but what he could see seemed to be well over twenty feet wide, and the stern must have been sixty or seventy feet from the break. Growths covered the hulk, so that it might well have been mistaken for a natural outcropping from above. From this angle, below and to one side, Marius could clearly see the planks along the ship’s side, overlapping too regularly and smoothly to be anything other than man-made. The incline upon which the ship rested was a steep one, and Marius was faced with a quandary of sorts – to slip down beneath the vast mass and work his way inside via the open break, to risk his wellbeing against who knew what kind of creature that may have taken up residence, in the hope of some sort of loot to carry with him; or clamber up the slope and crest the obstacle at its uppermost point, which would result in less chance of booty but fewer opportunities of being eaten, theoretically, and he would at least learn the identity of the boat. In the end, his own nakedness decided him: what was the point of carving out booty when he had precious little ability to carry it, and unless he found his way to land, what would there be to spend it on? Marius was not yet resigned to spending his remaining lifespan under the waves, a resolution which required him to bypass this monstrous obstacle and continue on his path. He turned to the rising gradient, and crabbed his way towards the top.
As he climbed, the slope took him nearer to the boat’s hull, until he could clearly see the keel’s clinker construction. Giant planks, several feet wide, overlaid and fastened together with nails whose heads looked like metal doors in the gloom. Marius raised a hand in front of his eye, and spread his fingers, trying to block one from view. Some small spark of recognition flared within him. He redoubled his efforts, stirring up great clouds of sediment as he scrambled up the slope. Eventually he cleared the hull and fought his way upwards, until only a dozen feet separated him and the surface of the water. Here the slope flattened out, forming a plateau that stretched away into the distance. Light bent differently this close to the surface. After so long in the depths, the world felt washed out, mirage-like, despite its proximity. For a moment Marius felt a flush of revulsion, and quickly turned away, back towards the comforting dark. He knelt at the edge of the plateau, and gazed down upon the giant stern, trying to gauge its height by the size of the broken windows that ran in rows across the flat face. Thirty feet, forty, fifty… there was no need. Two words ran across the top of the uppermost rows, eight feet high, the bright red lettering he remembered from his youth faded with exposure and the endless motion of the sea, but clear enough that Marius sank back onto his buttocks and hugged himself with the shock of recognition.
He was staring at the long lost wreck of the Nancy Tulip.
Marius stood under the massive stern and gazed at the wall of wood towering over his head. Even with much of the ship missing, and the rest barely visible beneath thirty years of underwater plant growth, the dimensions of it stretched his belief. In an instant he was a child again, staring up at the ship as it wobbled erratically out of the harbour and into the open ocean. He reached out, as he had done that day. This time, however, he made contact with the hull, sliding his hand over the thick slime and shaking it into the surrounding water. He stretched back, neck bones cracking as he examined the hull. He should be moving on. He had a quest to fulfil, a life to recover. He couldn’t afford to get sidetracked, or to lose his sense of direction. And yet…
The adult Marius was dead, but the eight year-old reared up out of his memory with all the vitality of a child up past his bedtime to go and see something wonderful down at the docks. He had to know. Even if all he found were crumbling uprights, transparent squids, and rotting detritus, he had to see inside, to try and touch at least a fantasy of what it must have been like to embark on that mad, fatal, glorious voyage. Marius gained as firm a grip as possible on a nail head that protruded at head height, and hauled himself up. Feet slipping, lurching from one precarious handhold to another, he began to climb.
Twenty minutes later, he had his hands around the throat of his inner eight-year old and was giving him a damn good shaking. How someone so dead could possibly have heart palpitations so painful was beyond him, but there he was, half in and half out of a gun port, wondering whether it was possible to vomit when you haven’t eaten for a week and a half. To make matters worse, he didn’t have any breath to catch, and the one time he’d given in to instinct and gasped a lungful in, he’d ended up with a mouthful of slimy water that made him glad there was nothing in his stomach for it to react with. Something was seriously wrong with his death, he thought for the umpteenth time. If he ever made it back to a proper grave, he was going to have to speak to someone.
Eventually, the spinning stopped, and he was able to stare down into the cavernous interior of the Nancy Tulip. Frankly, it was a disappointment. He’d managed to climb as far as the cannon deck, a long, empty room designed for two things—the cannons that lay somewhere below, at the lower end of the tilted floor, and as much space as possible for the multitude of gunners, deck masters, powder boys, and medics to move without tripping over each other or getting in the way of the recoiling guns. When the ship had sunk, and twisted against the slope, everything on the deck had slid away, below the limit of Marius’ vision. All that remained was a vast emptiness, with the occasional rotting plank looming up like a peasant’s tooth. Marius slowly scanned the space in front of him. He had half-expected it, of course, but still… He shrugged, then hurriedly grabbed the edges of the hole as the movement caused him to overbalance. A piece of wood broke off underneath him, and spiralled away into the darkness, clunking dully against hidden obstacles as it fell. Marius gathered his remaining strength, drew his legs underneath him so that he squatted on the edge of the hole, and continued his climb.
When at last he reached the top deck, it was like cresting the top of a mountain. Once there, what else was left do but gaze downwards in all directions, knowing with utter certainty that you sat at the top of the world, and that no moment, no matter what you might achieve, could ever match this one, perfect sensation? Marius had no flag to plant, and no commission to claim the rotting hulk in the name of anybody, yet could not escape the need to do something to mark the occasion. He settled for sitting on a relatively sturdy piece of railing and picking the splinters out of his hands, knees and feet while he stared across the ruined deck.
In truth, there was very little left. The hills around Borgho City were not known for their hardwoods, and much of the upper decking had been crafted from the pine trees that littered the surrounding areas. The seas had eaten the soft wood: only the spars remained, and some of the support structures. The immense oak masts had snapped during the descent: their bases remained, so massive and imposing that Marius could only guess at how it must have been to stand below them or even more incredibly, climb up them to stand upon the cross beams and pull in the acres of material that had made up the sails. Much of the deck had gone, but surprisingly, the enormous round silhouette of the wheel could be seen, and behind it… Marius gasped, and sputtered as he drew in another mouthful of water.