Cradle of Solitude

by Alex Archer

  “Talk to me,” he said to her, grinning like a baboon.

  Glad I’m not the only one, she thought.

  “She’s down there all right, almost completely buried in the mud at the river bottom. Thankfully, she appears to be mostly intact!”

  “So what do you think? Can we get inside?” Garin asked.

  Annja nodded. “I found a hole about three-quarters of the way along the hull that’s wide enough for us to swim through.”

  “Did you try to get inside?”

  “Not yet, but it doesn’t look like it will be a problem. I could see down to the lower deck from where I stood outside the gap and it looks like there is room enough to move around inside. That doesn’t mean a bulkhead somewhere hasn’t been crushed or the captain’s cabin, where what we need was stored, is still accessible, but at least it gives us a chance.”

  Garin nodded. “All right. Take half an hour to rest and then we’ll go down together.”

  She didn’t want to wait. She wanted to simply switch tanks and dive immediately, but she knew he was right. The ship had been there this long and it wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, so there was no reason to take a chance with safety. Tired divers made stupid mistakes and mistakes were something they couldn’t afford.

  She used the downtime to grab some water and a quick snack out of the cooler they’d brought along. Rehydrated and feeling energized after the quick sugar rush, Annja prepped the underwater camera she’d be using to take pictures of their incursion inside the vessel and then changed out her previous breathing tank for a new one. When Garin was finished going over his own gear, they decided they’d been cautious enough and got ready to dive.

  Annja explained their intentions to Mitchell.

  “We’re going to use the dive line to get us back to the wreck, but after that we’re going off of it. I don’t want to take the chance of having the line get held up on something inside the wreck and end up with one of us trapped down there.”

  Mitchell nodded. “Got it.”

  “We shouldn’t be down there for more than an hour. If we run into any trouble we’ll signal with a red strobe. You’re not to leave the boat, though. Call for help if you think we’re having difficulty.”

  “Roger that. Stay out of trouble and we won’t have to worry about any of that,” he replied, not knowing that trouble had a tendency to find Annja and not the other way around.

  She smiled, gave him a thumbs-up and disappeared over the side of the boat.

  Garin was waiting for her just beneath the surface. She swam by him, knowing he’d follow her down as planned. The strobe light she’d placed near the wreck had started to dim but was still strong enough for her to focus as she descended. Minutes later she was hovering just outside the opening, Garin at her side.

  The dive line was attached to her belt with a carabiner. She unclipped it and then hunted around for a moment until she found a spot on the wreck where she could attach it. That way they would maintain a link to the boat above, but still be free to move around inside the wreckage without worrying about the line getting snagged on a piece of equipment or preventing them from getting through a tough spot.

  Garin flipped on the handheld spotlight he carried, then signaled that he was ready. Annja did the same with her own light, then slipped through the opening and led the way inside the wreckage.

  Most of the Confederate ironclads had nearly identical interior layouts, with three decks running throughout the structure. The first deck, known as the gun deck, was the portion of the main deck that was located inside the protective casemate armor. The guns were located there and, as one would expect, it was also where the crew spent most of their time. Meals were taken on foldaway, tables and hammocks were slung between the guns for sleeping.

  The berthing deck, just below the gun deck, was a mezzanine-style deck, with its aft compartment fitted around the engine and its accompanying boiler. The forward compartment was divided into several areas, including additional crew quarters, the galley, paymaster’s office, wardroom, sick bay and the captain’s cabin.

  The third and final deck, the orlop deck, housed all the stores. Dry provisions were near the bow, the magazine at midships and the wardroom stores usually near the rear. Just aft of this deck were the water tanks, boiler room and engine room, with all the machinery you would expect in such an area.

  Shining their lights around the interior, it was clear that the ship was resting on her side. The “floor” they were hovering over was actually the port side of the vessel and anything that had not been bolted down at the time of the hurricane had been strewn about the chamber in a tangled mess. Most of it appeared to be the smashed remains of wooden furniture, which puzzled her for a moment until she remembered that the ship had been used as a regional headquarters in the months before the hurricane.

  She glanced around, orienting herself with her mental understanding of the expected layout and then pointed to her left, indicating they were to move in that direction.

  Garin nodded to show he understood.

  Parker’s second clue instructed them to find the Lady in distress, which they had determined was the CSS Marietta, and to then “take Ewell’s Rifle from her crest.” A ship’s crest, also known as a coat of arms, was usually located in the captain’s cabin so it made sense to start there given they didn’t have any indication that it would be found elsewhere. That meant they had to go down one more deck and then move forward, toward the bow of the vessel, until they located the right cabin.

  They moved through the open space of the gun deck until they came to a square opening in the “wall” on their right that Annja recognized as a ventilation shaft. Once covered by a metal grate, the shaft would have allowed cool air from above to filter down belowdecks where it was desperately needed.

  It was wide enough to allow them to pass through without difficulty and they used it now like a doorway to swim from the gun deck to the berthing deck just beyond.

  They found themselves staring at a large metal tank that filled most of the space from the floor to the ceiling.

  Boiler room, Annja thought to herself.

  She shone her light beyond it, where she could see a convoluted series of metal shafts, pipes and gears, marking that space as the engine room. Garin had already turned his back on the equipment and was moving toward the open doorway at the other end of the room, so Annja had no choice but to follow, despite her desire to poke about and examine the engine. If she started, she knew she’d be there all day.

  They passed through the wardroom, with its officers’ bunks, and the galley with its tangled heap of cookware, before coming to a narrow corridor with open doors on either side. The second room they checked turned out to be the captain’s cabin.

  It was bigger than the others they’d seen, with a bunk bed built against the bulkhead and a narrow desk nailed to the floor just beyond.

  The ship’s crest, a large wooden plaque cut into the shape of a shield, hung above the desk.

  Her excitement growing, Annja swam over to it.

  Up close, it was unlike any crest she’d seen before. Most crests were carved from a single block of wood, so that each of the items that made up the crest were actually part of the whole. In this case, however, the flat surface of the shield was one piece of wood, with each of the adorning items making up the coat of arms having been carved separately and added one at a time.

  At the top of the crest were two crossed rifles, in this case a pair of Enfield muskets, one of the most common weapons carried by Confederate soldiers throughout the war. A cavalry saber ran vertically through the space behind the center of the crossed rifles, the tip of its blade pointing at the object beneath them, which happened to be the statue of a horse rearing up on its hind legs. Underneath that, at the bottom of the crest, was a ship’s wheel. A linked chain, perhaps representing a ship’s anchor chain, ran around the edge of the entire device.

  Garin followed her over, waited patiently for Annja to finish her
examination, and then reached up to remove one of the rifles from the top of the crest, only to have Annja put out a hand to stop him.

  Even through his face mask she could see him giving her an impatient look.

  We came for the rifle, so that’s what I’m taking with us, his eyes seemed to say.

  But Annja knew better.

  Motioning for him to wait a moment, Annja turned her attention back to the crest and ran her fingers over the statue of the horse.

  Take Ewell’s Rifle from her crest…

  Richard S. Ewell had been a Confederate general who fought well under Stonewall Jackson and had taken command of Second Corps when the former fell in battle. He’d made a fateful mistake at Gettysburg, failing to push for the heights of Cemetery Hill despite the discretionary orders he’d received from Robert E. Lee telling him to engage if he found it to be “practicable.” The second day of fighting at Gettysburg might have been radically different if he’d done so.

  Ewell’s Rifle hadn’t been a firearm, Annja remembered, but rather the trusted horse on which he rode into battle.

  A horse like the one in front of her now.

  Unable to find a switch or a lever that might release the horse from its position on the crest, Annja grasped it with one hand and tried to turn it. She felt something click beneath the pressure she was exerting and the statue came free in her hand.

  Garin had been hanging back, watching her, but when the horse came free in her hand he crowded close, wanting a look for himself. She passed it over to him and let him examine it for a moment, before taking it back. When doing so, she noted that it felt heavier than something that size would normally weigh, signaling to Annja that there was more there than met the eye. She’d have to examine it more closely once they got it up to the surface.

  Opening the dive bag at her waist, Annja dropped the statue inside. A glance at the dive computer on her wrist told her they’d been down for twenty minutes at this point. At their current depth, that meant they were now at the halfway mark.

  Plenty of time to get back to the top, she thought.

  She signaled to Garin that they were ready and followed him back through the wreckage the same way they’d come in until they reached the gun deck and the opening in the hull through which they’d entered the ship.

  27

  With a nod to her, Garin slipped out of the opening, located the dive line and, using it as a guide, headed for the surface. Annja moved as if to follow but then stopped for a moment before leaving the wreck, wanting to be certain that the bag containing the artifact was tied securely to her dive belt. She didn’t want the river current to tear it free while she was surfacing.

  Satisfied, she turned to follow Garin, only to hesitate at the exit, a sense of unease stealing over her. She couldn’t put her finger on precisely what it was, but she had that sinking feeling in her gut, that tingling at the edge of her spine that sometimes warned her when something was about to go very wrong.

  She’d learned to trust her instincts and listen to that feeling.

  She extended her arm outside the wreck and waved her spotlight about, looking for she didn’t know what.

  The beam of light could only cut through the water for a short distance before the murk swallowed it up. Still, she thought she saw something swimming through the dark waters at the edge of the light’s reach.

  That’s just Garin, she tried to reassure herself.

  She pulled the spotlight back inside, turned it up to its most powerful setting and flashed it back in the same direction.

  This time there was nothing there.

  Satisfied, she clipped the light to her belt and leaned out of the opening, her hand groping for the dive line that she intended to follow to the surface. A dark shape rushed forward out of the murky water to her left. She saw it and flinched backward, her body reacting to the threat before her conscious mind had processed exactly what it was. She caught sight of a scaly hide and a flash of teeth before the alligator’s powerful jaws slammed shut just inches from her face.

  Half a second later the creature was gone, lost once more in the murk.

  Heart pounding, Annja backed away from the opening. She knew that contrary to popular belief, alligators actually had excellent eyesight and, being natural predators, were attracted to movement. She was hoping that the creature would just continue on and leave her alone if she didn’t give it any reason to come after her.

  She called forth her sword and felt a little less anxious when her hand closed around the hilt. Unlike a firearm, a melee weapon like her sword would work pretty effectively underwater, provided she stuck with actions that didn’t generate a lot of resistance. Great slashing strokes were out of the question, but she could stab with it easily enough. Armed, her chances improved almost a hundredfold. Most alligators avoided human contact as much as possible, and the larger the creatures, the more shy they were. The average alligator was about twelve feet in length, she knew, which put the one she’d just seen well in the upper percentile.

  That’s one big lizard, she thought.

  She checked her dive computer again and saw that she had another five minutes of air, plus a ten-minute safety margin. Hopefully the alligator would grow bored and wander off long before that.

  But that wasn’t to be.

  Even as she thought about it being gone, the gator swam back into view. It cut through the water like a torpedo, approaching her hiding place but not intent on attacking, at least as far as she could tell. It seemed to be just swimming about, waiting for her to emerge from her little cave.

  She held her breath, as if breathing might alert it to her presence somehow and continued backing up.

  As she did so, she bumped into one of the cannons that had been tossed about by the hurricane. It wasn’t a hard blow, by any means, but it hit her side at just the right angle to set off one of the emergency strobe lights she had hanging on her belt.

  The water around her was suddenly filled with a blazing red light that pulsed outward into the darkness. It flashed over the alligator, catching its attention and causing the beast to turn back toward her.

  It was facing her direction when the next pulse of light went out and the alligator reacted to it instantly, charging directly toward her.

  BELIEVING ANNJA TO BE right behind him, Garin headed for the surface without a backward glance. He was on limited air at this point and didn’t want to stay under any longer than necessary.

  The sun cut down through the murky water, and as he drew closer to the surface he could make out the dark shadow of the Kelly May’s hull in the water above him.

  To his surprise, however, he saw that she was no longer alone. Another, larger shadow loomed next to her. The second vessel was a good deal larger than the Kelly May and, from below it, looked as if there were only a few feet separating the two boats. Garin hesitated, hanging in the water a few feet below the surface. Warning bells were going off in the back of his mind, the other vessel’s presence making him uncomfortable. He didn’t know if it was the position of the boat or the fact that it was there at all, but hundreds of years of trusting his instincts told him that he needed to be careful.

  He glanced down into the water below him, looking for Annja. She should have been here by now, he thought.

  But there was no sign of her in the murky water beneath him.

  For a moment he considered diving back down toward the wreck, but a glance at his dive computer told him that would be a bad idea. He had only a few minutes of air left; descending would leave him stranded at the bottom without enough oxygen to get back to the surface. Even if he did find Annja, he’d only be putting them both into increased danger.

  His lack of air also meant he didn’t have a lot of time to decide what he was going to do about the mysterious vessel above him.

  He might be worried for nothing, he knew. After all, there were probably half a dozen legitimate reasons for the presence of the second vessel, from a quick coast guard inspection to a chan
ce visit from one of Mitchell’s fellow trawler captains. He really didn’t have access to enough information yet to come to a useful conclusion.

  His best bet was to see about getting some.

  Kicking himself into motion, he swam beneath the hulls of both boats until he was on the far side of the larger vessel. Once in position, he gently surfaced, trying to make as little noise as possible as his head and shoulders came up above the waterline. His new location gave him a good look at the other boat. Unlike the Kelly May, this one would never be confused as anything but a pleasure craft. Where the Kelly May looked weathered and used, the newcomer practically gleamed, from its showroom-bright white paint to its newly polished brass sparkling in the sunlight. Garin could see it had at least two decks above the waterline and those were topped by a floating bridge for fly-fishing. From the size of her, Garin guessed she ran on a crew of four, minimum.

  Thankfully, none of them were in sight.

  He could hear voices coming from the far side of the boat where the Kelly May was anchored, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying. The voices sounded angry, however, which only served to reinforce his sense of caution.

  Garin swam over to the side of the boat where an aluminum ladder descended from the deck down to the waterline. Grasping the nearest rung in both hands, he quickly climbed to the deck above. He didn’t want the scuba tank he wore to hinder his movements as he skulked about the boat, so he unbuckled his harness and quietly lowered the tank to the deck. He removed his flippers, too.

  A quick glance told him he was still alone. Satisfied that he could move with stealth, he set out to discover just what was going on.

  He crept forward, keeping his back to the wall and his head below the level of the windows. He could see a staircase ahead of him, leading to the decks above, so he made his way over to it and ascended as quickly and as quietly as he could. He passed the door to the second deck without stopping, headed for the sun deck above. At the top he peeked over the edge, looking for signs of the crew.