The Sunken (28 page)

I stood the last watch from the helm, correcting the course (southward, through a squall, with no sign of the rest of the squadron), calling sail trim instructions and hailing the lookouts every fifteen minutes.

During calmer nights this was one of the more pleasant duties, offering respite from the crowded confines of ship life. It could be lonely, too, nothing but you and the ocean for miles around, but tonight the thought of my friend Nicholas snoring below decks gave me comfort.

And that comfort was much needed, as the pains shot up my legs and every minute of the watch was agony. The rain assailed the boat in sheets, knocking down men, and tearing the sails. I wore an oilskin over my woollen cloak, which prevented exactly no water whatsoever from soaking through my clothes. I never felt warm, never felt dry, and the aches in my legs grew even more intense.

Months passed in agony. The pain now haunted me at rest, so I could no longer lie in peace but thrashed about, tormented by the unending fire.

One night I tired of tossing and turning and listening to Jacob’s snores in the cabin next door. I rose and stumbled on deck to see Nicholas, who was on watch, wrapping my collar tightly around my neck to keep out the icy spray. As I made my way gingerly across the pitching deck, I saw his shadow slumped over the railing on the bow, leaning over the edge.

Ignoring the shooting spasms in my legs, I ran to him, thinking he must have collapsed in the cold. He spun around when he felt my hands on his back, and grinned when he recognised me. “Do you want to see a wonder, James?” he asked. “Lean out. I have something to show you.”

Gripping the rigging with both hands, I took a deep breath and leaned out over the edge. When I saw what he’d found, I screamed and jumped back.

“That’s a—a—a—”

Nicholas nodded. “She won’t hurt you.”

She was a sea-necker, or
Plesiosaur
in Buckland’s taxonomy. Her elongated neck stretched from the water up the side of the boat, and she rested her head on the gun port and stared up at us with narrowed eyes. From the water below, one of her flippers rose from the water below and slapped against the side of the boat, rattling the railing and causing another cry to escape my lips.

To my horror, Nicholas leaned out again, stretching out his hand and rubbing the nose of the creature. She closed her eyes and leaned back into his touch, opening and shutting her mouth so I could see the twin rows of sharp, pointed teeth.

I choked back a scream. “You … you …”

He laughed again. “I suppose there’s no harm in you knowing the truth,” he said. “I called her here to visit me in the solitude of my watch. She will not hurt me, because as far as she knows, she
wanted
to come to me. I
hear
animals, James. Only I hear their minds, and they are inside my head. Their thoughts bounce constantly around in my skull. I feel what they feel — the smells, the tastes, the sounds of nature come to me through their thoughts. And sometimes, like tonight, if I send out thoughts of my own, they will obey me.”

I backed away from this remarkable scene, struggling to grasp what he’d told me. “That’s impossible. You’re not making any sense, Nicholas.”

“I hardly understand it myself. As far as I know, I’m the only man in the world who possesses this curse. I’ve learned to control it, to some degree, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to call on this beauty.” He patted the sea-necker’s head affectionately, and she gave a snort and flopped back down in the water. I finally let out the breath I’d been holding.

He continued. “I thought, perhaps, if I could take to the sea, I could escape the constant chattering of birds and bugs and beasts. But the ocean teams with life, James, more even than the forests on my father’s estate. I must accept that I will never be at peace.”

“But how did you—”

He looked down at the great long-necked beast. “Sometimes, I can push with my mind, and I can give an animal thoughts that aren’t its own. I can say ‘there’s a nice man on that ship who will give you a few strips of salted pork if you ease up alongside’, and here she is. Usually, I can’t influence the thoughts of larger animals at all, but for some reason, ocean-bound creatures are more receptive, their minds more open. Perhaps it is because they haven’t yet learned to fear man.”

“Nicholas, that’s incredible!”

“It’s a curse,” he said bitterly. “That is why I keep it secret. Men would hate me and women would fear me. In a different time, I would be burnt as a witch.”

“I do not hate you.”

“There is nothing within you capable of hate.” He stared out to sea. “I grew up on my father’s estate in Wiltshire, not far from the mysterious chalk horse. My father — a minor Lord — was a shrewd businessman, and although we had family fortunes he more than doubled that amount through local industrial projects. I used to go with him to inspect his properties — huge warehouses that seemed to stretch for miles, mines and wells and a bridge designed to complement the nearby medieval abbey. I adored that bridge, the way the graceful steel beams curved upward into ecclesiastical arches, supporting an intricate lattice of fluted crossbeams. I would sit for hours on my horse and stare in wonder at that magnificent work of engineering art.

“From a very young age, I knew I wanted to be an architect, so I could one day realise such magnificent creations. But I unwittingly destroyed my future the first day I called the animals.”

I leaned hard against the railing, ignoring the pain in my ankles as I watched the sea-necker keep stroke alongside the boat. Her neck bent upward, regarding me with those cold, intelligent eyes.

“I loved my father, despite his coldness, and wanted so badly to please him. I was the second of four children — my older brother, Robert, my senior by eight years, and my two younger sisters. Robert would take over the estate one day, so he was of course the favourite. He would torment me relentlessly — pulling my hair, making my horse bolt, putting snakes in my bed — and I could do naught about it, for my father always took his side. My father would take him fox hunting on the estate, and they would always return laughing and joking. He never joked with me.

“I’d always heard the voices. As a child my mother would hit me if I told her what the cat was thinking. My father would whip his horse and I would shake and cry, and he would look at me with such distaste and loathing, it was unbearable. So I quickly learned to keep my secret. But one day, shortly after my thirteenth birthday, I was playing in the courtyard with my sisters. Robert entered with a swagger and announced in a haughty voice that father had given him his first business dealing. He, Robert, now owned the beautiful medieval-inspired bridge that I loved so much.

“I must confess I forgot myself. In my anger, I threw aside the chess set, and drew up my fists, not sure what I intended to do, only that I hated the unfairness of it. The bridge I loved so much was now in the hands of my loathsome brother. He saw me approach him and laughed, and said he planned on levelling the bridge as soon as possible. He said it was dreadfully ugly, and my sisters laughed, and I felt a great wall of anger push against my skull, and suddenly, the anger was gone. It fell out of me and I collapsed on the ground. My head felt light, as though it might fall off my shoulders and roll away, and my ears rang. I could no longer hear the voices of the animals. I was so scared, I started to scream, and my sisters — not understanding what was happening — screamed too.

“Robert turned away from me in disgust and strolled back across the lawn, when a rumbling from the garden caught his attention. The ground shook and growled beneath me, and I rolled over to see what was going on. And I screamed even louder. But not as loud as Robert. They closed the field in seconds — the horses racing at high gallop, their mouths frothing, followed by the hunting dogs, teeth bared, sweat glistening on their necks, and the loping draft-neckers, and hundreds of foxes and woodland creatures, which must have come from miles around. The sound they made was the most terrifying thing I’d ever heard — a cacophony of growls, squawks, hisses, and barks. But inside my head — nothing. Not a sound.

“Robert barely had time to turn on his heel when they set upon him, and he was pulled down into the stampede. They churned around him, closing in like a whirlpool, and I could no longer see him or hear him scream.

“My sisters and I scurried under the table and crouched low, and I covered my eyes so I wouldn’t have to look at the mangled body of my brother, and I prayed they wouldn’t turn on us. But they disappeared again, churning the lawn to mud as they charged back toward the forest. The spell had broken. The voices returned, slipping into my head. They had no clue what they had done, or why they had done it.

“My father rushed from his study as soon as he heard the screaming. He came running across the lawn, and he saw the horses bolting away and Robert lying there, his head bent at an impossible angle. He cradled his son in his arms and waited with him while he died.”

Nicholas sighed. “He banished me after that. Somehow, he knew I’d caused the horses to bolt. He said I was an abhorrence upon nature and he didn’t care if he never saw me again. He said he would throttle me with his own hands if I ever set foot on his lands again. So I came to London. I figured if there were any hope of losing the voices, it would be on the streets of the Engine Ward. So that is where I ended up, and I met Marc Brunel, and he agreed to teach me what he could until I was old enough to join the Navy and try to make a name for myself. But the voices followed, of course.”

“Henry?”

“I tried to save him. I sensed Mordred’s thoughts, saw he meant to follow his master onto the platform. But I acted too late, and so another person died.”

“If the guilt of Henry’s death belongs to anyone,” I said, my heart clenching upon my own secret, a secret I’d never voiced until now, “it belongs to me. I let go of Mordred’s chain. I was looking at my papers again, and—”

“He would’ve broken free anyway. I heard the desperation in his thoughts. Henry was down there, in the bowels of that machine, so Mordred would go down there also.” He dropped his gaze, and the sea-necker slumped back down into the water. “But I alone had the chance to save him, but I … I did not push, I did not reach for him. I hated Henry, and I wanted to see him hurt.” He gulped. “I am so ashamed. My cruelty cost a boy’s life, and the life of Master Brunel.”

He gave the sea-necker a forlorn wave, and she heaved herself backward and slammed into the water, diving under the churning waves and disappearing from sight. “So you see, James, it is a curse.”

“Then, we are both cursed.”

He nodded. “I have seen how you walk, and you cry out in your sleep.”

I looked up in alarm. He smiled. “It annoys Jacob something terrible,” he said. “Don’t stop. But James, what is wrong?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never known pain like this before,” I said, wheezing as I tried to stretch out my aching legs. “Look at us. Two wretched men blessed by each other’s company.”

“That we are, James. That we are.”

It was the drink that took Aaron’s mother in the end, of course. She lay in her chair by the doorway with her final bottle, empty, clasped on her lap. She had been dead some hours, and was already stiffening, her skin cold and waxy, tinged with green on her fingers, when he returned from the secret workshop and found her. He pulled a blanket over her and went to find Quartz.

The old man was drinking in his shack, but then, he was always drinking. It never seemed to alter his mood, as it did Aaron’s mother. When Aaron told him what happened, he put down his glass, and let Aaron lead him back to his shack. Quartz brought two men along with him, and they lifted Aaron’s mother and carried her away.

“It’s all right if you want to cry,” he told Aaron, straightening her chair and tossing the empty bottle out on the street.

“I know.” Aaron didn’t want to cry. He felt nothing, no sadness, no anger. He felt numb. He was twenty years old, and an orphan.

Quartz glanced around the room — his eyes taking in the neat pile of blankets in the corner, the candle and worn ledger book propped up against the stove, the pots and pans, clean and stacked on wooden shelves. He walked over to the ledger book and flipped it open, running his fingers over the rows of clumsily printed letters. “You can write?”

Aaron blushed. “Isambard and I taught ourselves. We spied through the windows of the engineer schools. I found that book in one of the scrap heaps. It’s what I use to practise.”

“You can cook, boy?”

Aaron nodded. “I do most of the work around here. Oswald and Peter are no use.”

“Ain’t that the truth.” Quartz slumped down in Aaron’s mother’s chair. “You have everything in hand, boy. Pity, I thought you might have needed an extra pair of hands. But you have no need of an old drunk like me messing things up.”

“You want to move in here?”

“If you’ll have me.” Quartz looked up. “With your brothers in the priesthood, it’s your house now, Aaron. No one can tell you what to do anymore. I’m getting on a bit, my home’s a tad small and infested with rats, and I could do with a young back to chop the firewood. And you could do with someone to help out with things, someone to keep you out of mischief. And,” he smiled, “I can teach you your letters, all proper like. And more things besides.”

Quartz sold his own shack to one of his drinking buddies and moved in the next day. Aaron warmed to his presence immediately. They spent hours each evening sitting across from each other at the small table, telling stories, drinking, playing cards, and reading books Quartz had kept hidden in his shack.

Finally, life in Engine Ward seemed less unbearable. But, just as Aaron’s life finally took a turn for the better, Isambard decided it was time to mess everything up again.

James Holman’s Memoirs — Unpublished

As if my body was doggedly determined to ruin any chance of winning favour on the
Cleopatra
, the pain persisted. First, the dull ache in my legs grew to an agonising drone, a pain that screamed so loud it rung in my ears. I walked stiffly, moving my ankles as little as possible, and praying each hour for the respite of my bed. At night when I kept watch, I paced the deck in agony, silent screams echoing from my lips.