Buried in the Ocean

It was a dark and stormy night; waves crashed against my giant wooden hull as lightning split the clouded sky. The Atlantic was alive and kicking. The shouts of men were softly heard but cut off by the roaring thunder. People scampered across my deck, completely insignificant compared to the vast scale of the ocean. 

A man crouched whimpering, trying to take cover under the bulkhead, but he did not escape the captain’s rage. “What are you crying about?!” the captain shouted, “Do you want your Mommy?” he jeered. “But Sir, it’s the storm, I never seen nothing like it in me life,” he replied. He thinks he has it bad, I have to sit in the freezing cold water and carry him all the way. “You’re a sailor, now get a move on, because today will be remembered as the day that John Wellington, Captain of the HMS Dublin (thank you someone actually mentions me by name) finally killed the greatest enemy the British Empire ever had”. So that’s what we are doing all the way out here, pirate hunting, I said to myself, not that I could speak to anyone else of course.

“I’ve found it sir, I can see the Jolly Roger flying between her two masts, sir, it’s the flagship we’ve been looking for!” the lookout called from up in my crow’s nest. This will be easy I think to myself, she can’t have more than ten guns a side, my seventy will rip her to pieces. “What are your orders sir?” asked the helmsman. “Keep her steady, then turn to starboard a dozen yards away,” answered the captain. “We’ll riddle her with iron, then board it and butcher anyone who survived”.

Oh were it that simple… When I look back on that fateful day I realize we all should have seen what was coming. The setting was just too perfect, a small bay surrounded by a mountainous ridge, non-traversable by foot, no way for the pirates to escape… No way for us to escape. As soon as we entered through the small gap in the mountain ridge bordering the bay, I realized something was wrong. Not ten dozen yards in and the gap behind me closed in on us. More than a score of small sloops and other pirate boats were swarming our exit, smothering us on all sides. “WHAT IS THIS???!!!” demanded the captain. “What pirate treachery is this!” he continued. “It’s a trap, sir, they’ve trapped us” answered one unlucky sailor. “I KNOW IT’S A TRAP YOU IDIOT!” the captain roared back, “Wake the crew and ready the cannons. I’ll be damned if we don’t shred these rowboats to driftwood!” he ordered.

As the helmsman tugged my wheel urging me to turn so my starboard was facing the main bulk of the pirate fleet, I could feel the cast iron cannons slowly being pushed into position on my two uppermost decks. One man screamed out in pain as one of the heavy guns rolled over his foot, instantly crushing it beyond repair. The cannons locked into position as my firing covers were opened, revealing the fearsome sight of rows upon rows of deadly guns ready to punch holes through whatever pirate dared to come close.

We should have got out of there while we had the chance, blown right through the thin veil of boats blocking our escape. But my stubborn captain would not go down without a fight. In his mind he would burn the entire fleet and the ship we came for. But that was just a fantasy, though we would take down a fair number with us.

Then the bloodshed began. We unleashed our first volley from both sides, port and starboard, killing any brave or foolish enough to join the first line of defence against our brutal assault. Two small ships went down instantly, raising a cheer among my crew who were watching. We decided to keep our distance. They easily outnumbered us with boats and men, but we outgunned them and my hull was more than twice as thick as any of theirs, there first few shots merely scratched my wooden walls.

I towered above any who came to try and board, we let them try and get a few grapples over but their hooks fell miserably short. We laughed and jeered at their feeble attempts to board me. But then things started to turn for the worse. The pirate flagship had managed to sneak up behind me unnoticed by me or my crew, she was coming up fast with a group of boats guarding her, there was no time to turn and fight with my normal firepower using all my cannons, I tried to warn the captain and tell him what was happening, but he was deaf to my cries, after all they just sound like creaks and groans to him, which he associates with my steering getting jammed or the tide pushing my hull or something like that.

He finally saw and ordered cannons to be loaded in the rear, but it was too late, the pirates were already in position, and about to fire. I saw the burst of flame and the terrifying sight of iron boulders flying straight towards me, terrifying to a human maybe but I took it without even blinking. They punched right through my starboard half, ripping away a dozen guns in the blink of an eye, but most of them went off target. Then we returned fire, taking out the nearest ships in a lethal volley of metal. But there was no way to survive this. We sank to the bottom but we took the flagship and her notorious captain with us. Our mission was completed, but hundreds were dead, all lost to the depths of the sea. We were forgotten, an old relic on the sea bed. And that is the end of my story and the end of me. You can see me today - just some rotten old driftwood deep in the ocean, a tourist attraction for anyone who can dive.

by Ethan Rosenberg