Under The Surface

The ocean’s surface was a clean sheet all the way out to the surrounding horizon. Glassy. It was not an uncommon sea condition, but whenever it occurred, Gibbs always felt like he was sitting on top of a massive fishbowl. Marine life swam freely underneath and around the giant steam ship like it was just another toy in their bowl. Gibbs looked over the command deck and watched the flashes of schools in silver and yellow. Further down, large shadows passed by more slowly. Strangely shaped creatures with propelling tentacles floated to the surface, only to drift back down into the deep. And every now and then, a flopping fish would splash the clean sheet, creating ephemeral ripples, and reminded the young sailor that the world above the horizon and the world below it could occasionally be traversed. He looked up to see if there were any birds that could offer another dimension to his fish-tank daydream.

“Spot a bird, swab?” Gibbs turned to see his captain’s head sticking out from the portside window of the Bridge. The captain’s royal uniform pinched the salty skin around his tanned neck.

“No sir,” Gibbs wondered how long the captain had been watching him.

“Well quit looking around like you’re in a goddam museum, boy! You’re making me skittish. And you’ll go blind looking into the water like that. Ain’t your pappy ever told you anything?”

Gibbs considered what wisdoms his father had actually imparted on him, but the captain cast another obscenity before the sailor could muster a reply.

“Goddammit!” the captain yelled. He was looking towards the front of the ship and Gibbs followed his gaze. Seated on the railing of the First Class passenger deck was a grayish bird holding a silver fish in its sharp, yellow beak. The captain hobbled inside the Bridge, growling while he looked for something to throw. “Get that bloody fish offa my bloody ship!” He emerged with a handful of pencils in his right hand. “You diseased sack of feathers, put that fish back in the ocean where it bloody belongs!”

Gibbs watched in confused amusement as the captain struggled to scare the bird off the high rail. A group of passengers on the First Class deck were startled when the pencils landed near them, but the bird barely noticed. Instead, it threw it’s head back and swallowed the fish whole. Seeing this, the captain appeared to be satisfied.

“Fish got no place on a steamboat, swab. If that winged bitch let its lunch touch our deck, you can say goodbye to yer hopes of ever seeing that bonnie on the docks again.” Gibbs winced at the mention of his beloved Susan coming from such an unclean mouth and man. Early on in the voyage, he had made the mistake of confiding in the captain, telling him of his secret love for the beautiful daughter of the port master. Gibbs had thought the elder captain would be overjoyed to hear how he was planning on proposing marriage after returning from America.

“Not like she’s holding hopes for you in return though, you limp dick ninny. I’ve seen her by the docks. Everyone has.” The captain’s blue eyes cut into the young sailor’s mind, but Gibbs tried to let the insults pass over his head.

“Wasn’t that an albatross? I thought they were a good sign,” he offered. “But a fish on the deck is a bad sign?”

“It ain’t no fucking sign, swab,” the captain exploded. “It’s a goddamn sure thing! Thank Christ the bitch swallowed it whole. Didn’t your pappy tell ya anything before they found him hanging from that tree?”

Gibbs felt the blood in his forearms pulse and his eyelids tighten.

“Look, boy. I’ll shoot you straight. The only reason you’re on this vessel is because I knew your mother. A fine woman, and it’s a goddamn shame what happened to her; marrying a spineless nobody and then birthing his spineless son.” Gibb’s mind put up a solid wall and he was only aware of Susan. She stood in front of him, wearing her blue summer dress, and had on the woven sun hat which Gibbs noticed that she wore both to Sunday service as well as to the beach. In his imagination, he held her hand. Her eyes looked deep into his, and she saw his entire soul.

“Make yourself useful and help out in the boiler rooms at the bottom of the ship. Maybe it’ll teach you something about hard work, responsibility, and integrity,” the captain said with a jerk of his head.

In the fading light of evening, Gibbs took a final look over the portside rail of the RMS Titanic before he stepped down the ladder-steep stairs to the ship’s substructure.

He thought about his beloved Susan, descending the seawall to the rocky shore. They had planned to meet the night before Gibbs left on the Titanic. He had waited for her on the shore all night. Why had she never come?

“Hey boy, watch your head.” The Chief Engineer greeted Gibbs after his feet stepped off the final rung of the ladder. Profuse amounts of sweat made the engineer’s uniform cling to his shoulders and chest like a fitted undershirt, and the nub of a cigar burned close to his bushy moustache. “Welcome to the bottom. Captain says you’re a piece of work. Wants you to sweat it out down here with us. Well, you can start here at D. It’s the first one that means anything.” The engineer tapped his hands on the steel doorway dividing the ship’s three cargo holds from it’s six boiler rooms. “Cells A, B, and C up front there are actually all above water. Theoretically, if those three compartments were compromised, the ship would still be able to float. If anything past D should take on water, well…” The engineer made a diving motion with his hand, smiling at Gibbs through his cigar. “Look just stand here and yell if this pressure gauge jumps, got that?”

“Yessir,” Gibbs responded. “By the way, I saw one of the other engineers pointing to this lever-“

“Don’t you mind that fucking lever, boy!” The Engineer slapped the young sailor’s wrist with the blunt end of a spanner wrench. “That’s the auto-sensing override. It keeps this door open in case someone happens to accidentally get trapped inside one of the compartments during a drill. S’happened before so this lever was installed to prevent it from happening again. But it ain’t any of your concern though, got that? The captain said you were an idiot, planning on marrying one of the whores working the docks back home.” Gibbs’ eye twitched at the sound of such a vile word, and in the next instant when the ship exploded all around him, he first thought he had caused it. All of the men were thrown to the ground and Gibbs quickly realized that something had hit the bottom of the ship.

“What the fuck was that?” one of the engineers shouted. Sirens blared and the captain’s voice screamed from one of the brass speaking tube.

“This is the captain. We’ve just hit an iceberg. What is the status of the hull?”

The Chief Engineer had not gotten off the ground and blood was seeping from around his hand held over his face. Gibbs could see pandemonium rage in all three of the cargo holds at the bow of the boat. Dark water burst from the sides of the ship, throwing everything against the inside walls.

“Captain! We’ve lost cells A and B. And it looks like C is going as well.”

“Gibbs, is that you? What the fuck are you still doing down there? Well you’re in the middle of it now though, aren’t you, Gibbs? Pray that yee get to see your little las again, and maybe we won’t go down in history as…” The captain shouted through the speaking tube although Gibbs was no longer listening. He could only hear the water rushing into the rooms in front of him. It sounds like Susan, the way her laugh would ring out over the waves crashing against the rocks. Red lights flashed, sirens blared, and sailors scrambled up ladders, but Gibbs stood still in the doorway of Dock D. His eyelids lulled as churning water spun and frothed closer and closer. It looked like a blue summer dress, spinning back and forth as they do on sunny days. Ice water reached Gibbs toes and the auto-sensing door began to close next to him. Gibbs’s head turned towards the lever at his shoulder, his hand resting upon it and he wondered about the world of beautiful creatures and unfathomable depths under the horizon.

“What are you doing?!” The Chief Engineer screamed from the floor. “Let the door close! That will damn us all!”

The frigid blackness swelled into Gibbs’ legs, Susan’s hands caressing his hips, and his hand yanked down on the lever. Dock D opened wide and Gibbs traversed into the giant, black aquarium.