A thousand suns

Mark resumed swimming downward with slow strong strokes. Chris followed, struggling to keep up and breathing harshly with the exertion. For a few moments all that he could hear over the helmet speaker was the even, relaxed, rhythmic breathing of his partner. It was strangely soothing, like a heartbeat or the ticking of a clock.

‘Ahh here we go… I think I see something down there.’

Chris pushed hard with his legs and a moment later he was floating alongside Mark. Below, their two torch beams picked out the unmistakable oval silhouette of a wing tip. The beams worked their way along the wing, passing over the bulge of an engine casing, then another, and finally coming to rest on the cylindrical form of the plane’s fuselage.

Chris turned to Mark. ‘Bingo.’

They swam down the last few feet and settled with a gentle bump on the wing. Chris reached out and ran a hand along its surface. Only a slippery coat of algae covered the sheet metal. It belied the years underwater. His fingers danced over rivets that had experienced only a small amount of corrosion.

‘Isn’t it bloody beautiful?’

‘Amazing. This is a big plane,’ said Mark.

‘It’s a B-17, nicknamed the Flying Fortress. Looks in fantastic shape.’

Mark studied the ghostly grey giant. ‘Yup, it is. But then it’s a cold, low-salt water environment.’

‘No, I don’t mean corrosion, or marine growth. I mean there’s hardly any impact damage. It’s like it was just gently placed here.’

Chris pulled out his camera and took a couple of shots. The flash on the camera flickered like a strobe. He swam along the wing towards the inner port engine.

‘Look at that.’ He gestured towards the propeller.

‘What am I looking at?’

‘The propeller blades are intact. Do you know what that means?’

Mark shook his head. ‘Not really.’

‘It means this particular propeller wasn’t spinning when she touched down on the ocean. If it had been the blades would be bent to buggery.’

‘Oh.’ Mark watched as Chris photographed the engine and the prop. He checked his watch; they had been down five minutes. Twenty-five left.

Chris swam back to the fuselage and slowly drifted down the side towards the rear. His torch eventually picked out the barrel and small opening of the portside waist-gun.

‘Come and look at this!’

Mark followed the glaring beam of Chris’s torch and found himself staring at a long line of bullet holes that ran diagonally up the fuselage side towards the waist-gun’s porthole.

‘Looks like she’s seen some action. Maybe that’s why she ditched?’

Chris shook his head. ‘That would make some sense off the coast of France or England.’ He looked at Mark. ‘But off the coast of Rhode Island?’

Chris took a couple of shots of the bullet holes and the waist-gun and then pulled himself closer to the opening and shone his torch inside it. He could see little past the corroded barrel of the old machine gun.

‘I want to find a way in.’

Mark looked at his watch. ‘We’ve used six minutes. Twenty-four left. If we find a way inside, we give ourselves a clear ten minutes to find our way out. Okay? That means you get fourteen minutes from now to do all the inside stuff you want, and that’s all.’

‘Okay, Mom. Listen… you work your way to the back of the plane and I’ll work my way to the front. There’s bound to be some hatch we can prise open to get a look inside.’

‘No way. I’m not leaving you on your own. You’re paying me to — ’

‘Mark, I appreciate you’re looking out for me, but time is limited, I’ve got to get a shot inside… okay?’

Mark wasn’t convinced.

‘Please, I promise I won’t go inside without you, we’re just looking for a way in, that’s all.’

‘You’ll be okay, if we lose visual?’

‘Yeah… I’m getting braver.’

‘That’s what’s worrying me.’

Mark headed aft, one hand dragging along the rough metal of the fuselage for guidance, the other panning his torch up and down in search of an opening. Chris headed the other way, towards the front of the plane.

It didn’t take him long before he came across the plexiglas canopy of the cockpit. He shone his torch across the panels hoping to catch a glimpse of the inside, but they too were coated in a thin layer of algae.

Swimming down, he found the front end of the plane was raised enough to swim underneath her belly. And then he found what he was looking for.

‘Mark! I’ve found a way in.’

‘What have you got?’

‘It’s a hatch leading up into the cockpit. It’s open. I’m going to stick my head up inside.’

‘Be careful! I don’t want you knocking that equipment, or even worse, puncturing your tank. No squeezing through anything, okay?’

‘Okay… okay, no squeezing.’

Chris shone his torch up through the belly hatch into what looked like the bomb-aimer’s observation blister. The torch beam slid across the plexiglas panels and metal struts of the canopy, throwing them into sharp relief and sending phantom shadows dancing across the confined space. He could see a short ladder leading up from the blister into another area above.

The cockpit?