A beautiful night to die

The ship’s engine – once powerful and strong – now roared like a wounded beast, tortured and dying, thrashing in the throes of its final breath. The vast wastelands of the oceans over which she had soared, proud and steadfast, stretched before them no more.

‘I have control!’ Charles yelled over the noise, his voice calm amid the chaos rapidly closing in.

They knew.

Her propeller vibrated recklessly, furiously inflicting gaping wounds upon her. The sound of tearing metal and cracking timber filled their ears – deafening – as she was shredded from within. Flesh torn from her hull, flung violently into the sky, left a trail of agony in her wake.

They knew.

They had passed that point.

‘Call it!’ Charles yelled again – loud, steady, unwavering. His hands moved with precision, finessing the controls with a tender pressure born of instinct. He breathed deep, slow, measured breaths. Sweat trickled from his brow, but his focus remained sharp.

‘Fifty!’ Tommy called. His eyes, blurred from tears, flicked from instrument to instrument in a dance of calculation. The control panel flared with urgency – every gauge screaming fate, every needle sealing it.

‘Twenty!’

Charles had met death many times before – shaken its hand and walked away.

We have a deal, he reminded himself, the words echoing defiantly through the chambers of his mind.

‘Ten!’

Against the fury of the failing ship, he pressed back – guiding her down gently, deliberately – taming her wrath, soothing her torment.

‘Five!’

They breathed. Braced.

Impact.

She hit hard – instantly spinning, twisting, then upturning violently before plunging nose – first. The force ripped her heart from her chest.

They slammed into the controls, bodies thrown forward, brutally, in the surreal silence of semi-consciousness. Ears ringing. Blind in the darkness, rapidly swallowing them.

On a shallow lungful of air, Charles clambered, searching for a handhold, his mind battling the pressure, the weight of the water crushing his chest. His heart pounded, clawing for escape. His lungs screamed.

Seconds passed.

Charles broke the surface, gasping, the saltwater stinging deep into his lungs. He breathed hard amid the hiss of steam and air rising turbulently from below – like the ghostly whisper of a thousand drowning souls in the emptiness of night.

‘Tommy!’ he yelled, voice raw and desperate. No reply.

‘Tommy!’ Again. Again.

The realisation set in – dark, gnawing. Tommy was still inside.

‘Tommy!’

He refilled his lungs – large, long, deep. Chest heaving. Charles dove toward the stern as it began to rise perilously, the water pressing in from all sides, the darkness swallowing him whole.

‘No, no, no!’ he breathed. Painfully. Lungs expanding to capacity.

He dived beneath the ship’s sinking mass, the water closing over him like a shroud.

Seconds stretched into eternity.

Below, he grappled, feeling for Tommy in the black water, wrestling against time to free him from the confines of the cockpit. His lungs ballooned under the pressure. The need for air became sharp, insistent, stabbing pain.

He could not see. The darkness disoriented every move as he pulled Tommy this way and that, desperate to free him.

Time passed – seconds into minutes, more than should be possible.

Above, a silent calm crept back in-

-until suddenly Charles broke the surface, Tommy blue in his arms.

‘Tommy!’ he screamed amid gasping breath. ‘Tommy! Look at me!’ He clutched Tommy’s chin, desperate to find life in him.

‘No, no! Don’t you – Tommy, no! Come on, Tommy!’ He begged. But there was no reply.

Tommy’s eyes were closed. His face, blue.

‘No, Tommy! No!’ Charles screamed, shaking him, denying the stillness in his arms.

A low whimper – not from Tommy, but from the ship – before it slipped quietly away into the depths beneath them.

Flailing in the isolation, left behind, Charles held on. Defiant. Not letting go.

Straining against the weight of his bearskin suit, his gloves were heavy, his boots were full, water consumed the fabric tightening around him, restricting every movement – he clung to hope, to Tommy, to life.

‘Tommy, come on!’ he pleaded, the water lapping at his nostrils, the taste of salt bitter on his lips. ‘Tommy, you got to help me!’

Scraping. Kicking. Clawing. Fighting for every inch toward survival.

‘We ain’t goin’ out like this.’

Determined.

‘We can make it.’

The shoreline rose and sank before him. Close. Yet far.

He reached for it – dragging, pulling, gasping – His breaths, narrowing. His muscles, burning.

‘We can make it, Tommy!’

Desperate was the prayer.

‘I got you, Tommy. We can make it.’

His voice willed belief into the impossibility of a body failing him – muscles cramped, his heart pounded against the current, strong, too strong.

‘We’re gonna make it, Tommy!’ he gasped again and again, chest collapsing.

‘We are going to make it.’

Straining.

‘Tommy.’

Fading.

‘Tommy.’

Exhausted.

He drew Tommy close – his final strength spent – whispering with heartbreaking sadness, ‘We are gonna make it.’

Softly.

‘We are gonna make it.’

His plea faded, as together, they were absorbed into the restored tranquility of the glassy sea above them, dancing in the reflection of a moon surrounded by a million stars.

This article is an adapted excerpt from Of Air and Men by Damien Lay, published by Busybird Publishing.