Hell Ship by David Wood Read Free Book Online Page B

black monolith in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey . If there were any clues to the ship’s identity, they would surely be on the bridge. The ship’s bell or a dedication plaque perhaps—something that might have withstood the ravages of time and salt water. The bridge was the place to start, but his gaze kept wandering back to the open doorway amidships. It looked like a portal into another reality, enticing him a siren’s song of discovery.
    A strange clanking sound broke him out his contemplative reverie. Bones was rapping on his air tank, trying to get Dane’s attention. When Dane tore his gaze away from the black void, he saw Bones gesturing first to his wristwatch, and then pointing a finger straight up repeatedly.
    Time to head back up .
    If they stayed much longer, they wouldn’t have enough air to make their decompression stops.
    Just a few seconds more , Dane thought. I need to know what’s in there .
    Later, he would wonder if his fascination with the doorway was perhaps the onset of nitrogen narcosis, a condition where excess nitrogen in a diver’s bloodstream causes symptoms ranging from euphoria to paranoia to full blown hallucinations, but at that moment, he didn’t care.
    Just one look .
    He kicked toward the door and thrust his dive light inside. It took a moment for his slightly addled brain to make sense of what he was seeing. His first impression was of the white blizzard of static from an old television, a three dimensional tableau of light and dark, stark white and impenetrable shadow. As he played the light back and forth, the entire image seemed to come alive, and it was only then that he realized that the strange white shapes were bones.
    Human bones.
    The skeletons lay piled up from one extremity of the room to the other, and so deep that his light could not reach through them to the bulkhead on the other side. There were hundreds, perhaps more; naked skulls, gazing up at him, skeletal hands reaching out in some final desperate and ultimately futile attempt to grasp salvation.
    Perversely, nature had chosen to leave this crypt more or less untouched. A few rags of clothing were woven through the skeletal sculpture, but there was no accumulation of minerals or sediment.
    Dane recalled the brief about the Awa Maru ; more than two thousand had perished in the sinking. It wasn’t hard to imagine the desperate passengers and crew forced into a single compartment by the quickly rising waters…and yet, something about this explanation didn’t ring true.
    Curi osity overpowered his characteristic caution, and before he quite knew what he was doing, he pulled through the opening and began swimming down to the tangled bones. As he drew closer, he saw that something else had survived. Hanging from almost every single bony neck was something that looked like strands of brown thread. Some were thin strings—bootlaces perhaps—while others appeared to be metal breakaway chain necklaces, tarnished and oxidized by years of immersion. The necklace Dane inspected first had two small semi-rectangular tabs, similarly in a state of incipient corrosion, which he recognized immediately.
    Dog tags.
    He reached out to touch one, rubbing it between a gloved thumb and forefinger. The rust crumbled away beneath his touch to reveal metal, embossed with words…a name, only partially legible, but written in familiar Roman letters. Howard? Edward?
    American , maybe? Definitely Allied military. Was this a troop ship? If so, where were the helmets and guns?
    Comprehension dawned like a spasm of nausea. These men weren’t troops on their way to the front lines. They had been prisoners of war, captured by the Japanese, destined for a brutal forced labor camps.
    This was a hell ship.
    The clanking sound came again, but because he was holding audience with the dead, the sound startled him. He twisted as if the skeletal arms were reaching out to grab him, and kicked away, swimming frantically for the opening where