Question

Write a original story on still waters run deep

Answer 1

FOR years, as young sea scouts, they were doughty sailors in a skimpy flat-bottomed coble, even out in the choppy river estuary. But today they were alone in a stolen MoD midget submarine and not another soul knew. Marty Brown was beside himself with excitement as he and his friend Colin floated on the Forth and Clyde Canal just before it meets the River Clyde.

It was Marty's Uncle Joe who had introduced them to XE9, the highly secret midget submarines of the late Forties. He was a handsome, muscular man with jet black eyebrows and an unruly mop of matching hair, but was sadly no longer quite right in the head.

The grown ups said he was shell-shocked but harmless and all agreed he loved his nephews and nieces, especially Marty. Marty and Colin believed him when he claimed he'd found the Royal Navy's midget-sub XE9 in a forgotten shed in a mothballed Clydebank shipyard. He said he'd lost his job maintaining the old XE9 when the MoD discarded them after the war. They had all three worked really hard that first month to repair and renovate the vessel. But in the two months since, Uncle Joe kept procrastinating by "finding" things that still needed doing. "Colin, Uncle Joe can't make it today but says we can take Neptune for a full scale trial-run along the canal. Are you on?" "Aye, sure. You betcha." They settled in, did all their checks and started mini-sub Neptune. "We'll just dive about five feet to be safe, Colin." "Aye, right-o, Marty."

Suddenly the small sub was tossing and turning as a massive rope kept hitting the windscreen which the boys feared would break. Marty swerved back and forth to try and dislodge the thing and accidentally knocked the gear lever and instantly they were picking up speed at an alarming rate. "Colin, the joystick won't respond." "That's nae rope on the windscreen, Marty. It's a big flippin' conger eel." As he spoke the eel peeled away just in time for Marty to see the large keel of a ship straight ahead and swerve in the nick of time. Now the boys gasped: they were no longer in the mouth of the canal but in the River Clyde and pelting down river and out to sea. "Surface, Marty! Surface!" "I can't, the controls are jammed." "Dive - the extra water pressure might help to free the controls." "I'm not sure but here goes. Great! The joystick's responding." "Easy. Easy! You're diving too deep." Marty straightened Neptune up, asking Colin to check how far it was to the Cloch lighthouse. He knew his friend had forgotten his glasses and the task would keep him occupied for some time. Marty could now focus on the job at hand. They were near the Cloch lighthouse which still had a large wartime boom stretching across to Dunoon Harbour. Neptune could normally only cross this at high tide or after very heavy rain, which is why Marty had it racing along the bottom like a demersal eel so that, at the exact moment, he could race upwards and take a flying leap out of the water and over the boom.

It worked beautifully, just like Jack Daniels with his metal swordfish in the Wizard. Marty had been lying to everybody these two months and was feeling guilty about it. At first he felt all grown up and sure that he could handle the situation. But now that the time for action had come it was very strange. On the one hand he was pleased to be actually doing something concrete, but on the other hand he had this huge weight of responsibility bearing down on him. He had been lying to his own family and especially his mum who trusted him and depended on him. He'd deceived his best pal From 39 Colin. But the worst deception had been to Uncle Joe himself - Joe who had not given permission for this full-scale trial and was deceived into thinking that today's trip had been called off because Marty was unwell. Marty emerged from his reverie and noted that they were racing past Port Glasgow and heading for Helensburgh, and despite his angst he thrilled to the chase, for they were racing time itself to complete their missionbefore dark.