“Button?” said Charity, when Floyd showed her the email. “What button?”
It was the one part of the story that Floyd had not told her—there had been other things on his mind at the time—but he explained now how Mike had pointed to the button in a crevice in the rock just before pushing him up to the surface.
“Have you still got it?” asked Charity and, when Floyd retrieved it from the pocket of his wet suit, examined it carefully.
The only symbol on it that either of them could see was the number sixty with a crown above it, but Charity suggested they show it to Jonas Wilde. Jonas, the ship’s engineer, was an enthusiastic historian, and he identified it almost immediately as the coat button from a military uniform.
“Silver,” he said confidently. “And British, but give me five minutes and I should be able to tell you more exactly.”
He disappeared belowdecks and was back fifteen minutes later with a laptop and a curious smile on his face.
“There you are,” he said, pointing to a picture on the screen of a button identical to the one that Floyd had found. “It’s from the coat of an officer of the 60th Regiment of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps.” He paused. “And I can even make a guess at how it got there.”
He pressed a key on the computer and the picture of the button was replaced by a page of writing. It was an account of the loss of HMS Prothea, a 26-gun frigate on passage from England to Jamaica in 1783 when she had been lost with all hands.
According to the account on the screen, she had been carrying a small detachment of officers for a newly formed battalion of the 60th Regiment, part of the strengthening of the Jamaican defenses in the face of possible French attack. The ship had been hit by a hurricane as she made her way through the Mouchoir Passage to the south of the Turks and Caicos Islands, and sunk. As well as the group of officers, she had been carrying nine hundred and sixty thousand British pounds in gold coins. Much needed pay chests for the troops in Jamaica.
Charity asked Floyd to read that line again.
“Nine hundred and sixty thousand British pounds in gold coins …”
“You came straight up to the surface, did you?” asked Jonas casually. “After you found the button?”
“Yes,” said Floyd, remembering Mike’s hand on his arm, pushing him firmly upward. “Yes, I did.”
“So we know exactly where you found this, don’t we?” There was a gleam in Jonas’s eye. “The location’s on the GPS record. There’d be no problem going back.”
Dr. Lamont was not convinced that going back was a good idea. At a meeting in the We’re Here’s mess hall that night, he pointed out that they had been commissioned to conduct scientific research, not a treasure hunt. Ships wrecked in a hurricane could be scattered over a vast distance and it might take days, weeks, or even months before they found anything of significance. In his view, using a marine research vessel to look for a wrecked treasure ship on the basis of the evidence of a single button simply could not be justified to the trustees who had sponsored them. Some people agreed with him, some did not, and the discussion went back and forth for more than an hour.
“We’re not really talking about a treasure hunt, are we?” said Floyd. As the youngest and least qualified member of the crew, he had not spoken before, but slightly to his surprise, everyone stopped to listen. “I mean, I know we don’t have the resources for that, but I think we should take a look. Just a quick look, to see what’s there.” He glanced across the table at Dr. Lamont. “I can’t say why exactly, but I think that’s what we’re supposed to do.”
Dr. Lamont did not reply immediately. He sat at the end of the table, thoughtfully tapping a pencil up and down between his fingers.
“Four hours,” he said eventually. “I’ll give you four hours, and if you haven’t found anything by then we get back to work and forget about it, understood?”
In the event, it did not take four hours to establish that they had discovered the location of the wreck of HMS Prothea. It took less than four minutes. Floyd and Jonas went down first and, even as they were making their descent, Jonas pointed to the ribbed timbers of what could only be the wreck of a wooden ship, visible to their right. It was heavily encrusted with marine growth, but the cannon scattered in a trail to the east meant it had to have been a warship, and traces of the cargo it had carried were soon visible on the seafloor. One of them was a chest that had conveniently broken open, and a part of its contents—a glistening clump of sovereigns—lay exposed on the sand.
There was another meeting that afternoon in the mess hall of the We’re Here, and it went on long, long into the evening.
It took two and a half years to get permission to investigate the wreck on the Mouchoir Bank. The government of the Turks and Caicos Islands, in concert with their extremely cautious British advisers—the islands are still a British Overseas Territory—eventually granted a license for Dr. Lamont and his team to search for the wreckage of HMS Prothea in a forty-square-mile area of their territorial waters, in return for fifty percent of the value of anything they might find.
In the course of a two-month expedition, gold coins and various other finds with a commercial value of $476 million were brought up from the seabed, and after the expenses of the trip had been paid and the government of the Turks and Caicos given its share, Dr. Lamont and his team found themselves with a fortune of a little over $234 million.
They used the money, as had been agreed at the meeting nearly three years before, to set up a company that would do marine research for governments, universities, or wherever it seemed most needed. Each of the ten members of the crew had equal shares in the company, which they were at liberty to sell if they wished, and a place on the board. It was decided, at the first board meeting, to recommission the We’re Here so that it could continue its work with Dr. Lamont and Boston University.
Floyd and Charity were married that same year, soon after Floyd had completed his degree and Charity had started work on her PhD. The date of the wedding was carefully timed to avoid any clash with the whale breeding season so that Charity’s mother could attend—and was in the week between the French Open and Wimbledon so that Floyd’s parents were free to fly over from England. Granny Plum, who had never been on an airplane in her life, was brought over by Dr. Pinner, who kept her calm with industrial-strength doses of valium.
The marriage took place on the university campus, with the ceremony in the beautiful Marsh Chapel and the reception in Boston University Castle. One of the many messages of congratulations that came in was from the Chief and included the news that Waterworld was back in action, with the offer that, if Floyd ever needed his old job back, he had only to ask. Floyd’s favorite card, however, was from Barrington Gates, which said simply, I still say you could have made more money playing tennis.
The Bear was Floyd’s best man, and in his speech he told the story of how, on the research expedition three years before, it had been pitifully clear to everyone that Charity and Floyd were made for each other, and what a relief it was when the two of them realized this for themselves. The crew, he said, were all extremely grateful to the shark that had finally brought the couple together.
“Is that true?” Floyd asked Charity later. “That everyone knew?”
“Yes,” Charity told him. “I think it is.”
“But how? How could everyone know, and not us?”
Charity gave a little shrug.
“It’s a mystery, isn’t it … ?” she said, and kissed him.
After Charity had finished her doctorate, she took up a post at the University of South Florida. She and Floyd, who had by then acquired his master’s degree, moved down to Tampa, and that was where the main offices of Marine Intel were finally established in a building looking out over Palm Harbor to where the We’re Here was moored when she was not at sea.
The company has, in the years since then, established a considerable reputation for the quality of its research. Whether you want to know about fish stocks,
sea currents, or the effects of climate change, Marine Intel is one of the go-to places that universities and governments know can be trusted to provide accurate and reliable data.
Its three-story offices are on the edge of the Wharf Marina, and Floyd and Charity share a generously large office on the second floor. On one wall hangs a picture, more than three feet wide, of the wreck of the Prothea. A barnacled carronade hangs on the opposite wall, and on Floyd’s desk, pride of place is given to a silver button set in a large cube of plexiglass.
From the picture window you get a magnificent view out over the water, and that was where Charity was standing to get her first glimpse of the We’re Here II as she nudged her way toward a berth on the north dock. Floyd’s parents were standing beside her, and the three of them stood in silence as they watched the boat slow, then come to a halt as the mooring ropes pulled her into position.
“He did that quite nicely, didn’t he?” murmured Mr. Beresford.
“I made him promise not to crash it on the first time out,” said Charity. “I wanted you to see it while it was still all shiny and new.”
The We’re Here II had been built in a yard on the Chesapeake. Floyd had taken delivery of her four days before and brought her down to Tampa, which was to be her home port. The plan had been for Charity and Floyd’s parents to be waiting on the quayside and then to be given a tour, but it rains sometimes, even in Florida, so they had watched instead from the company’s offices. It was a Saturday, so the building was largely empty.
“He’s got to report to the harbormaster first,” said Charity. “I suggest we go down after he’s done that. The rain might have stopped by then.”
“I hadn’t realized,” said Mrs. Beresford, peering through a pair of binoculars, “it was so big.”
“It’s going to be a lot more comfortable than the old ship,” said Charity happily. “Not quite like a cruise ship, but close! Floyd and I get a double cabin with our own shower!” She turned to her father-in-law. “How’s Freddie doing, by the way?”
Freddie Stripes, Mr. Beresford assured her, was doing very well indeed. He had recently become the U.K. number one seed, having toppled Barrington from that position, and Floyd’s father was his coach, as he had been for the last six years. In fact, the real reason they had come to the States was that nineteen-year-old Freddie would be playing next week in the Florida Open.
“And he’ll win,” said Mr. Beresford confidently. “He’s going to go all the way is Freddie. All the way …” His voice tailed off. He was watching his son on the deck of the We’re Here II, checking ropes and fenders before disappearing back for a moment into the wheelhouse. “I know I shouldn’t,” he said, with a trace of wistfulness in his voice, “but I still wish sometimes that …” He stopped and looked at Charity. “You never saw him on the court, did you? He was … such a wonderful player.”
Charity took his arm and folded it in her own. “He’s a pretty wonderful marine biologist,” she said.
On the other side of him, his wife took his other arm. “And he’s so happy,” she said. “I mean … look at him!”
And Charity, watching the long, lean figure of her husband emerging from the wheelhouse with his tousled hair and his easy swinging stride, could only agree. Floyd looked very happy. She watched fondly as he clapped one of the crew on the back, called an instruction to another, and then jumped from the deck of the We’re Here II to the jetty. He gave a wave in the direction of the Marine Intel building, where he knew his wife and parents were watching, then set off along the quay, his ankle-length black oilskins flapping behind him in the wind and rain as he strode toward the harbormaster’s office.
And that was when it happened.
Watching him, Charity had a sudden flash of recognition. She had, she knew, seen an almost identical sight somewhere before, though for a moment she could not remember when or where. And then she had it. It was that day on a beach in Cornwall, almost eight years before, when she had seen a figure in a long black coat standing beside Floyd on the sands at Bude.
She smiled to herself at the realization. Floyd, marching along the jetty in his black oilskin coat, looked like Mike.
He looked exactly like Mike.
When I said at the beginning that this was a true story, I was perhaps exaggerating a little. Some of it is true, but not all. I had to change the names, obviously, and the bit about Floyd being brilliant at tennis is all made up, as well. So is the part where he meets Charity, then gets a job in an aquarium … In fact, none of this story actually happened. Not the way I said it did.
But the bit about Mike is true. Absolutely, one hundred percent. I can say that because I’ve seen him, heard him (though not as often as I’d like), and I know that he’s as real as anything you might see on TV news. I’ve also learned the hard way that, when he does turn up, it’s a good idea to listen very carefully to anything he might have to say.
Over the years I’ve come to realize that we all have a Mike inside us. Your Mike might be female rather than male, he might be old or he might be young—in some cases, I’ve heard, he can even turn up as an animal—but not many of us get to see him and talk to him as clearly and easily as Floyd did. Often, it’s frustratingly hard to hear what he has to say. But in the hinge moments of our lives, those times when we stand at the dividing of the road and are not sure which route to take, he is the one who can unerringly point to the right path. He knows which way to go.
I don’t know how he knows, but I’ve learned that you can trust that he is right and that the path he points to promises wealth and riches in full and overflowing measure. It may not be the treasure you expected, or that you thought you wanted at the start but when you find it, you will discover it was exactly what your heart desired right from the very beginning.
I sometimes think that learning to listen to him is one of the main reasons we are here.
So, here’s to you, Mike.
And thank you.
ANDREW NORRISS is the Whitbread (now Costa) Award–winning author of Aquila. Andrew started his writing career in television. He has created and co-written several successful British series, including a few adaptations of his own books. Andrew now writes novels full-time. He lives in Hampshire, England. You can visit him online at andrewnorriss.co.uk.
Copyright © 2018, 2019 by Andrew Norriss
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920, by arrangement with David Fickling Books, Oxford, England. SCHOLASTIC and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc. DAVID FICKLING BOOKS and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of David Fickling Books.
First published in the United Kingdom in 2018 by David Fickling Books, 31 Beaumont Street, Oxford OX1 2NP.
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The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
First edition, March 2019
Jacket photos © 2019 Michael Frost
Jacket design by Maeve Norton
e-ISBN: 978-1-338-28538-3
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