Gary swam down, alighting on the top of the bridge. He made a series of complicated signals to Rob, indicating that he wanted him to take some photographs so as to have something to use as a scale when they later tried to ascertain the broken vessel's size. Rob fastened the flashlight back onto his belt before unslinging the camera. Peering through the viewfinder, he snapped off a few shots. The strobe flashed brilliantly, illuminating the vessel in a harsh white glare.
Gary motioned impatiently for Rob to join him, gesticulating frantically for him to hurry up. Rob swan slowly, preoccupied. Where are all the fish? he wondered as his fins made contact with the buckled plates that formed part of the ruined ship's superstructure. Gary pointed into the wreck and Rob shone his torch in the same direction, only to jump back in alarm, dropping the flashlight.
The skeleton was still clad in the remains of a uniform, which Rob thought looked familiar, although the memory remained tantalizingly out of reach at the moment. Where flesh had been exposed it had vanished, picked clean by some unknown scavenger. Bone gleamed white, almost luminescent in the flashlight's beam. Rob suspected that even under that oh-so-familiar uniform, very little flesh remained.
A battered captain's hat was perched at a rakish angle on the grinning skull. With no ears to stop it, it had slid down, half covering the eye sockets.
Rob picked up the flashlight and, after photographing the skeletal remains for posterity, he followed Gary into the wreck.
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