Morning Breeze covered his ears. He could swim well enough without his front hooves. He could handle the choppy salt water and the weight of ammunition in his pockets. What he found most disconcerting was the absolute silence that surrounded him. No far-off whale songs, no thrumming of schools of bait fish. The ocean that claimed him now was black and dead.
He let himself sink. At five metres the water was icy cold. His heart rate dropped almost instantly.
I have time. I have time.
Though his vision was blurred, he could make out the beams of searchlights sweeping over the debris that had been his ship. A massive dark shape, an endless wall, was coming towards him.
At twenty metres he was lost completely to the world above.
At forty metres the shadow engulfed him. Even with the generous clearance its wake dragged him along, sucking him upwards, threatening to dash him against unforgiving barnacle-coated wood.
Don't be scared. This is where you belong.
But he was calculating. With each second his chances grew slimmer. He was starting to feel the urge to breathe. The aching in his chest rose up through his neck. He was starting to tremble.
The surface did not reappear.
Don’t be scared. Don't move.
He was sinking again, weighed down by the contents of his many pockets. The weight was distributed for balance, but that was little comfort to him as he reached fifty metres. His hooves were being pulled into his aching ears.
Don't move!
The force of water rushing into his ears stunned him momentarily. The pain was overwhelming, and the world around him spun like a top. He evacuated his lungs, and pursed his lips just in time to stop himself from inhaling.
He swam with all his might. There was no up or down anymore. All was black, and perhaps he had gone blind as well as deaf. There was no point trying to get out of his jumpsuit now. Instead he emptied his pockets. Six pistol magazines dropped straight down along with loose coins and a spare brass button. Then his spyglass.
Two pencils, rising faster than he could ever hope to...
Floating.
He groped the water in front of him, and felt one of the pencils tumbling through the water.
Downwards.
A box of Flints. He emptied it, and felt each pellet drifting in the direction in which he had been swimming.
Half a cigar: completely soaked and neutrally buoyant.
Reorienting himself, he tore out his breast pockets. The heavy items now sank in the right direction. His skin was numb as he swam with all his might, most certainly towards the surface now. Another agonizing stroke, and he found that he could not move at all. Still the surface eluded him; all he saw was a drear blue light, growing dimmer each second.
And then, suddenly, his nose was cold.
He inhaled desperately. The second half of the breath was entirely water, but he got just enough. He pushed with all his strength, and emerged vomiting violently. He could see shapes floating around him, but the first thing he reached for turned out to be sea foam. He splashed around desperately.
Foam. Foam. Foam.
Then, his hoof touched something hard. He lunged for it, and managed to find something to hold onto; the remains of a heavy knot on a section of mast.
His lungs burned from the salt. Frozen to the bones and exhausted, he clung to the flotsam as the sun set at the edge of the world and a heavy fog rolled in to consume him.