Meanwhile, as Woodpecker-Smythe dozed dreamlessly in his first class accommodations, another far more sinister individual awoke in more spartan surroundings ready to take the helm of the Royal British Aquanauts Corps' (RBAC) most dreadful nightmare!
"All ahead full," ordered Captain Nemo, his face beaming from the eerie sound of the HMS Periwinkle breaking up as she plummeted towards Davy Jones' Locker. He doubted there were any survivors from the vicious ramming Ammonite had given her. Nemo had come upon her totally unawares, in the dead of night, and rammed her straight through with nary a slackening of speed.
Figure 2‑1: Hull not yet electrified |
Nemo had finally done it.
He had sent the Periwinkle, and hopefully its accursed headmaster, The Midshipman, to a watery death.
But why did he feel so empty now?
Now that his life's work was complete and Revenge was his, why did Nemo feel like crying?
Even his talking mascot Muddy noticed Nemo's melancholy mood.
"Why so gloomy, boss?", semaphored his quasi-amphibian mudskipper.
"I... I don't know,” replied Nemo, his voice barely audible over the super-quiet hum of his control room machinery.
He almost absent-mindedly picked up a snow globe from his control desk and began turning it over and over again in his hands.
"The Midshipman is almost certainly dead, yet it won't bring her back to me.
She's gone forever, Muddy.
I was foolish to think The Midshipman's death would ever change that."
And as the snow globe rolled out of his hands and onto the floor, Muddy heard a solitary word."
"Caprice..."
