The crowd gathers
By five o’clock, word had spread the way only small-city news can—fast, garbled, unstoppable. A woman walking her dog had photographed the protruding hull from the footbridge. The image was posted, shared, and within ninety minutes, it had been picked up by three regional news sites and one national one. By the time Declan had finished his third call with the city’s emergency planning office, there were already sixty people lined up along the canal bank, phones raised, necks craning.
The police arrived to establish a perimeter. Then a heritage officer from the local council showed up, clipboard in hand, speaking cautiously about protocols. A man claiming to be a maritime historian appeared from somewhere and began giving an impromptu lecture to anyone who would listen. The mood along the bank was festive and strange —half fairground, half crime scene.
Declan stood at the barrier and looked at the submarine. A team from the pumping authority had continued the drain on his orders. More of the hull was visible now—a conning tower, squat and slightly tilted, rising from the silt like a crooked finger. Someone in the crowd behind him let out a low whistle.
