I stood on the Mary Rose warship as we headed off to sea. Little did I know that stepping off land and walking on to the ship was going to be my last time on ground.
I thought back to all the times I was going for training to be a bowman. How my shoulders would burn up every time I pulled back the bow. I hoped that all the training I got would be enough to keep me and the other men alive. I then thought about me as a young man of twenty five when I first laid eyes on her. How her long brown hair lay on her shoulders and now I wished I had time to tell how I felt.
I make a vow that when I got back from this journey to fight against the French, that I will tell her how beautiful she is and how I feel about her.
Standing on the Mary Rose I prayed that I would see her again. In the distance I see the French flag on their ship. A man watching out calls "war straight ahead". The chaos is mad - men running to prepare for the battle ahead. Men kiss the cross around their necks, and send a quick silent pray to their God. As I do the same I hear the cannon doors opening and the cannon itself sliding forward. I grab my bow and wait for the signal from my captain. I watch the French war ship come closer to our ship.
"Steady your bows," I hear our captain yell to us as he raises his arm. We all pull back and wait for the second command. "Shoot!" he calls to us and lowers his arm. More arrows then can count fly fast toward the enemy ship. Our ship gets ready to fire the cannons. Their captain must have given the call to fire. The ship moves as many cannon balls fly and hit the enemy ship. It is like this for a while "Steady your bows", "Shoot!", "Steady your bows", "Shoot!"..... The French ship is close now and we must shoot the cannons from the other side. So we must turn the ship to face the enemy and to fire more cannons. The ship begins to turn. And then something happens. The wind changes and blows the other way strongly. Men lose their balance. Then we all see it, the front of the ship is sinking! Men run, men yell, and men pray for we all know the ship is going down.
Some of the men jump ship as captains yell. But it's useless; you can't hear a thing. I began to run as well and panic. I slip and I fall on to the rail. My wrist snaps and a pain leaches though me. I push down the tires and try to stand. A man runs and hits me in the side. My leg gets wrapped around some rope. I can see the water coming up on the deck. I pull away and feel the rope tighten around my right leg. I turn to undo the rope but my wrist is broken and will not move right.
The next thing I know I am under the water. Struggling for air but my lungs only fell up with icy clod water. The last of my air is gone and I watch as the bubbles push their way up to the surface. I wish I could follow them up to the air above. But that is not the last thing I see. I see the girl I wish I had said hello to... and then her brown hair turns to black and covers my eyes.
When I look back on this I would say we sank because the officers didn't order to close the cannon holes, which made the ship fill up with water. But many things happened on the ship and who really knows what the reasons were. Maybe the Mary Rose sank because the ship captain turned the ship too fast, or maybe it was because the wind turned against us when we really didn't want it to. But I think that for sure if the cannon holes where closed we would have not sunk, and I could have talked to the girl.
