Disclaimer: I don't own Thomas the Tank Engine or TUGS. They both belong to their respective owners.
"Finally!"
A huge sigh of relief swept over Brendam Docks as Cranky dropped the last of the heavy crates he'd been lifting all day into the hull of the tramp steamer. He barely had a moment to relish how good it felt to finish such a long job when he shut his eyes at the blast which came from the vessel's horn. Pulling up its anchor, it crept slowly through the salty water, leaving the Island of Sodor behind as it sailed off towards where the sun was setting over the horizon.
"So good to have that job done at last!" Cranky grumbled. "My hook has never lifted so much in one day!"
"That's a record you'll be breaking soon, matey; Donald and Douglas will be bringing twice as much for you to load onto the ships tomorrow, matey!" Salty laughed as he shunted away the empty trucks and flatbeds that the crates had been brought to the docks aboard by Edward earlier that day. "Har har har harrr!"
"What?!" Cranky's eyes widened as he gaped down at the dockyard diesel. "Don't tell me I've gotta do all that again tomorrow!"
"Oh, stop complaining, Chuck!" Carly put in. "You're lucky you've had us here to take some of the weight off your chain! We've been helping you out all day! Ain't that right?"
"Quite right... you should be thankful, Cranky, that you've got the chance to work and be really useful..."
All eyes fell on the crane who had just spoken - as they often did whenever he did these days. Big Mickey was gazing sternly at Cranky. All these years when he had been working in silence at the docks, he always managed to steal all attention now whenever his voice now filled the salty air.
"Speak for yourself, Big Mickey!" Cranky muttered. "You've been here longer than I have! You could have been scrapped when I came along! But no, an old timer like you is still kept around!"
"Oh, but I wasn't sure if I was ever going to work again after what happened to me..." Big Mickey paused. "Which was how I ended up coming to work here..."
"What do you mean by that?" Porter asked.
"Argh, that's something we've never learned about you, me hearty!" Salty chimed in. "How you came to Sodor before any of us were even built!"
"What did happen to you, Big Mickey?" Carly asked, her eyes wide. "Was it something terrible?"
From the questions he was being asked and looks he was receiving, Big Mickey realised he was going to have to tell them his story. With a small smile at them all, the old crane began to tell what he had never uttered a word about before until now...
"I was built as far back in the nineteen-twenties for work in a harbour in America."
"The twenties?!" Cranky repeated, astonished. "I never knew you were that old!"
"Thanks, Cranky..." Big Mickey snorted.
"America?" Carly looked up at him in amazement. "That's a really long way away! What was the harbour like over there?"
"Big!" The old crane chuckled. "In fact, it was the biggest harbour in the world. That's how it got its name; Bigg City Port."
"So were you used for loading cargo onto ships like you do here?" Porter asked.
"Not so much ships. I was more used for loading barges. They would be taken across the harbour by tugboats."
"Was it nice working in Bigg City Port, ship mate?" Salty asked, his eyes shining with all his life-long interest in docks.
"Very nice! I was kept busy all the time in different parts from the repair yard to the steelworks - and I was good friends with a lot of the tugs!"
Big Mickey closed his eyes. He smiled as he remembered the fleet of tugs who he had been friends with. Thinking back on them, their bravery and loyalty certainly earned them their name of the Star Tugs. They were far nicer than the other fleet he had had to load barges for. Due to their sly and devious nature, he had never liked the Z-Stacks.
"That all came to an end, however...when I was sent to work at the munitions factory..."
As Big Mickey's face fell, so did all of his friends'. They could tell that what they were about to hear next wouldn't be nice. Even Cranky couldn't help dreading the next part of the story.
"A munitions factory?" Porter repeated.
"That's a rather dangerous place for a crane to be working in," said Carly
"It was..." Big Mickey kept his eyes shut, his voice low. "...as proven when it caught fire."
"Fire?!" The others repeated in loud, alarmed voices.
"Yes. I was caught in a fire."
"Did it cause the munitions to go off at all?" Salty asked.
"Oh, definitely. The flames ate them and caused explosion after explosion to erupt. The docks were completely destroyed...including my own!"
"Your dock?!" Cranky cried. He had never sounded so shocked. His eyes were wide as he gazed at the old crane.
"What happened when your dock got destroyed?" Porter questioned.
"The inevitable. That's what happened. With nothing to stand on, I tipped forward, ended up falling sideways...before landing with a big splash into the water...and there I sunk..."
The others stared in horrified silence. What they had just heard had happened to their friend the night he had caught in a fire was unbelievable. It was a miracle he was here to tell them the tale.
"Didn't anyone try get you out of the water?" Carly asked. "Once the fire was over, that is?"
"Yeah!" Porter added. "Didn't those tugs you were friends with help you?"
"No...nobody bothered to help me...because once I had fallen and sank...everyone presumed I was dead."
Big Mickey slowly opened his eyes. He saw his friends were all staring at him in stunned disbelief. His expression was heavy as the emotions built up over what he had kept to himself all the years he'd worked on Sodor.
"D...d...dead?" Carly stuttered in a shaky voice.
"Yes. They all thought my fall into the water had killed me. It had filled me with water, dragged me down and held me beneath the surface...but I didn't die..."
"Couldn't you have shouted up to them that you were alive?" Salty asked.
Big Mickey chuckled humourlessly. "You try calling for help when your underwater; it's impossible. So no, there was nothing I could do. Just lie there while up on the surface, the tugs were fighting the fire and doing all they could to prevent anyone else up there from being killed. Once it was over by next morning, they all left...leaving me to lay where I was with no way of letting them know I was alive..."
Salty's jaw fell open while Porter's lips trembled. Carly was trying hard to fight back tears. Cranky was wearing the same shocked look, but his face had gone pale. It was a huge contrast to how red he usually looked when he was in his cranky mood.
"So you were just left to lie there underwater?" Porter exclaimed. "Just like that?"
"Yes...but I didn't stay at the ruined munitions factory. Fate managed to allow me to drift away, floating aimlessly away from the harbour and out to sea."
"You were floating around in the sea?" Salty cried. As much as he enjoyed the sea, the idea of floating around underneath it with no hope of resurfacing himself sounded far from appealing to him.
"For years. With fish hiding inside me from sharks, seaweed getting tangled around me..." Big Mickey closed his eyes again as he thought back on how he felt beneath the waves. "And feeling certain I would never see land again. I didn't see how I would ever rise to be what I was built for again."
A bleak silence fell across the docks. Nobody who had been listening to Big Mickey's tale could feel good about hearing what had been through. For all his rude and grumpy nature, Cranky found himself feeling sorry for the old crane.
"So what happened then?" Porter asked, breaking the silence.
A smile crept across Big Mickey's face, his eyes shining as he gazed at his friends with happiness starting to rise inside him. "Well..."
Big Mickey woke up - and nearly had the fright of his life by what he had seen.
Surrounding him were some strange dark figures. They looked very much like people, but they couldn't be, as there was no way humans would managed to breath down in these watery depths. Besides, he had never seen a person wear the strange dark clothing and helmets they were clad in. He was just wondering if he had drifted into waters which was home to some undersea creature he'd never seen before - when he realising what they were doing.
They were attaching a pair of chains to him.
Big Mickey couldn't understand at all what was going on down here beneath the waves. He couldn't do anything about it either. He could only watch wordlessly as the chains were attached to him before the strange beings left him alone, heading up towards the surface.
The old sunken crane lay there on the sea bed, the chains still attached to him. He couldn't make head or tail of what he had just seen. It was the most bizarre thing that had happened to him down here under the water. He was just wondering if he was still asleep and dreaming - when something happened to him that took him by real surprise.
He was moving.
Not moving as in drifting through the water.
Moving as in rising upwards.
Big Mickey was astonished. He heading up in the direction of the surface - which was where he had wanted to go through ever since he had fallen in the water years ago at Bigg City Port. He stared at the chains, realising they were pulling him upwards.
Now he was sure he had to to be a dream. There was no way he was ever going to make it out of this sea and stand on land again. He had long given up on that idea. Big Mickey was just waiting to wake up and find himself laying on a sandy bed - when he realised something else.
The light was getting much stronger. As he was nearing the surface, he was leaving behind the dark depths - and his surroundings were getting much brighter by the second.
If he was really having a dream, then this light would have surely woken him from it - but it wasn't.
Big Mickey had barely enough time to realise in great amazement what was happening - when he broke through the surface of the water, finding himself in the first daylight he had ever been in for three years.
As he let off a gasp of relief at the feeling of being out of the sea, water gushing out of him, he looked around to see he was being pulled upright by the chains that had been attached to him. Gazing around, he spotted who had brought him up to the surface, finding he had reached land.
Two blue steam locomotives were side-by-side with the ends of their chains attached to their front couplings. Clouds of steam were billowing out of their funnels as they puffed backwards. One had a tender with a number two painted on its sides, the other was a tank engine who wore a number one.
With their strength built by their burning fires, the engines refused to stop pulling the crane upright. Big Mickey felt the first surge of joy he'd ever had in a long time as with a great clunk, the bottoms of his four legs landed on the ground to allow him to stand upright.
He couldn't believe it.
He was free from the sea at last
He had risen again.
"Well done, Edward!" a loud voice boomed from bellow. "Well done, Thomas!"
Big Mickey looked down. He could see that standing in front of the engines was a stout man dressed in a smart suit and a top hat. He swung around to look at the crane who was standing before him after being pulled out of the sea.
"So this is the crane you found under the water?"
"Yes, Sir." Standing behind the man in the top hat were the figures which had attached the chains to Big Mickey. One of them had removed his helmet, he and his colleagues still clad in their diving gear. "When I went down to rescue the cargo the old crane here dropped, I didn't think I'd find another one underwater."
"Hm..." The man in the top hat stared thoughtfully at the large crane who had water dripping from all over him, his paintwork covered in rust and seaweed clinging all over to him. "He's certainly showing signs of living in the water...but structurally, he's in excellent condition. He'd be a lot better up on land where he belongs - and I'm certain he'd be more trustworthy of not dropping any cargo into the sea and onto engines. I'm tired of hearing about the crane we've had here doing that all the time."
"What are you saying, sir?" asked another workman who had taken off his diving helmet.
"I'm saying I'm going to have this crane refurbished..." The man in the top hat smiled. "And he's going to work here at Brendam Docks."
Big Mickey couldn't believe what he had heard. He was amazed to hear he was going to be staying on land to do what he had been built for. He had thought he was doomed to stay in the darkness of the sea for ever. The old crane had never felt so happy. After so long of thinking there was no hope for him, he was going to have a new chance, a new job, a new home, a new life...
"And so ever since the Fat Controller has me refurbished," Big Mickey smiled as he finished his story. "I've been working here on the Island of Sodor ever since."
He stared at his friends. As they had done when he had first spoke to him, their eyes were wide. Carly let the tears she's been building up fall - but they were from how happy she was for her friend. Salty and Porter were beaming brightly. Only Cranky was still showing signs of looking shocked.
"Oh, Big Mickey!" Carly smiled, sniffling. "I'm so happy for you that you didn't have to stay underwater forever."
"We're so grateful that you managed to drift here to Sodor!" Porter grinned. "To have you as part of our team - and our friend."
"That's quite the sea story you told, me hearty!" Salty winked at him. "I thought I was the one who could take everyone in with me tales of life on the waves - but you got me beat there!"
Big Mickey glowed modestly. He truly was grateful to such great friends here at the docks, as well as on the rest of the island. He was also thankful to have - after losing all hope - been given a brand new life.
Nobody noticed the silent state Cranky had gone into over the story he'd just heard. How stunned he'd been when he had first heard Big Mickey speak was nothing compared to how he felt now. All the years he had worked here at the docks, he had never known what the other crane who had worked there as well without saying a word had gone through.
It certainly made Cranky realise how lucky he was to be able to work at the docks alongside his friends, proving himself to be a really useful crane.
Thanks for reading! Hope you liked this story of the harbour crane who is part of two related awesome shows! :)