The younger man squinted through the lenses. “Average seas have been running around thirty feet. This looks to be double that. Wow! Have you ever seen anything this big?”

“Never,” the captain said. “Not in my whole life.”

The captain knew his ship could handle the wave if the Belle faced into it bow first to cut down the area of impact. The captain ordered the helmsman to program the auto-steer to face the oncoming wave and keep it steady. Then he grabbed the mike and flipped a switch on the console that would connect the bridge with speakers all over the ship.

“Attention all hands. This is the captain. A giant rogue wave is about to hit the ship. Get to a secure location away from flying objects and hold on. The impact will be severe. Repeat. The impact will be severe.”

As a precaution, he ordered the radioman to broadcast an SOS. The ship could always send out a recall, if needed.

The green, white-veined wave was about a half mile from the ship. “Look at that,” Butler was saying. The sky was lit up by a series of brilliant flashes. “Lightning?”

“Maybe,” the captain said. “I'm more concerned about that damned sea!”

The wave's profile was unlike anything the captain had ever seen. Unlike most waves, which slope down at an angle from the crest, this one was almost straight up and down, like a moving wall.

The captain had a peculiar out-of-body sensation. Part of him watched the advancing wave in a disinterested, scientific fashion, fascinated by the size and power, while another part stood in helpless wonder at the immense, menacing power.

“It's still growing,” Butler said with unabashed awe.

The captain nodded. He guessed the wave had grown to a height of ninety feet, nearly three times as high as it was when it was first sighted. His face was ashen. Cracks were starting to appear in his rock-hard confidence. A ship the size of the Belle couldn't turn on a dime, and it was still facing the oncoming sea at an angle when the gigantic wave reared up like a living thing.

He was expecting the shock from the wave but was unprepared when a trough big enough to swallow his ship opened up in the ocean in front of him.

The captain looked into the abyss that had appeared before his eyes. “It's like the end of the world,” he thought.

The ship tilted into the trough, slid down the side and buried its bow in the ocean. The captain fell against the forward bulkheads.

Rather than strike head-on, the wave collapsed on top of the ship, burying it under thousands of tons of water.