Then weeks passed while the wrecking-crew worked at patching the steamer's holes so that she would float, and every day Timmans went down in his suit and did blacksmith work and carpenter work on her torn plates and beams, in constant danger of being crushed in the deep sand trough she rocked and slid in. Sometimes the whole iron hull, beaten against by the ocean, would go grinding along, breaking down a wall of sand ten feet high, almost as fast as Timmans could walk. And to be caught between her side and that wall would have ended his days forthwith. Diving-suit and man would have been crushed like an egg-shell.
Finally, when she was ready they made fast a sixteen-inch hawser, and put on full steam to pull her off into deep water. Off she came, and all was going well with the towing when a fierce tropical storm came upon them, and the steamer turned broadside to its fury, and the great hawser snapped like a kite-string, and back she went on a coral-reef.
Once more they began at the beginning, and in time had another hawser ready, and tried again. This time the hawser parted by grinding on the beach as they dragged her.
Then, after long delay, they got a sixteen-inch hawser, wound with wire, that would resist the friction of rocks and sand, and all would have happened as they hoped had not a sawfish, sent by the evil power that thwarted them, thrust its jagged weapon through the hawser strands, piercing the wire and severing the big tow-line. The wrecking company still shows the saw of that mischievous fish among its curiosities.
So Timmans's narrative ran on endlessly, with details of how they stopped some fresh leaks with sixty-five barrels of cement, and how they quelled a mutiny and how they finally got the steamer off, and rigged up a patent rudder that steered her over twenty-five hundred miles, until they landed her home, two hundred and fifty-odd days after the expedition started. All going to show the kind of stuff American wreckers are made of.
V
IN WHICH THE AUTHOR PUTS ON A DIVING-SUIT AND GOES DOWN TO A WRECK
ONE day I asked Atkinson, as master diver of the wrecking company, if he would let me go down in his diving-suit; and he said yes very promptly, with an odd little smile, and immediately began telling of people who, on various occasions, had teased to go down, and then had backed out at the critical moment, sometimes at the very last, just as the face-glass was being screwed on. It was a bit disconcerting to me, for Atkinson seemed to imply that I, of course, would be different from such people, and go down like a veteran, whereas I was as yet only thinking of going down!
"There's a wreck on the Hackensack," said he; "it's a coal-barge sunk in twenty feet of water. We'll be pumping her out to-morrow. Come down about noon, and I'll put the suit on you."
Then he told me how to find the place, and spoke as if the thing were settled.
I thought it over that evening, and decided not to go down. It was not worth while to take such a risk; it was a foolish idea. Then I changed my mind: I would go down. I must not miss such a chance; it would give me a better understanding of this strange business; and there was no particular danger in it, only a little discomfort. Then I wavered again, and thought of accidents to divers, and tragedies of diving. What if something went wrong! What if the hose burst or the air-valve stuck! Or suppose I should injure my hearing, in spite of Atkinson's assurance? I looked up a book on diving, and found that certain persons are warned not to try it – full-blooded men, very pale men, men who suffer much from headache, men subject to rheumatism, men with poor hearts or lungs, and others. The list seemed to include everybody, and certainly included me on at least two counts. Nevertheless I kept to my purpose; I would go down.
It was rising tide the next afternoon, an hour before slack water (slack water is the diver's harvest-time), when the crew of the steam-pump Dunderberg gathered on deck to witness my descent and assist in dressing me; for no diver can dress himself. The putting on a diving-suit is like squeezing into an enormous pair of rubber boots reaching up to the chin, and provided with sleeves that clutch the wrists tightly with clinging bands, to keep out the water. Thus incased, you feel as helpless and oppressed as a tightly stuffed sawdust doll, and you stand anxiously while the men put the gasket (a rubber joint) over your shoulders and make it fast with thumb-screws, under a heavy copper collar. Next you step into a pair of thirty-pound iron shoes that are strapped over your rubber feet. And now they lead you to an iron ladder that reaches down from rail to water. You lift your feet somehow over the side, right foot, left foot, and feel around for the ladder-rungs. Then you bend forward on the deck, face down, as a man would lay his neck on the block. This is to let the helpers make fast around your waist the belt that is to sink you presently with its hundred pounds of lead. Under this belt you feel the life-line noose hugging below your arms, a stout rope trailing along the deck, that will follow you to the bottom, and haul you back again safely, let us hope. Beside it trails the precious black hose that brings you air.
Now Atkinson himself lifts the copper helmet with its three goggle-eyes, and prepares to screw it on. The men watch your face sharply; they have seen novices weaken here.
"Want to leave any address?" says Captain Taylor, cheerfully.
I admit, in my own case, that at this moment I felt a very real emotion. I watched two lads at the air-pump wheels as if they were executioners, though both had kind faces, and one was sucking placidly at a clay pipe. I thought how good it was to stay in the sunshine, and not go down under a muddy river in a diving-suit.
"Wait a minute," I cried out, and went over the signals again – three slow jerks on the life-line to come up, and so on.
Now the helmet settles down over my head and jars against the collar. I see a man's hands through the round glasses crisscrossed over with protecting wires; he is screwing the helmet down tight. Now he holds the face-glass before my last little open window. "Go ahead wid de pump," calls a queer voice, and forthwith a sweetish, warmish breath enters the helmet, and I hear the wheeze and groan of the cylinders.
"If you get too much air, pull once on the hose," somebody calls; "if you don't get enough, pull twice." I wonder how I am to know whether I am getting too much or not enough, but there is no time to find out. I have just a moment for one deep breath from the outside, when there is no more "outside" for me; the face-glass has shut it off, and now grimy fingers are turning this glass in its threads, turning it hard, and hands are fussing with hose and life-line, making them fast to lugs on the helmet-face, one on each side, so that the hose drops away under my left arm, and the life-line under my right. Then I feel a sharp tap on my big copper crown, which means I must start down. That is the signal.
I pause a moment to see if I can breathe, and find I can. One step downward, and I feel a tug at my trousers as the air-feed plumps them out. Step by step I enter the water; foot by foot the river rises to my waist, to my shoulders – to my head. With a roar in my ears, and a flash of silver bubbles, I sink beneath the surface; I reach the ladder's end, loose my hold on it, and sink, sink through an amber-colored region, slowly, easily, and land safely (thanks to Atkinson's careful handling) on the barge's deck just outside her combings, and can reach one heavy foot over the depth of her hold, where tons of coal await rescue. A jerk comes on the life-line, and I answer that all is well; indeed, I am pleasantly disappointed, thus far, in my sensations. It is true there is a pressure in my ears, but nothing of consequence (no doubt deeper it would have been different), and I feel rather a sense of exhilaration from my air-supply than any inconvenience. At every breath the whole suit heaves and settles with the lift and fall of my lungs. I carry my armor easily. It seems as if I have no weight at all, yet the scales would give me close to four hundred pounds.
The fact is, though I did not know it, my friends up in the daylight were pumping me down too much air (this in their eager desire to give enough), and I was in danger of becoming more buoyant than is good for a diver; in fact, if the clay-pipe gentleman had turned his wheel just a shade faster I should have traveled up in a rush – four