“I have seen her at work. She is a little old composite steamer built
of iron and teak—incredibly old, fifty years at least; she knocks about
among wreckage as indifferent to hard blows as was Nansen’s Fram;
and she brings to her never-ending jobs gear and brains which make
their incredible accomplishment seem easy. _K-13_, emptied of men,
would soon have been lightened and raised by the Ranger’s tremendous
steam pumps—she will lift a dreadnought if it be not damaged beyond
possibility of patching up by her divers—but _K-13_, with fifty living
men inside, called for finesse rather than power. It was the men, not
the ship, that Barttelot and Young were out to save.
[Illustration:
_Photo by Paul Thompson._