“The real dangers lay unseen below and around. Behind the
after-bulkhead stood a wall of water at a pressure of thirty-one pounds
to the square inch, against which the strength of the steel, supported
by the air pressure in the control room, was a sufficient barrier.
But though the bulkhead might have been in little danger of collapse,
it could not prevent water from leaking through. Those leaks were the
deadly peril. If the oozing salt water had reached the fully charged
electric batteries of the vessel poisonous chlorine gas would have been
given off and the control room turned into a mortuary. The batteries
never were reached, but the risk, even the probability that they would
be, was always present to the subconscious minds of officers and men.
Perhaps it was this, as much as the air pressure, which caused that
disbelief in rescue which remained with them up to the moment of actual
safety.
“But though the salt water did not turn the batteries into ministers
of death, it did its best to suffocate the unhappy men who crowded
_K-13’s_ control room. It reached and short-circuited the switch,
causing some of the cables to fuse. Fumes of stinking smoke from the
burning insulation befouled the air, and the fire was put out with
the greatest difficulty. The switch could not be touched and the
current cut off, so no method of extinction remained except to beat
out the fire with lumps of wood wrapped in cloth. In this way it was
extinguished but the stink remained.