“We have reached noon on Tuesday and the survivors of _K-13_ have
been entombed for more than twenty hours. No word had yet come to
them from outside of the efforts which were actively in progress for
their rescue. But they were not destined to remain much longer in
ignorance. Even while Herbert and Goodheart were making that effort at
communication, which had been so grievously costly, the leaden soles
of a diver were planted on the submarine’s deck. At first attempts
were made to flash signals through the periscope, but the surer and
simpler method of tapping Morse dots and dashes on the steel plating
was quickly substituted. Between the inner and outer skins of _K-13_
were interposed five feet of water, admitted through flap valves in
order to distribute the pressure when she penetrated the depths of the
sea. Linked together by stays and trusses, these two skins formed an
encircling girder of immense strength. Water is an excellent conductor
of sound, and the Morse taps of the divers without could have been
readily heard and interpreted by those within had their senses not been
dulled by the thick bad atmosphere. Conduction was indeed so good that
the replies of _K-13_, struck on the frames of the ship, were picked
up and read without difficulty by the salvors on the surface of the
loch. It happened, therefore, that though outside talked to inside
and replies were received, it was by no means easy to get inside, to
grasp and to carry out precisely what outside wanted done. And it was
found to be particularly difficult to secure the exact and essential
coöperation of those within _K-13_ when that flexible tube arrived
which had been designed by Fairfields to be screwed into an ammunition
hoist upon the deck.
[Illustration:
_Drawn by Joseph Cummings Chase._