“When the salvors had done their part it was for the prisoners to do
the rest—to remove the inner plate as quickly as they pleased. But
when it came to explaining this not very complicated operation by
tapping out messages in Morse on the deck it was by no means easy to
get _K-13’s_ survivors to take it in. By patient repetition that was
done at last, and then the divers busied themselves with fixing up the
tube. They had to measure the screw threads, so that the adaptor might
be made to fit accurately and to prepare a packing of tow soaked in
tallow to exclude the water. A salvage steamer is a traveling workshop
and divers are skilled mechanics, so that this part of the job, though
it might consume time, presented no difficulties. By eight o’clock on
the Wednesday morning the tube had been screwed firmly into place, the
inner plate of the hoist had been removed, and the men, who had for
forty and a half hours lain buried in a steel coffin, were at length
enabled to draw into their impoverished lungs air which was free from
pollution. It was scarcely the fresh air of heaven, for it came out of
an E-boat’s bottles, but though tinned it was a draught of infinite
refreshment. The pumps of _K-13_ were at once set working and the two
days’ accumulations of foul smells and gases were thankfully expelled.
A pipe run down the now open tube brought blasts of high-pressure air
which were allowed to expand and to blow away all festering impurities;
this pipe also brought replenishment to _K-13’s_ bottles. With the
power of her charged batteries and her refilled air-bottles, she was
now ready to play her part in the work of salvage.
“The salvors had got through in time to save, but the margin was
small. At 6 a.m., two hours before the tube was opened into the
sunken submarine, the water leaking through the after-bulkhead had
short-circuited the lighting cables, and _K-13_ was utter darkness. To
the men imprisoned it must have seemed the darkness of the tomb. Even
the strongest among them could not have borne up very much longer. They
were so little capable of excitement that not a man cheered when the
air-tube was opened.