a slight jar as the divers opened the outer door of their compartment
and stepped outside the hull of the submarine. Pressure inside their
own compartment and that outside had been equalized all of the way down
and they were ready to seek an opening into the interior of the
treasure ship.
Moving slowly and with each carrying a hand torch, they disappeared
beyond the outer rim of light.
It was a tense group in the diving room, clustered around Commander
Ford. Tersely he relayed the progress of the divers.
"They're going back along the hull, hunting for an opening. Charlie
Gill says the current is strong here but the footing is hard; probably
volcanic rock."
There was a moment of silence. Electric fans kept a constant flow of
air.
Commander Ford spoke again. "They're still moving back. Wait! Russ
Graham's found a hole, probably the one knocked in the hull when the
Southern Queen struck the reef. They're going inside!"
Every word burned itself into Tim's memory. It took nerve even to go to
the bottom of the ocean, but then to get out of a submarine in a diving
suit and walk around the ocean floor and climb into the interior of an
old hull took more than nerve.
"They're not far from the ship's strong room," went on Commander Ford,
each word low but distinct.
Eagerly they waited for the next message from the interior of the
Southern Queen. Would the divers be able to get into the strong room?
Would the treasure be there? A dozen questions hammered through the
mind of every man aboard the _S-18_.
Roy Gould checked the even flow of air through the air lines. It was
the life blood for the men outside. Once that stopped they wouldn't
have a chance.
Commander Ford bent nearer the mouthpiece of the phone, pressed the
headset closer to his ears, straining for the first word of the
treasure. His hands were shaking slightly.
Then he turned toward them, his voice hoarse with excitement.
"They're in the strong room; they've found the treasure!"
His words echoed the length of the _S-18_ and a shout went up from the
crew.
"Charlie Gill says someone must have made an attempt to get the
treasure out before the Southern Queen sunk. The door of the strong
room is open and several of the steel chests are outside the door.
They're bringing them out now."
Minutes passed as the divers, each carrying a steel chest, made their
way out of the interior of the Southern Queen and back along the side
of the _S-18_.
Tim's keen eyes were the first to see them. Russ Graham was ahead, his
arms wrapped around a rusty steel chest. Close behind came Charlie
Gill, with a similar chest in his arms. They deposited these in the
diving compartment and waved to the men watching them through the
quartz windows.
Then they were beyond the circle of light, seeking more treasure in the
hold of the old tramp steamer.
"How long can they remain down at this depth?" Tim asked the commander.
"Not long. The pressure is too great, but Charlie and Russ are the best
divers in the world. They'll stick as long as they dare."
Another and still another trip was made by the divers into the hold of
the Southern Queen. The pile of steel boxes mounted. Six were stacked
together. There were only two more. Then the job would be done.
Ike Green came running forward from his radio room.
"Something mighty funny is happening near us," he told Commander Ford.
"My microphones are picking up all kinds of noises within the last two
minutes."
A slight tremor ran through the hull of the _S-18_.
Commander Ford shouted into the telephone.
"Charlie! Russ! Return at once! Don't attempt to bring out the rest of
the gold. Hurry!"
There was another slight movement. Men looked at each other in
amazement and fear. Out of the darkness came the divers. Charlie Gill
had a treasure chest. Russ Graham's arms were empty. Into the
protection of their diving compartment they stumbled. With a clang the
outer doors snapped shut.
"We're getting back to the surface as soon as possible and away from
the hull of the Southern Queen at once," snapped Commander Ford.
Men hastened back to their posts, but before they could get there, the
_S-18_ moved again. From the outside there was the sound of metal
scraping against metal. Then silence.
They took their places, diving planes were adjusted for the ascent and
orders flew from Commander Ford's lips. The electric motors purred
smoothly. Compressed air hissed into the ballast tanks, blowing the
water out to lighten the submarine. Tim, watching the depth gauge,
waited for the needle to move.
Earl Bell came into the control room.
"You might as well shut off the motors and save the air," he said
dully. "That last shock put a part of the hull of the Southern Queen on
top of us. We're trapped."
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Desperate Hours
The men in the control room stared at Bell with unbelieving eyes.
"I tell you part of the hull of the Southern Queen has been rolled over
on top of us," shouted Earl. "We're trapped! We're trapped!" His voice
broke.
Tim felt sick. Down 185 feet under the surface of the water, there was
no way of sending up news of their predicament and no one there even if
they could send it up.
Commander Ford remained calm.
"Stay at your posts," he ordered. "I'll go forward and see what can be
learned."
Tim followed him. The Commander took over the telephone and spoke to
the divers, sitting inside their compartment.
"What can you make out?" he asked Charlie Gill.
The reply was not encouraging.
"Part of the upperstructure of the Southern Queen was toppled over on
us when that last earth shock came," reported Gill. "I'm going outside
and see what can be done."
The doors of the diving compartment clicked open and the chief diver
disappeared.
Long minutes dragged by. There was no word from the man on whom they
were pinning so much of their hopes.
Finally Charlie Gill staggered back into view. Tim knew from the sag of
his shoulders that the mission had been useless.
Again the doors of the diving compartment were shut and he heard Gill's
voice coming over the wire into the receivers on Commander Ford's head.
"We're caught tight," reported the diver. "There doesn't seem to be a
chance to escape."
Tim looked down at the rusty treasure chests, piled in such a haphazard
fashion on the floor of the outer diving compartment. All thought of
the treasure had left their minds now. The one desire was to get back
to the surface.
The _S-18_ quivered occasionally as new earth shocks rocked the bottom
of the ocean.
Commander Ford put down the headset and turned back toward the control
room.
"We'll try it again," he said.
The electrics hummed, the propellers threshing first one way and then
another, but there was no upward movement of the submarine.
The water was blown from the diving compartment and Gill and Graham
struggled out of their diving suits.
Commander Ford called them to one side, and they conversed at length.
Tim caught only snatches of the conversation, but it was enough to tell
him that their situation was almost hopeless. Already the air inside
the _S-18_ seemed heavy and his head ached miserably.
"How long can we last?" he asked Pat, who was standing by in the
control room.
The chief officer shrugged.
"Let's not think about that."
The motors were shut off and the only sound was the faint humming of
the ventilating fans as they forced a current of air from one
compartment to another.
The crew, gathered in little groups, conversed in whispers. Joe
Gartner, the gunner, battered open the top of one of the treasure
chests and neat rows of gold bars were revealed. There was only a
murmur of enthusiasm. Any man aboard would have traded a safe trip back
to the surface for his share of the gold.
Commander Ford decided upon a desperate plane of action. A special bomb
with a time fuse was rigged and Charlie Gill donned his diving suit
again and went outside. They saw him working his way along the hull of
the Southern Queen. Somewhere out there he would plant the bomb in the
hope that the explosion would loosen the wreckage and allow the _S-18_
to shoot toward the surface.
Fifteen minutes later he was back. In five more minutes the bomb would
go off. Tim literally counted every second. The crew waited at their
posts and the motors were ready to push the _S-18_ toward the surface
if they broke free.
The _S-18_ shook slightly. The propellers threshed madly, but there was
no upward movement.
This time Russ Graham went outside. When he came back he shook his head.
"Explosive won't budge the wreckage," he said. "It would take a bucket
of nitro at this depth and we haven't any nitro."
Despair lined the face of every man who heard those words. Most of them
were submarine men, and they knew what was ahead--bad air, headaches,
dimming lights, then darkness for the _S-18_ and for them.
"We might as well save the electricity," said Commander Ford. Lights
were turned off until only one bulb gleamed in each compartment.
Some of the men got together a meal. Tim didn't feel like eating. Still
true to the code of reporters, he sat down and with pencil and paper
wrote the story of the last dive of the _S-18_. For an hour he wrote.
Time meant nothing to the men now. The end would come when the light
faded and the air gave out.
Tim's head pounded to the throbbing of the blood through his body. A
few of the men rolled into their blankets, trying to sleep. The
treasure chests were forgotten.
The hours passed and Tim wrote slowly, recording his impressions.
The storage batteries had been drained of their reserve by the heavy
pulls of the motors in trying to free the submarine and now only two
lights were on, one in the control room, the other in the crew's
quarters.
It was hard to breath. The air was thick and foul. A thin stream of
water was spurting into the engine room where a seam had opened under
the pressure and the weight of the wreckage above it. Tim could hear
the water splashing on the floor.
The light was dimmer, only a faint glow now. Then it was gone. Writing
was a thing of the past, but in his hands he held the record of their
tragedy. Perhaps someday the _S-18_ would be found and their story
known.
Tim fumbled for his blankets. The air was cold. He laid down on the
bunk. Up ahead was the steady splashing of the water. Back of him a man
was quietly praying.
Tim closed his eyes. His head was splitting. Perhaps sleep would bring
peace.
There was no sound in the _S-18_ except the low breathing of men who
were saving every precious breath and the sound of the water coming in
through the opened seam.
"When the water reaches the batteries there'll be chlorine," someone
muttered.
"Let's hope it reaches them soon," another voice replied. "This waiting
is what hurts."
Tim was drowsy, his mind a blank. The end was near for all of them.
Another half hour, not much longer.
An occasional earth tremor could be felt, but they were less distinct.
Tim was on the verge of unconsciousness when the _S-18_ rocked sharply
as though a giant hand had grasped the conning tower and was shaking
the big undersea craft in a playful manner. There was the faint sound
of scraping metal, followed by another shock which threw men from their
bunks.
Water was cascading in upon them. Screams filled the air.
"We've broken in two," was one desperate cry.
Tim struggled to get to his feet. Water swished about his feet and
someone knocked him down. Pat was shouting wildly.
"Shut up!" he cried. "Try and get to your stations. We're moving!"
Men paused, dazed by the words. Gradually the meaning penetrated their
fagged brains and through the darkness they hunted for their places.
Pat was right. Without power of its own, the _S-18_ was moving. Slowly
at first, then with an upward rush that tumbled them about like
jack-straws. The slim nose burst through the water and rose above the
surface.
Commander Ford, who had remained in the control room, crawled up the
ladder and opened the main hatch. A breath of fresh, sweet air, swept
down into grateful faces. One by one the men crawled out on the deck.
It was the dawn of the second day. They had been saved from death below
the surface, saved by an earthquake which had shifted the wreckage of
the Southern Queen off the hull of the _S-18_.
Tim looked toward the Isle of the Singing Trees. The seaplane was
riding safely just off the beach. It was less than 48 hours since they
had gone below but he had lived a lifetime in those desperate hours of
darkness and despair.
For half an hour they relaxed, basking in the sunshine of the early
morning. Then they set about making the _S-18_ ready for the long
cruise back to New York.
Tim, remembering the story he had written while they were on the
bottom, plunged below. Part of the paper was wet, but Ike Green decided
he could read it and he sat down at the radio to transmit it to the New
York Journal and the Atkinson _News_.
"I'm sending a story on the recovery of the treasure," Tim said to
Commander Ford. "How much shall I say the gold totals?"
"It will exceed two million dollars," smiled the Commander, "which
means a tidy sum for every member of the crew."
"I wouldn't go through that experience again for a whole million,"
replied Tim.
"Neither would I," agreed the Commander. "It was little short of a
miracle that saved us from death."
Out of the air crackled a message that afternoon. It was from George
Carson, back in Atkinson.
"Your story is the best of the year," radioed the managing editor of
the _News_. "Congratulations on a fine piece of writing, but don't take
any more chances by going down in a submarine."
Tim slipped the message in a pocket. It had been a great adventure,
more thrilling by far than he had ever dared to dream, but he would be
glad when the _S-18_ nosed its way back into New York harbor.
THE END
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the fourth book in the Tim Murphy Series. Have
you read all of them?
Volume I Daring Wings
Volume II Sky Trail
Volume III Circle-Four Patrol
Volume IV The Treasure Hunt of the _S-18_
End of Project Gutenberg's The Treasure Hunt of the S-18, by Graham M. Dean