"Clutching the periscope table," he said, "the Commandant faces
this blow. He is a man whom nothing disconcerts. He orders that all
submerging tanks be emptied. Several times he repeats the order to
discharge the water. But the compressed air is not powerful enough
to expel it, and we continue to sink. The hull creaks all over, but
especially astern, for the stern, by reason of the angle at which
we are going down, is sixty feet lower and under a pressure of two
atmospheres greater than the bow. It is the steel heart of the _Monge_
that is groaning. We must have at least 180 or 200 feet of water above
us. Believing that this is the end, we sing the 'Marseillaise.'"
Quartermaster Mahe says the electric batteries were short-circuited by
the crash and the inrush of water. The turbines stopped at the moment
the lights went out.
"But if we see nothing, we can hear," adds the brave Mahe. "We hear
everything, and every noise echoes like a knell: dull murmurs of
surging water, nerve-wracking falls of men and things; questions
anxiously spoken, crash of objects upon each other, sinister creakings
of the hull under the terrible and ever increasing pressure. The
smell of burning, the vile emanations of chlorine--forerunners of
asphyxia--are inhaled everywhere, and grip our throats. Tango, the
bob-tailed Arab dog, is stuck somewhere between the boilers."