"How near did you get to the Bremen?" I asked.
"Oh, we finally got right up against her, say after forty-five minutes. You can cool off a lot of red-hot iron in forty-five minutes when you've got forty-five tons of water a minute to do it with."
It was just as they came alongside that one of the crew made out a human shape in the coal-chute some ten feet up the Bremen's side. And presently they saw others there, blackened faces, fierce and fearful eyes. And above the fire crackle and the crash of water they heard men's cries.
Straightway a ladder was brought, and three of the crew, Breen, Kerrigan, and Hartmann, lifted it on their shoulders until the top rung came up level with the coal-chute. But this, instead of bringing relief to the fire-bound company, brought madness; for now they fought and struggled so, each one wishing to go first, that none were able to go at all. "They were like wild beasts," said one of the crew.
In this crisis Gallagher sprang up the ladder to the top, where he could look in through the hole, the one hole in all the vessel's sides that was large enough for a man's body to pass. And reaching in here, he grabbed what was nearest, arm, leg, or shock of hair, and hauled it out and lowered it down the ladder to Captain Braisted, who stood below him and passed the bundle on. Then Gallagher grabbed again and again, pulling forth by sheer strength one man at a time, taking them as they came, Germans or Italians, officers or coal-handlers, anything that was alive. Down came the tumbling mass, yelling, praying, fighting, a miserable human stream; and when it was all over and the count was taken, they had saved thirty-two lives.
Now one of the rescued men spoke up in broken English, and said that there were others still on the Bremen, down in the engine-room. And Gallagher volunteered to go aboard for the rescue if one of the men who knew the vessel would come along to guide him. But no man offered this service. It was too hazardous a thing, they said; where the fire was not raging there was smoke and darkness, and the engine-room was far down in the vessel. They had groped about themselves for half an hour in despair, searching for the way out, and now that they had found it, they were not fools enough to go in again.
"But you say there are others in there alive!" insisted Gallagher.
The rescued ones shook their heads blankly at this; in their minds the law of self-preservation rode over all other things at this moment. Poor men, they were half dazed by their sufferings and the shock!
SAVING THE MEN OF THE "BREMEN."