"Then Seaman he felt for the hose, and made ready to cut. His idea was, you see, to slash the hose at one stroke, then jerk on the life-line to be hauled up quick, and keep the hole shut with his thumb while he came up. I can picture him now with his knife on the hose, sort of praying a minute, like a man might with a knife at his throat. That's what it amounted to. Well, he wrote the story of what he did right there on the hose, and wrote it plain. They've got the piece at the office, and they'll show it to you if you ask 'em. Seaman made his cut with about two men's strength; I'll bet not one of you boys could do near as well as he did at cutting a hose through with one stroke. His slash came clear through all but a shaving of rubber, and he tried to cut that with a second stroke; but the knife struck a new place about an inch away, and he slashed her half through there. Then he tried nine times more, and made nine separate cuts at the hose; and there they are to-day, about half an inch apart, each one a little shallower than the one before, and the last two or three only scratches on the outside. That was just as he died, and you can figure out how long it prob'bly took him to make those eleven knife strokes. I suppose there ought to be thirteen, but eleven's what there is. You'll count 'em."
Not only did I count them, these eleven tragic cuts, but I have the piece of hose to this day. The office people gave it to me, and never do I look but with a shiver at this dumb record in diminuendo of agony and sacrifice.
"I suppose that settled the question of stopping a hose with your thumb?" I remarked.
"That's what it did!" said Atkinson.
After this there were more stories. I can't begin to say how many more. Every time a diver goes down, one would say, something new happens to him, something worth telling about. Hansen related an experience of his with a conger eel. Atkinson told how a Dock Department diver named Fairchild was blown to death under forty feet of water when twenty-eight pounds of dynamite he was putting in for blasting went off too soon. Timmans told how he fainted away once, one hundred and five feet down, and another time let the water into his suit by pulling out a helmet lug on a foolish wager. And that reminded Atkinson of the time his gasket (the rubber joint under the collar) was cut through by the slam of an iron ladder, and the air went out "Hooo," and a quick jerk on the life-line was all that saved him. Last of all they told the story of old Captain Conkling and the Holyoke Dam, a story known to every diver. It seems there was a leak in this dam, and the water was rushing through with so strong a suction that it seemed certain death for a diver to go near enough to stop the leak. Yet it was extremely important that the leak be stopped—in fact, the saving of the dam depended on it. So Captain Conkling, who was in charge of the job, induced one of his divers to go down, and reluctantly the man put on his suit, but insisted on having an extra rope, and a very strong one, tied around his waist.
"What's that for?" asked Conkling.
"That's to help get my body out, if the life-line breaks," said the diver.
"Go on and do your work," replied Conkling, who had little use for sentiment.
It happened exactly as the diver feared. He was drawn into the suction of the hole, and when they tried to pull him up both hose and life-line parted, and the man was drowned, but they managed to rescue his body with the heavy line, just as he had planned.
Then Conkling called for another diver, but not a man responded. They said they weren't that kind of fools.