But though they knew that death was so near to them, and though escape seemed impossible, yet they bent their every effort in an attempt to free the boat from the grip of the cables. They filled the water tanks to their utmost capacity, and every man joined in pressing on the steering wheel; the perspiration of energy and anxiety stood upon their brows as they worked; the atmosphere was electric; they knew that the next few minutes must decide their fate. How they worked! What prayers for life they prayed, these men of death!
Suddenly the grim silence of the interior was broken by the cries of the men—cries of joy. With her engines at full speed, the little craft had fought and strained against the impeding leash, had fought victoriously, for with a jerk the cables broke away and the submarine bounded forward; the men at the wheel felt it answer to their pressure, and down the boat went at full speed to a depth of sixteen metres.
They were saved!
Ecstatic in their joy at deliverance the Frenchmen embraced each other, and for a moment forgot that above them rode the giant foes who, unaware yet that they had escaped from the cables, were no doubt still potting away at the spot, and still sending their torpedoes in that direction. But very soon the sailors came back to the world of action, and realised that they were still far from safe; they must hurry away immediately if they would escape. There was little chance of doing any damage to the foe, who were now on the qui vive; and only one course was open to the French, and that was to get away. They dared not rise to the surface, and they had to chance their luck and keep below. For two hours—hours full of anxiety—they went along under water, well aware that they were pursued by the foes, whose guns continually spoke as the periscope was fired at. Knot after knot was eaten up, and still the pursuers kept on after them; but at last they were shaken off, and the men in the submarine knew that they were indeed safe.
But, cautious even now, they still remained beneath the surface till the shades of evening fell; and then, and then only, did they dare to rise, after having been submerged for nothing short of twelve hours! Twelve hours as full of peril and thrill as any hours man ever spent!
They were not even then out of the wood; for shortly afterwards they sighted another of the enemy’s ships, and again they had to dive and go on their way beneath the water; but eventually they reached their port safely, happy to have escaped, but chagrined at not having been able to do any damage to the foe.
Because we do not reap the benefits in daily life of the work of the diver, few of us give him much thought; but for a hazardous, heroic vocation, that of the man in the diving suit is probably without equal.
A thousand little things may happen, and each one of them be sufficient to cut the slender thread of life for the diver; a man in the boat above, for instance, may make a slight mistake, and—but there is no need to moralise. Take the case of John Edward Pearce, a diver, who one day in 1868 was hard at work in eighty feet of water, where the sunken barque Mindora lay off Dover. You couldn’t have seen the diver, of course, but the cutter riding to the swell, and the man aboard her holding the lifeline, would have told you plainly enough that below the water was a man working amidst the remains of what was once a proud little ship.
That man with the line was in touch with the man below; he held the thread of life and death. Suddenly he received a signal from below, and called out to another man, a diver: