Capping his words, there re-echoed again the loud crash of the torpoon's on the quarsteel. The sealmen were working in quick routine now; back and quickly forward, and then the crash and the reverberation; and again and again....
The ominous crash and ringing echoes regularly repeated, seemed to disorganise Ken's mind as he looked vainly for something with which to brace the door. Nothing unattached was left—nothing! He ran and examined the quarsteel pane again, and this time his brain heated in alarm. A thin line had shot through the quarsteel—the beginning of a crack.
"Back!" Ken shouted to the still staring Sallorsen. "Back to the third compartment. This door's going!"
"Yes," Sallorsen mumbled. "It'll go. So will the others. They'll smash them all. And when this is flooded—no hope of running the submarine again. Controls in here."
"That's too damned bad!" Ken said roughly. "Are there any sea-suits, food, supplies in here?"
"Only food. In those lockers."
"I'll take it. Get into that third compartment—hear me?" ordered Kenneth Torrance. "And have its door ready to close!"
He shoved Sallorsen away, opened the indicated lockers and piled his arms with the tins revealed. He had time for no more than one load. He jumped back into the third compartment of the Peary just as a splintering crash sounded from behind. The door between was swung closed and locked just as the one being battered crashed inward.
Turning, Ken saw that the torpoon had cracked through the weakened quarsteel and tumbled in a mad cascade of water to the deck of the abandoned second compartment. In dread silence, he, with Sallorsen and those of the men who had strength and curiosity enough to come forward, watched the compartment rapidly fill—watched until they saw the water pressed high against the door. And then horror swept over Ken Torrance.