“I can’t fail after that word from you,” I told her.
Then I ran down the ladder and jumped into the boat where my men were waiting for me.
I found a heavy surge running under our lighter, but the swirl of sand was no longer darkening the water. I had reckoned right in regard to that undertow. Keedy’s men were still down and I could imagine them wasting their strength on the sand which had been packed back overnight.
Our water-hose had already been coupled in makeshift fashion, and the last work that morning was to wrap the joints as best we could. Then I set the men at the brakes and told them to “give her tar,” as the old-fashioned hand-tub foreman would say. The hose was strung about the deck of the lighter.
After they pumped for five minutes I found that the hose was not so tight as I had hoped. Wheezing little streams punctured it here and there, and the joints leaked. From the end of our home-made nozzle of sheet iron the stream barely trickled. I was disgusted—but I was not wholly discouraged. When I state this you may see how desperate I had become. I was resolved to fight that thing through to the last ditch. I was determined to take that hose down and try it out. I had the misty and hopeful notion that the pressure of the sea on it might make some difference, that the wet hose might retain the water better, that after the plunger had swelled a bit we might get more force.
All those straws and others did I grab at by way of bracing my courage.
The captain of the expedition trussed up in his cabin like a steer calf—only waiting his opportunity to deal with me!
Two customs men also trussed up—also waiting to deal with me!
It can be readily understood that there were some decidedly red-hot goads at my back that day to drive me down under the sea.
I had not been able to convince Captain Holstrom that all my work and struggles and investigation and failures up to then were a good investment. But as a submarine diver I knew that they had been. I had been spending my nights on a sleepless pillow, docketing those experiences and drawing lessons from them—plotting, pondering, and planning.