There was hope that at least some of the men might have been able to close the watertight compartments before they were overcome by the inrushing current.
Many kinds of appliances were hurried to the locality by fast ships; many tugs and steamers gathered over the place where the S-4 lay at the bottom of the sea off Long Point. Over the sunken boat white-capped waves were breaking, forced over the surging waters of the bay by a thirty-mile northwest gale.
As soon as the divers reached the locality a man was sent down and succeeded in placing a chain over the bow of the submarine; they had hoped to raise the bow enough to tip the bow towards the surface, but failed to offer any help.
Again a man was sent down with a hammer, and instructed to pound along the iron sides of the sunken boat; if he got any response from the inside it would indicate that there was life there.
The diver when a short distance forward of the locality of the conning tower and the great hole which had been torn open by the Paulding when she overwhelmed the under-sea boat, heard a responsive tapping from the inside. Then the diver tapped out in the telegraph code, “Are you alive.” The answer quickly came back, “Yes, six of us are alive here.” Again the diver tapped, “Everything possible is being done to help you.” Again from the inside, “The air is very bad in here, please hurry.” This was Sunday afternoon, twenty-four hours after the disaster.
When it was found that six men were still alive renewed and strenuous efforts were made to reach the men. All day Sunday and all Sunday night a hundred men with such appliances as it was possible to get, labored to bring the bow of the boat to the surface.
Late in the afternoon of Sunday a diver went down and in response to his tapping found that the six men were still alive, but they signalled, “We are still alive but growing weaker. We cannot stand it much longer. Please hurry.”
The diver’s tapping along all other parts of the ship obtained no other response.
The other men on the boat had been imprisoned either in the engine room or the after compartments and were all probably drowned when the ship went to the bottom.
Monday morning brought no change or any hope of relief. The northwest gale had become bitterly cold, and it was more and more certain that not a man on the boat was alive, as these men had been entombed more than forty-eight hours, so the probability or even possibility of any man being alive down there a hundred feet under the sea was remote indeed.