What still further added to the horror of the situation, the increasing cold and freezing winds drove the rescuers from their work, because it was impossible to send divers down. By this time the imprisoned men had been so long in their iron coffin, it was not possible that human life could endure for that time or withstand the terrible conditions.
Sunday night two monstrous pontoons were brought to the scene, hoping by their use the bow of the boat might be brought to the surface. These pontoons were brought from New London by four powerful tugs, through the Cape Cod Canal, but this was unavoidably slow on account of the unwieldy shape of the tow and there was no hope that these pontoons could reach the spot until it was too late.
Eight skilled divers were already on the scene. Diver Thomas Eadie went over the side earlier in the day and it was he who was able to communicate with the entombed men by means of the hammer tapping signals.
The last signals tapped from the inside of the ship were, “How long will you be now, hurry.”
Late Sunday P. M. diver Michaels heard from the dying men, “We cannot live beyond six o’clock.”
In some way this diver’s life line became entangled in a part of the ragged hole in the hull, and though he struggled frantically to clear himself, after he had been down more than half an hour it became evident that something was wrong. Then diver Eadie, with a hack saw, went down and found Michaels badly tangled in projecting bits of broken iron of the hull, and it required another half hour for Eadie to saw off the piece of iron that held Michaels. He had been held there more than two and a half hours and another half hour would have resulted in his death. He was hurried to a hospital in Boston and was ill for some time.
Up to this time every effort to raise the boat or rescue any one of her crew had utterly failed and some of the boats and gear departed for other duties.
The attempts to rescue these imprisoned men encountered awfully adverse conditions.
This disaster happened on Sunday, on that afternoon, and on Monday, the next day, had there been adequate saving appliances at hand it is believed some of the men might have been saved, but it required so much time to get them on the ground that all attempts were futile.
Another case where men have gone down in the deep sea in a vessel that was the meanest type of craft ever conceived by man.