‘Of course the air compressed somethin’ cruel, and when I thought it was enough I shoved away the strong-back and tried to push the ’atch up. It only lifted an inch or so and come down again with a bang, lettin’ in a torrent of water that knocked me off o’ the ladder, and I was swimmin’ about in the engine-room for a bit before I got ’old of it again. The water was within two foot o’ the roof by then and bangin’ me up against it, so I thought ’ere goes, and I give the ’atch a push. Lumme, I don’t rightly know wot ’appened then, but I went up like a cork out of a bubbly bottle, and never knew no more till I woke up one day in this ’ere ’ospital. Mr Hellison, ’e come down and see me, and I’m goin’ back with ’im, and that’s all there is to it.’
The narrator drew a long breath, and paused to watch the effect of his story.
‘Thanks,’ I said simply. There seemed nothing else to say.
He grinned broadly. ‘Wot do you think of it?’ he queried. ‘Sons of the sea and bloomin’ sky-blue ’eroes, wot?’
‘It must have been an awful experience,’ I ventured.
‘Don’t you believe it, mate; “a life on the ocean wave,” and honest Jack the sailor, that’s wot you think,’ and he chuckled at some obscure joke.
‘I tell you, though, I was scared, mind yer. Not at the time: I was too busy savin’ myself then, but afterwards, lyin’ ’ere in bed; wot with me bein’ weak and so on, I used to imagine I was down there in the dark again, and I used to dream about it and wake up in a sweat.’
‘And yet you’re stopping in submarines?’
‘You betcher. Did you ever, when you was a little ’un, think you saw somethin’ in the dark or feel that some one was be’ind you?’
I nodded.