The Project Gutenberg eBook of The wonders of salvage
    
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: The wonders of salvage

Author: David Masters

Release date: March 15, 2025 [eBook #75618]

Language: English

Original publication: London: John Lane the Bodley Head Limited, 1924

Credits: deaurider and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WONDERS OF SALVAGE ***





Transcriber’s Note: Italics are enclosed in _underscores_. Additional
notes will be found near the end of this ebook.




THE WONDERS OF SALVAGE




_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_

THE ROMANCE OF EXCAVATION

THE BODLEY HEAD




[Illustration: HOPELESS AS THE S.S. DEVONA’S POSITION SEEMED ON
SEPTEMBER 15, 1917, THE SALVORS MANAGED TO RAISE HER IN FOUR DAYS. VERY
CLEVERLY THEY RIGGED UP SOME WIRE MATTRESSES INTO WHICH THEY PUMPED HER
CARGO OF WHEAT, THUS DRAINING OFF THE WATER AND SAVING THE GRAIN]




                              THE WONDERS
                               OF SALVAGE

                            BY DAVID MASTERS

                     WITH FORTY-EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS
                            FROM PHOTOGRAPHS

                                 LONDON

                   JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD LIMITED




                       _First Published in 1924_


 MADE AND PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY MORRISON AND GIBB LTD., EDINBURGH




                                   TO

                                MY WIFE




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


  WRECK OF S.S. _DEVONA_                                  _Frontispiece_

                                                                    PAGE
  EXAMINING SEA-BED IN TOBERMORY BAY                                  18

  WASHING SAND FOR SIGNS OF TREASURE                                  19

  SIFTING SEA-BED FOR GOLD OF _LUTINE_                                30

  WRECK OF _OCEANA_                                                   50

  DIVING FOR _OCEANA’S_ TREASURE                                      51

  A DIVER TREASURE-HUNTING WITH EXPLOSIVES                            74

  BRINGING THE _LEONARDO DA VINCI_ UPSIDE DOWN INTO DOCK              82

  THE _LEONARDO DA VINCI_ SAFELY DOCKED                               83

  THE MAMMOTH TIMBER FRAMEWORK ON WHICH THE UPSIDE-DOWN BATTLESHIP
      RESTED                                                          86

  THE UPSIDE-DOWN BATTLESHIP SEEN FROM THE AIR                        87

  TOWING OUT THE UPSIDE-DOWN BATTLESHIP TO TURN HER OVER              90

  THE BATTLESHIP JUST BEFORE SHE WAS RIGHTED                          91

  THE _LEONARDO DA VINCI_ AS SHE SWUNG OVER                           92

  THE BATTLESHIP RIGHTED                                              93

  A TORPEDOED SHIP SAFELY BEACHED                                    100

  THE FAMOUS STANDARD PATCH                                          101

  ELECTRIC PUMPS IN THE HOLD OF A £3,000,000 SHIP                    104

  DAMAGE WROUGHT BY A TORPEDO                                        105

  A VESSEL DOWN BY THE HEAD                                          110

  THE _U-44_ CARRIED ASHORE                                          126

  REMOVING MINES FROM THE _U-44_                                     127

  THE _K.13_ RAISED AFTER TWO-AND-A-HALF DAYS ON THE SEA-BED         138

  A BLAZING OIL TANKER                                               160

  THE _ONWARD_ OVERTURNED AT FOLKESTONE                              162

  SALVAGE CRAFT ALONGSIDE THE _ONWARD_                               163

  TUG-OF-WAR BETWEEN FIVE RAILWAY LOCOMOTIVES AND AN OVERTURNED
      TROOPSHIP                                                      164

  PUMPING OUT THE _ONWARD_                                           165

  WRECK OF _ST. PAUL_ IN NEW YORK HARBOUR                            166

  OVERTURNED LINER BESIDE THE QUAY                                   167

  DRAGGING THE _ST. PAUL_ UPRIGHT                                    170

  THE _ST. PAUL_ RAISED                                              171

  THE _ARABY_ BLOCKING THE ENTRANCE OF BOULOGNE HARBOUR              174

  THE _ARABY_ BREAKING IN TWO                                        175

  TWO HALVES OF THE _ARABY_ BEACHED                                  176

  HALF A SHIP IN MID-CHANNEL                                         177

  PATCHING A SHIP WITH CONCRETE                                      178

  HOW THE CONCRETE PATCH WAS REINFORCED                              179

  CONCRETE PATCH FROM INSIDE THE SHIP                                180

  EXTERIOR VIEW OF SHIP PATCHED WITH CONCRETE                        181

  REFLOATING A WRECK BY DIGGING OPERATIONS                           186

  THE _TIMBO_ HIGH AND DRY                                           187

  A DREDGER WRECKED IN THE GARELOCH                                  188

  MIGHTY STEEL CABLES USED FOR RIGHTING THE WRECK                    189

  THE DREDGER RIGHTED ONCE MORE                                      192

  A TORPEDOED SHIP IN GRAVE DIFFICULTIES                             198

  THE FOUNDERING SHIP SAFELY BEACHED AT CLOVELLY                     199

  SALVING A WRECK FROM QUICKSANDS                                    210




THE WONDERS OF SALVAGE




THE WONDERS OF SALVAGE




CHAPTER I


With eyes gazing fixedly ahead, the man, tense and alert, sought to
penetrate the blackness. Squalls of rain swept down and lashed his
face, the flying spume of spray shot up to intermingle with the rain,
leaving a tang of salt on his lips. The liner lurched and rolled
through the night, while thousands of souls aboard slumbered without
fear, placing implicit trust in this one man to whom the pulse of the
engines driving the ship was as familiar as the pulse of his own heart.
Rain and spray and wind were part of his life, and he accepted them
without demur because he realized that the weather was indifferent
alike to praise and blame.

He half turned his head to glance at the ship’s chronometer.

“Should be picking her up now,” he muttered.

Raising the night-glasses to his eyes, he concentrated all his powers
of vision on the murky gloom in front of him. His glasses roved slowly
from side to side, then a point of light, so dim as to be almost
imperceptible, swung in the blackness and vanished. For a minute he
waited until the light reappeared, then he breathed freely and rang
down for the ship to alter course, knowing that he was safe and that
he had justified the faith of the passengers who had trusted him to
navigate his vessel through the storm.

That point of light which meant so much to him was the beam of a
lighthouse, one of the many encircling our coast. All round our shores
they keep sentinel night after night, through summer calm and winter
blizzard, waking to life as daylight fades and dying as dawn steals
over the seas. These lights, which the city dweller on a brief visit to
the sea watches with such interest, are the friends of all who go down
to the sea in ships.

Our coasts are profoundly treacherous. Rocks, shoals and quicksands
abound everywhere, and are mostly marked with lighthouses, lightships
and buoys which in the aggregate have cost millions of pounds. No
expense has been spared to indicate these hidden dangers and make our
seas safe for shipping. Yet, in spite of all that human foresight can
suggest, wrecks still occur. Gales spring up and take their toll; fogs
steal on and drive ships blindly to their doom; machinery breaks down
and allows the seas to hurl the helpless craft upon the cruel rocks.

Probably no coast in the world is so well lighted as that of Great
Britain, but although there are over 1700 lights acting as signposts
of the sea, warning mariners of their dangers, our rocky shores exact
a grievous toll of shipping year by year. It is estimated that the
average value of the ships and cargoes lost in British waters amounts
to about £5,000,000 annually, so the wealth spilled out of the ships
since the galleys of our first invaders found a watery grave would,
could it be recovered, considerably lighten the burden of our national
debt. Unfortunately the greater part is lost for ever, for the sea
which has swallowed the ships destroys them utterly in the course of
time, and unless they can be salved within a certain period they soon
become not worth salving. The action of the sea water rots away the
cargoes, rust gradually devours the steel and iron carcass of the ship,
and only those two indestructible substances, gold and silver, the
white and red metals for which men have fought and died throughout the
ages, remain of the wealth which was originally lost.

Men, however, have not been content to see fortunes sink in the sea
without making some effort to recover them. They have pitted their wits
against the strength of the sea, risked their lives to wrest long-lost
treasure from the grasp of the ocean, and the story of their thrilling
deeds is one of the outstanding pages of human endeavour.

Consider, for a moment, the wonder of a ship. She is a marvellous
structure of steel and iron, full of the most intricate machinery, a
structure weighing perhaps thousands of tons. Of the manifold parts of
which she is composed, the wood fittings alone may be buoyant. Only
they may possess the power of floating on the waves; all the other
parts, from the smallest screw and rivet to the mighty propeller shafts
and hull plates would, if they could, sink like stones to the bottom of
the sea. This enormous mass of metal, which in its natural state must
sink, is so cunningly fashioned by man that it overcomes its natural
inclination to sink and is made to float. The huge weight is supported
by water, men toil in the bottom of the ship 20 and 30 feet below the
surface of the sea and are oblivious of any danger. The water on the
outer side of the steel skin of the ship towers 20 and 30 feet above
their heads, yet they sleep and eat and work in perfect safety. So long
as the sea is prevented from washing over the sides of the ship or
entering through a breach in the hull the vessel floats, would continue
to float even were she made of lead. In other words, she is buoyant.
Only when her buoyancy is destroyed does she sink. Then, before she can
float again, her buoyancy must be restored.

This is the simple problem that is always confronting the sea salvage
expert. How can he restore the buoyancy of the ship that meets with
misfortune? Simple as is the problem, it is seldom that the answer
is easy. To the salvor every wreck is a riddle. Tides and currents
make the riddle more complex. The position in which the wreck is lying
profoundly affects the case. And, above all, operates the unknown
factor of the weather. Whatever the salvage expert hopes to do, he
always adds to himself “Weather permitting!” He may be the cleverest
man alive, his plans of salvage may be the most brilliant ever
conceived, he may have the most expensive plant at his disposal and
all the money he seeks at his command, yet he is helpless unless the
weather be fair. Plans may be put into operation, work may go smoothly,
everything may be within an ace of success--when the tail of a gale
may blow the plans to pieces, shatter the work and rob the salvor of
the success that seemed within his grasp. It has happened before many
times, and it will happen many times again.

The men who get a living by trying to raise wrecks are farseeing,
sparing of words, patient where patience is demanded, quick as a rapier
thrust where quickness is essential, capable of toiling until they drop
if it be necessary. Every contingency that it is possible to think of
they consider, but the weather is something beyond their control. They
pray for fine weather, and fight against foul to the best of their
ability; but when the wind takes hold man and his endeavours are as
nothing.

Hard as some of the salvors have worked for their successes, others
have worked harder still for their failures. Often and often they have
striven strenuously for weeks and months to salve a ship, only to lose
her in the end. The luck of the game is indicated by a case which
occurred a year or two ago. A vessel went down on the summit of a rock
jutting sheer from the seabed. On all sides was water so deep that she
had but to slip to be irretrievably lost. The salvors, hurrying to the
scene, found her balanced most precariously on a ledge. A glance told
them that, before they could make the slightest attempt to salve the
ship, they would have to strive their utmost to secure her firmly in
position on top of the pinnacle of rock. They routed among their gear
for cables and anchors and, making the cables fast to the ship, carried
out the anchors in all directions in order to tie her tightly into
place.

Then they began to work against time, keeping a keen eye on the sky
and praying for fine weather, knowing full well that if the weather
held fair they would save the ship and that the coming of bad weather
would seal her doom. Day after day they toiled like giants, struggling
with huge baulks of timber, shoring up decks, strengthening bulkheads,
patching breaches in the hull. The weather favoured them. Day after day
it remained fine and enabled them to carry on their operations quite
unhampered. They had been hard at it for nearly a month before the
breeze began to freshen in rather an ominous manner. They were just
beginning to anticipate rough weather when the wind luckily died away
and they breathed freely once more.

They redoubled their efforts, and six weeks of intense toil saw their
work completed. The last timber was bolted securely in place and
the divers came out of the wreck, announcing that all was ready for
pumping out on the morrow. The salvors turned in for the night well
pleased with their labours, conscious that the next day would see them
proceeding to port with their prize.

But the weather, which had been kind to them so long, was destined to
cheat them at the very last. That night it began to blow. The seas
started to rise and hammer at the ship. She began to stir uneasily
and to strain at her cables. The gale increased. Under the continuous
chafing, one cable suddenly snapped. The breaking of that cable gave
the wreck more freedom to move under the hammer blows of the sea. The
waves battered at her incessantly and one cable after another went like
threads of cotton until a billow, far mightier than the rest, caught
her up and swept her off the pinnacle into the depths.

Imagine the feelings of the salvors when day dawned. All their gear was
gone, their labours lost when the prize was within their grasp. They
steamed slowly round the spot and proceeded to port, hoping for better
luck next time. That was the only thing they could do.

Men who spend their lives on salvage work are rather apt to lead the
casual inquirer to imagine that it is the easiest job under the sun,
whereas in reality the task is beset with difficulties and bristles
with risks. But the sailormen in their matter-of-fact way forget to
mention the ever-present danger. They are inured to it, just as people
are habituated to living on the slopes of a volcano that may erupt and
overwhelm them at any moment of the night or day. None the less the
salvors never forget the risk, nor leave it out of their calculations,
and for this reason fatal accidents among them are rare. They know the
strength of the sea too well to attempt to take liberties with it, for
they have seen it pick up great 10,000 ton ships and toss them on the
rocks as though they were cockle-shells; they have seen the strength
of 70,000 horses in the engines of a ship struggling in vain against
the strength of the waves, and they know better than to pit their power
against the power of the storm.

Thus they have a wholesome respect for wind and wave. They use the
strength of the sea to further their own ends so long as the sea
permits. At other times they may stand by a wreck for weeks while the
sea seethes and the wind howls about the ship they seek to save. A lull
in the bad weather will set them working frantically, and more than
one ship now afloat owes her existence to the accumulated labour of a
number of short spells of work undertaken between the gales.

The salvage man must thus be infinitely patient and possess a
determination that will keep him at work when most other men would give
up in despair. Above all must he be strong in hope. Without hope, no
man need seek to become a salvage expert, for he would be foredoomed
to failure. He must possess not only physical courage that enables him
to face the dangers of his calling, but also that rarer mental courage
that enables him to snatch victory out of the very jaws of defeat.

It is the men who possess this mental as well as physical courage who
perform the wonderful feats of salvage that will never be forgotten,
such as the recovery off Gibraltar of the steamer _Hypatia_, which the
salvors brought to the surface after an infinity of trouble. No sooner
was she raised than she filled and sank like a stone.

There was nothing for it but to do the work over again, which the
salvors managed to do. For the second time the _Hypatia_ was brought
to the surface, and once again she sank, seeming to mock the efforts
of her would-be preservers. Still they were not beaten. With grim
determination they made another effort, and after a great fight managed
to raise the _Hypatia_ once more. All in vain! For the third time she
sank.

Notwithstanding these three reverses, the salvors would not give up the
fight. Again the divers went down, and their strenuous exertions ended
in the _Hypatia_ seeing the light of day yet again. Not for long were
the salvors allowed to rest after their labours. Down she went for the
fourth time, while the sea bubbled and boiled around.

Few men would have continued a fight which appeared so hopeless. But
the salvors would not admit themselves beaten. Although Fate seemed to
be taunting them, they had the courage to take their task in hand for
the fifth time, and this time they succeeded. Truly it can be said that
no men more fully earned their reward than these salvors who triumphed
after four defeats.




CHAPTER II


From earliest years our imaginations are fired by the mere mention
of treasure. Who has not heard of that fabulous treasure of the
bloodthirsty pirate, Captain Kidd, whose booty still lies hidden on
some far-off island? Expedition after expedition has been fitted out
to find it, but the pirate hid it so well that the hunters have failed
in their quest. Who has not marvelled at those mighty hoards of gold
stored away by the Incas of Peru, gold which Pizarro looted from the
Peruvian treasure-house and carried back to Spain?

Treasure! The mere whisper works magic, conjuring up pictures of gold
and silver and piles of glowing gems--rubies, emeralds, and diamonds
galore, gleaming with all the colours of the rainbow. So fascinating is
the idea of treasure that men gladly risk their lives to go in search
of it; nor is the magic confined alone to the romantic. The keenest of
business men, who boast of their hard-headedness, seem to lose their
heads where treasure is concerned. Eagerly they fling down the funds to
prosecute the most problematic searches, in return for the promise of
the most shadowy spoils.

These same business men will aver that they never speculate, yet
all treasure-hunting is speculative, and if there is one form more
speculative than another it is that of searching for sunken treasure.
Still, despite its hazardous nature, there is always money forthcoming
to back deep-sea enterprises of this description. True, success comes
but seldom--failures are the rule. Could a correct balance-sheet be
made up showing how much has been spent on hunting for the world’s
sunken treasure and how much has been recovered, we should probably
find that the money expended was many times greater than the value of
all the treasure brought to the surface.

Few ideas could be more fascinating than that of hauling up gold and
silver from the bottom of the sea, and it is this same fascination,
with all the excitement it brings in its train, which lures men on to
attempt to wrest many of these long-lost treasures from the recesses of
the ocean. Years sometimes are spent in pondering ancient documents,
hunting for evidence of the exact locality of the vanished treasure,
seeking to sift rumour from actual fact. Further years may be spent in
making plans and special apparatus for lifting the treasure, and, when
the hunter starts in real earnest, he finds at last that he has spent
years of his life and thousands of pounds just for the privilege of
stirring up the seabed. Treasure-hunting is, in fact, something like
taking a ticket for a sweepstake. The chances may be ridiculously
small, but the prospect of winning a fortune will always make the game
popular.

Fate, indeed, seems to delight in playing tricks on salvage men. While,
on the one hand, it sometimes leads them on to fit out ambitious
expeditions costing thousands of pounds, sends them journeying afar
and imposes the greatest hardships upon them without bringing them any
reward whatsoever; on the other hand, it sometimes flings a fortune
straight into the lap of some lucky man when he is least expecting it.

Lord Leverhulme, in illustrating the vagaries of Fate, related how an
Australian firm once owned an island in the Pacific, a rocky little
place with a few coco-nut trees that gave their crop of nuts which were
duly dried in the sun and turned into copra and coco-nut oil. Their
trading schooner used to visit the island to load the copra, and on
one of the trips the captain happened to pick up a piece of rock and
put it aboard the ship. In due course that piece of rock went back to
Australia with the copra, and was used in the office to keep the door
open when the weather was sultry.

The firm acquired their island to make money out of it, but although
the coco-nut trees brought them a profit, they certainly did not bring
them a fortune. The question arose as to whether it was worth their
while retaining the island, and after due consideration they sold their
property to some one else, and thought no more about it.

Entering their office one day, a professor from the university chanced
to kick against the stone that was propping the door open. He stooped
down, picked it up, scrutinized it closely for a minute or two.

“Where did you get this?” he demanded.

“Oh, that’s a bit of rock our skipper brought back from one of our
islands,” was the reply.

The professor looked at the rock again. “Do you know what it is?” he
asked.

“Just a bit of stone,” came the answer.

“I don’t know,” said the professor, “but I think it’s phosphate. I’d
like to take it away and analyse it, if you’ll allow me.”

Permission was, of course, granted, and the professor walked away with
that bit of rock which scores of men had kicked against at the door.
Taking it to his laboratory, the scientist carefully analysed it. He
found it to be a sample of the richest phosphate in the world. The
original owners had bought the island as a business proposition, but
they failed to realize the fortune that was theirs. That rocky island
turned out to be one mass of phosphate, worth about £100,000,000--and
they had let it go for a few hundreds! Of all who had stumbled over
that lucky door-prop, the professor was the only one who had the sense
to see the fortune lying at his feet.

The counterpart of the professor who saw a fortune in that neglected
lump of rock was the diver who heard the whisper of truth in a rumour.
The work of this diver took him to the coast of Galway, where he was
engaged on salvage work that was to last some little time. He was a
companionable sort of man and, after finishing his spells of work,
would adjourn to the tap-room of the village inn to spend his evenings
in yarning with the fisherfolk.

For years a story had been current in the neighbourhood that a Spanish
galleon, one of the ships of the Armada, had gone down in the vicinity.
Those who heard the yarn smiled. “It’s just a rumour,” they remarked.

Whether it was merely a rumour, or something more, the story had been
told from father to son for generations. So persistent a rumour was it
that it survived century after century, living in the traditions of
these simple Irish fisherfolk, passed on by word of mouth in the little
community, until it survived to our own times. Most of the fishermen
knew the yarn of the sunken Spanish galleon, but perhaps the passage of
time had made many of them rather sceptical.

Anyway, one evening the diver was enjoying his pipe and his beer and
talking about his work, when an old fisherman said to him:

“Why don’t ye thry for the galleon?”

“What galleon?” the diver inquired.

“Why, yon one wrecked just outside the bar,” the fisherman answered.
“Ye can walk about the seabed in that suit of yours?”

“I do it every day,” the diver replied.

“Well, why don’t ye walk out and get the treasure?” The diver smiled.
“Show me the treasure, and I’ll soon get it,” he said. “Where is it?”

Solemnly the fisherman looked at the diver. “My father, he told me, and
his grandfather, he told him. A mighty ship from Spain it was, full of
treasure, that went down in a storm. They saw it from the shore here.”

Puffing away at his pipe, the diver considered the matter. The story in
his judgment might easily be true.

“Show me the spot, and we’ll share the treasure, if there is any,” he
said.

“All right,” the old fisherman agreed. “She’s there all right.
Sometimes we catch our gear in her.”

Completing the task on which he was engaged, the diver began his
search for the sunken treasure. Day after day he and the old fisherman
went out in a rowing-boat, threw a grapnel over the stern and dragged
it about the seabed in the hope of lighting on the wreck. Many of
the villagers laughed at them and thought them crazy, but the two
treasure-hunters paid no heed. They just went ahead with their
monotonous task, buoyed up with the hope of the treasure to come.

The end of the first week saw them as far off the treasure as they
had been on the first day. They dragged on through another week with
a like result. A month of fruitless endeavour failed to rob them of
their faith in the truth of the old story of the wreck. Week after week
they searched the area in which the wreck was supposed to lie, tugging
placidly at the oars, dragging the grapnel along the bottom.

One day the fisherman was rowing slowly along when the diver felt his
grapnel catch in something. He gave the rope a sharp tug, then another,
but the grapnel held firmly.

“We’ve got her,” he said.

Marking the spot with a buoy, they rowed ashore for the diving suit
and air-pump, then they went back to where the buoy floated on the
surface. The diver donned his suit; the fisherman screwed the helmet
securely into place, started to heave the handle of the air-pump as the
diver went over the side and slid down the shot rope to the bottom. The
ghost of the galleon greeted his eyes, the skeleton of the ship of long
ago. For three centuries she had lain undisturbed in her watery grave,
slowly rotting away until she had all but vanished. The diver climbed
over the rotten remnants of the hulk into what had once been the hold
of the ship. The place was full of weed; fish fled at the approach
of the strange monster that was invading their domain; barnacles and
sea-growth flourished on the decaying timbers.

With the same patience that had enabled him to locate the wreck, the
diver searched the seabed until at last he came on what appeared to
be several small barrels. He went up to them, tapped them. The much
talked-of treasure was his at last. Beneath his fingers were solid
stacks of Spanish doubloons, from which the wood had long since
perished, leaving the coins still shaped like the barrels into which
the Spaniards had packed them when they set out on that ill-fated
expedition of theirs to conquer England.

[Illustration: TREASURE HUNTERS EXAMINING THE BED OF TOBERMORY BAY IN
THE ISLE OF MULL THROUGH A SPECIAL INSTRUMENT INVENTED FOR THE PURPOSE]

These two men, with a diving suit and rowing-boat, found a greater
treasure than has fallen to many a powerfully-equipped expedition, and
it is strange to think that the fisherman who hauled the doubloons up
from the bottom was probably a direct descendant of one of the Irish
peasants who stood on the shore on that wild Armada night in 1588 and
watched the mighty Spanish ship founder. The diver had the good sense
to realize that there might be something in the old story, he spent
weeks investigating it, and he reaped a snug little fortune as his
reward. Nor did he squander the treasure that Fate flung his way. The
same good sense which enabled him to find it also enabled him to
keep it, for he turned his Spanish doubloons into a row of houses which
he called “Dollar Row” in order to perpetuate his good luck.

[Illustration: HARD AT WORK HUNTING THE TREASURE OF TOBERMORY. WASHING
THE MUD AND SAND DREDGED UP PROM THE BAY IN ORDER TO FIND THE SPANISH
DOUBLOONS REPUTED TO BE LOST HERE OVER THREE CENTURIES AGO WHEN WILD
WEATHER HELPED DRAKE TO ROUT THE ARMADA]

It is another tale of the Spanish Armada, a tale which up to the
present has not ended quite so happily, that lures men to try their
luck in the Bay of Tobermory in the Isle of Mull just off the west
coast of Scotland. Somewhere beneath the waters of this pleasant bay
is averred to lie a treasure so prodigious that it would make its
discoverer a millionaire twice over. Here, if tradition speaks truly,
a man has the chance of dragging from the seabed beautiful jewels and
wonderful golden cups, with Spanish doubloons worth at least £2,000,000
which went down with the _Florencia_.

Many who have studied the question believe that the _Florencia_
undoubtedly sank here, but an element of doubt creeps in when it is
known that the Spaniards themselves swore that the _Florencia_ returned
after the disastrous expedition. During the Great War the British
Government did its best to conceal the loss of H.M.S. _Audacious_ in
order to deceive the Germans as to the strength of our navy, and it
may have been the Spaniards, three centuries ago, who introduced this
practice. About this, nothing is known with certainty. It all happened
a long time ago, and the years have tended to obscure the facts.
Whether the statement that the _Florencia_ returned was true, or
whether it was a deliberate falsehood spread forth to give her enemies
the impression that Spain was still strong in ships of the line, is an
open question.

Whatever be the name of the vessel, the evidence that a Spanish galleon
actually did founder in Tobermory Bay in 1588 seems fairly strong.
Moreover, it is backed up by material facts in the shape of a cannon,
some cannon balls, a weapon or two and a doubloon that have been
brought up from the bottom of the bay by different treasure-hunters.

From what we can gather of that distant happening, it appears that
the Spaniards, sailing down the Scottish coast in their galleon, and
seeking perhaps to replenish their water-casks, must have made a foray
or two ashore. During one of these they captured a Highland chief,
one Donald Glas M‘Lean, whom they held prisoner aboard their ship. So
bitter a blow was it to the Scottish chieftain that, reckless of his
own life, he sought a terrible revenge. Waiting his opportunity while
the ship was anchored in Tobermory Bay, he managed to enter the powder
magazine. In a moment or two his revenge was complete. The mighty
galleon blew up and the proud chief accompanied her crew of nearly 500
Spaniards to their doom.

Many a tide has ebbed and flowed, many a storm arisen and subsided
since that catastrophe. Timbers have decayed, and mud and sand have
gradually covered up the remains. The treasure by now may be buried 20
or 30 feet at the bottom of the bay and, unless some lucky chance leads
an expedition to hit on the exact spot, may remain buried there for
ever. Divers may have walked over the treasure dozens of times without
knowing that the gold and silver they were seeking lay actually under
their feet.

The Duke of Argyll, who possesses the right to salve the treasure,
has proved his belief in its existence by spending considerable sums
in hunting for it. In addition he has given permission for several
expeditions to prosecute the search, and these expeditions, in the
aggregate, must have expended a deal of money. The lack of success on
the part of previous expeditions seems in no wise to deter others from
following in their steps, and the last expedition to work in Tobermory
Bay reflected the great changes of modern life by including a lady
diver among its members.

Meanwhile the treasure of Tobermory Bay, which has excited the minds of
treasure-hunters for many a generation, still awaits discovery.




CHAPTER III


Whatever doubts there be about the treasure of Tobermory, there can be
none about the treasure of the _Lutine_, for official records prove
that when she came to grief she must have carried bullion worth over
£1,000,000.

H.M.S. _Lutine_ was a frigate of thirty-two guns, one of those wooden
walls of Old England of which the poet sings. Not always had she sailed
under the British flag. Time was when the tricolour of France broke at
her masthead and French sailors crowded her decks, but Admiral Duncan
captured her and brought her home as a prize, and thereafter it was
the white ensign of England that flew at her peak and a captain of the
British Navy who commanded her.

In the early days of October, 1799, at which time we were warring with
Holland, H.M.S. _Lutine_ was lying at Yarmouth, while the British
troops garrisoned on the island of Texel off the Dutch coast were
waiting anxiously for their pay. The _Lutine_ was commissioned to carry
the £140,000 due to the troops, and, hearing that she was departing
for the Continent, many merchants sought permission to ship gold and
silver by her for the relief of the merchants of Hamburg, who were
financially embarrassed by the wars and the ensuing depression of the
money market. The permission was readily granted, and 1000 bars of
gold and 500 bars of silver were taken to Yarmouth and safely shipped
aboard. In the ordinary course of business, the owners of the bullion
went to Lloyd’s and effected an insurance for the sum of £900,000.

On October of the year stated, the _Lutine_ weighed anchor and sailed
out of Yarmouth Roads on her voyage to Hamburg. As she bowled across
the North Sea, the wind freshened and culminated that night in a
terrific gale which the _Lutine_, gallant ship as she was, could not
weather. The treacherous shoals off the Dutch coast reached out for
her, and the mighty seas battered the life out of her and engulfed her.
Of all aboard, but one human soul survived to tell of the wreck before
he, too, succumbed from exhaustion.

The loss of the _Lutine_ was a tremendous blow to Lloyd’s. It meant
that the underwriters had to find the sum of £900,000 with which to
meet the claims of the insurers. Somehow they found the money and met
all claims, thus adding fresh lustre to the name of Lloyd’s and helping
to raise it to the position it occupies to-day as the greatest and most
powerful marine insurance association in the whole world. In return for
their £900,000 the underwriters became possessed of the treasure--or
rather the right to recover it! At that time, immediately after the
calamity, when salvage operations naturally stood the best chance of
success, the underwriters were prevented from doing anything at all
owing to our war with Holland, and later on the Dutch Government made
its position clear about the matter by claiming the wreck and all that
was in it.

As the vessel lay, it was just possible to get to her when the sea
was calm and the tides were at their lowest. It can be imagined that
the Dutch fishermen made the most of their opportunities. Their
government encouraged them by offering them one-third of everything
they recovered, so the fishers found it profitable to leave their nets
and spend their time fishing in the _Lutine_. Although the bulk of the
treasure was beyond their reach, they managed during the next couple
of years to lay their hands on a good deal of it. The Dutch Government
received from the wreck treasure to the value of £56,000, and of this
over £18,000 was paid to the salvors, while the rest was minted into
Dutch money.

The amount of treasure which passed into the hands of the Netherlands
Government during this period was not necessarily all the treasure that
was taken out of the _Lutine_. It is possible, and indeed probable,
that much of the treasure recovered was concealed by the fishermen
salvors and used secretly to swell their own private hoards; but,
even assuming that twice as much treasure was salved as was actually
declared, there would still be a vast treasure worth over £1,000,000
remaining in the wreck.

A series of fierce storms wrought havoc with the wreck and placed her
quite beyond the reach of the fishermen, who were at last forced to
abandon their profitable quest. For years the wreck was the plaything
of the storms, and not until Napoleon was safely imprisoned on St.
Helena did any one give a thought to the treasure that lay amid the
shifting sandbanks off the island of Vlieland. Then a Dutchman, going
to his government, obtained a concession to salve the bullion on
condition that half of what he recovered went to the government. For
two or three years he fought the sea and sand to get at the treasure.
No sight of gold or silver gladdened his eyes. Season after season, for
eight years in all, he did his utmost to recover the fortune from the
grasp of the sea, but without success. At last, weary of the incessant
combat, he gave up the struggle and left the treasure to mock any other
adventurer who might happen along.

The underwriters at Lloyd’s, however, were not content to see the
treasure which had cost them such a huge sum of money pass into the
hands of a foreign nation, and at their request the British Government
began to treat with that of Holland to induce them to relinquish their
title in the wreck. The ways of diplomacy are often long and tedious,
and this case was no exception. Many years elapsed before an agreement
was arrived at and the Dutch gave up their claims and allowed the legal
title in the treasure to pass to Lloyd’s, its rightful owners.

For well over half a century the _Lutine_ bore the brunt of the gales
which afflict the Dutch coast, spending their strength on the belt of
islands and the shifting sandbanks at the entrance to the Zuyder Zee.
She was utterly lost amid the sands. Then came a terrific gale that
blew for days, and the heaving waters washed the sand away from the
wreck and made it possible to get at the treasure. For a period of
five years, from 1857 to 1861, salvage men toiled away, and the result
of their work was the recovery of bullion to the value of just over
£40,000.

Once the salvors heaved the bell of the _Lutine_ clear of the sea. It
was brought to London and hung in the main hall at Lloyd’s in the Royal
Exchange. Whenever there is any important announcement to make to the
underwriters about a ship being wrecked or an overdue boat reaching
port, the bell of the _Lutine_ is sounded to call the attention of all
concerned. Another time the salvors managed to bring up the rudder
of the _Lutine_, and this was made into a chair and placed in the
committee room at Lloyd’s.

For another quarter of a century the sand and sea were left in
undisputed possession of the wreck, then a new expedition set out
to wrest the treasure from the encompassing sands. Right valiantly
the salvors fought for that fortune, but luck was against them. Now
and again they managed to bring up some of the coins that were lost
in the _Lutine_, but the amount of treasure they recovered totalled
considerably less than £1000 in all. So they discontinued further
attempts and returned to England.

Since then more than one expedition has gone out to try to win the
remaining treasure from the wreck of the _Lutine_. In the year 1908
the natives of Brightlingsea were astonished by the sight of a weird
object that was anchored off the mouth of the river Colne. So strange
a thing they had never seen before, and they puzzled their brains for
an explanation of it. The curious object which caused so much amazement
was a wonderful device for recovering the treasure of the _Lutine_.
It was a great steel tube with a little iron ladder running down the
inside of it. At one end were gigantic hooks for hooking it to the side
of a salvage vessel, and at the other end was a steel chamber with a
series of watertight compartments and air locks.

This marvellous contrivance, which took years to construct, was
designed to be sunk in an upright position down to the wreck of the
_Lutine_. It was equipped with water ballast tanks to sink it into
place, and the steel chamber was furnished with cutting edges, so that
the weight would enable it gradually to cut down through the sand until
it reached the wreck.

Divers were to descend the iron ladder in the inside of the tube until
they reached the submerged steel chamber. Then they were to enter the
air locks where the water was kept back by compressed air, and walk out
into the wreck. The divers would then communicate by telephone with the
engineers in the steel chamber and direct the powerful pumps that were
to suck away the sand until the treasure was reached. Once the treasure
was found, the divers were merely to remove it to the steel chamber,
whence it could be transferred to the salvage steamer above at their
leisure. Excellent as the invention seemed, it did not recover the
treasure of the _Lutine_.

Three years later, in 1911, another expedition more powerfully equipped
than any of its predecessors resumed the search which had been going
on for over a century. Notwithstanding the fact that the position of
the _Lutine_ was fairly well known, the obliteration of a landmark by
a violent gale made it very difficult for the salvage men to find the
wreck. The divers went down and searched the seabed vainly for a single
sign of the old frigate. Not a spar was to be seen, not a rib of the
hulk.

Captain Gardiner, who was in charge of the treasure-seekers, was a man
of resource. He realized full well what had happened. The sand of the
treacherous banks had completely buried the _Lutine_, and before he
could make the slightest attempt to salve the treasure he would have to
locate her and dig her out of her grave.

The problem of finding a wreck that lay buried deep in the silt would
prove too much for any ordinary man, but Captain Gardiner was equal
to the occasion. Among his equipment were some of the most powerful
sand-pumps in existence, pumps capable of removing nearly a thousand
tons of sand an hour. Dropping the end of one of these pumps to the
seabed, he began sucking up the sand at a prodigious rate, cutting a
deep channel right across the area in which the wreck lay. Slowly the
pumps of the salvage ship devoured the sand and at last the salvors
found the wreck buried 36 feet deep under a bank. The finding of the
wreck was in itself a wonderful feat.

If only the other difficulties could have been overcome as easily, the
treasure by now would have been won. But all the time the divers had
to contend with the most difficult set of currents in the world. A
strong tide, always running, plays incredible pranks with the bottom
hereabouts. The submerged sandbanks are almost like cliffs some thirty
feet high, and the tide moulds them and remoulds them almost day by
day. A vessel at dawn may anchor in a deep channel, and by night the
tides in one of their playful moods may have poured tons and tons of
sand into the channel, completely filling it and building up a sandbank
on the very spot where the channel existed only a few hours previously.

It will be realized how difficult this made salvage operations.
The strong currents tended to wash the sand back directly it was
removed, and the salvors were faced with what seemed like an endless
struggle with the sea. They did not shirk the struggle; they went on
dredging whenever the weather allowed, and they fought the tides most
brilliantly by dumping the sand in such a position that it deflected
the current right across the wreck. Thus there was a continual flow of
water over the wreck to keep the site fairly clear and prevent the sand
settling.

Meanwhile, they literally sifted the bed of the sea for traces of the
elusive treasure. Every ton of sand sucked up by the pumps was poured
through a gigantic sieve erected over the side of the salvage steamer.
The sieve was like a giant birdcage, with a small mesh, and the men who
watched the sand pouring through were more than once gladdened by the
sight of a coin from the _Lutine_.

[Illustration: SEEKING THE TREASURE OF THE LUTINE. ONE OF THE HUGE
PUMPS SUCKING UP THE SEABED AT A PRODIGIOUS RATE AND POURING IT INTO
THE GIANT CAGES WHICH SIFTED IT FOR TRACES OF THE LONG-LOST TREASURE]

They were weeks battling with the tides before the sand was cleared
from inside the vessel and around the hull, but the day came at last
when the divers went down to investigate the interior for the long-lost
treasure. Every one aboard was keyed up to concert pitch. It seemed
certain that the _Lutine’s_ treasure was to be lifted at last.

But the divers found the place in a sorry state. Much of the wooden
hull had, of course, been preserved by the sand, but the magazine, in
which the treasure lay, had collapsed, and there was practically a
solid mass of iron five or six feet deep lying on top of the bars of
gold and silver. When the magazine collapsed, hundreds of cannon balls
had poured all over the place and these had been rusted together by the
action of the water, locking up the treasure as securely as though it
had been in a steel safe.

The only hope of the salvors lay in blasting this mass of rusted cannon
balls to pieces and removing them bit by bit. In no other manner
could the treasure be reached. Accordingly they set about their task,
and little by little blew away the first layer. It was slow, tedious
work, and all the time the salvors were harassed by the thought that
the autumn gales might spring up and put an end to their operations,
undoing in a single night work which had taken them months to
accomplish.

Day by day they continued steadily with the blasting, and they had just
succeeded in blowing away the second layer of rusted cannon balls when
the dreaded gales came on. Further work was impossible, and sorrowfully
the salvors left that exposed spot and went to Amsterdam to lay up for
the winter.

A little more time, and they might have succeeded in their quest. There
is evidence that they were somewhere near the gold, for one of the
pieces of rust brought up bore the impression of a gold ingot, and when
this rust was treated with acid it yielded five grains of the precious
metal to prove that the gold was quite close.

Ten divers and a powerful plant had been seeking the _Lutine’s_
treasure for nine months. A small fortune had been spent on the
operations. The workers removed a veritable mountain from the seabed,
and they were rewarded with five grains of gold. They had shifted a
million tons of sand to find five grains of gold! In this way does Fate
taunt the deep-sea treasure-hunter.

The following winter the wreck was buried under 5 feet of sand by
the tides, and by now she is lost once more, buried perhaps deeper
than ever. The exposed position and the strong tides have kept the
_Lutine’s_ treasure safe for over a century. But whether they will keep
it safe for ever, no one can say.

It is a dozen years since I fingered one of the silver coins salved
from the _Lutine_, and wondered whether the treasure was to be
recovered at last. Still the _Lutine_ is not forgotten, and only a
few months ago I received from Lloyd’s a letter from an inquirer
in Vancouver who desired full details of the wreck, with a view to
carrying on further salvage operations. I sent him the particulars he
required, but so far I have not heard of operations being started.

For over a century wind and wave have beaten the men who sought to
recover the wealth of gold and silver that went down with the _Lutine_
on that wild October night. The fortune still lures men on to win it,
and, in spite of the many disappointments, a lucky turn of the wind
and tide, combined with improved salvage appliances, may yet make some
future treasure-hunter a millionaire.




CHAPTER IV


Without the diver, treasure-hunting beneath the waves would be
impossible. The salvage expert may make the most brilliant plans,
collect the most up-to-date and scientific plant to assist him, but
in the end it is the diver who carries the work through, and upon
the courage, determination and skill of the diver the success of the
expedition depends. To dive to a depth of 5 fathoms, or 30 feet, is a
task that the average man could accomplish without much difficulty;
most men, too, would be able to reach a depth of 10 fathoms or 60 feet,
if they were in decent physical condition. But at 15 and 20 fathoms
and over the body is called upon to stand exceptional strains and so
exceptional men are necessary.

Quite apart from the many risks, deep diving is very arduous, and
seldom are men found with the physique that will enable them to dive
100 feet and over. The deep-sea diver must be trained like an athlete,
perfectly sound in wind and limb and heart, and in tip-top physical
condition. A fat diver stands little chance of attaining great depths,
so the finest divers are generally on the slim side, men without an
ounce of superfluous fat and with muscles tough as steel.

The physical strain placed on the body and heart merely by diving to
these great depths is not generally realized. To ask the human body to
undergo pressures three, four and five times greater than atmospheric
pressure is expecting the body to undergo strains three, four and five
times greater than the body was built to stand. It is like expecting a
motor-car, designed for a load of 30 cwt., to carry a load of 6 tons.
We should not expect the car to do that. Yet we not only call upon the
human body to perform similar feats, but the body actually does perform
them without collapsing.

The crack sea-diver is almost as difficult to find as the swimmer who
can conquer the English Channel. When it comes to doing actual work at
depths of 100 feet and over, the strain on the diver’s body is indeed
very much greater, for his exertions use up so much oxygen that his
heart is called upon to pump at an increased speed in order to replace
it. All the time, of course, the diver is breathing compressed air,
thus the pressure of the sea on the outside of his body is practically
counterbalanced by the pressure of the air inside his body. While the
weight of the sea is trying to crush him inwards, the compressed air
is pushing outwards, so the air pressure within equalizes the water
pressure without, and the diver is enabled to work in perfect safety
under a mass of water that would crush an unprotected man flat.

We might liken the water pressure to six men who are pushing hard
against a door and striving to open it, while the air pressure
resembles six men pushing against the other side of the door to keep it
closed. With both teams equally matched in strength, the door remains
quite unaffected by the contest if it be solidly built of oak. But
if it is a weak door, the strain of the men pushing against it will
probably break it.

Breathing compressed air not only places a strain on the lungs, but
it tends to fill the body with an excess of nitrogen. This nitrogen
may easily form tiny bubbles of gas, and these bubbles, if they reach
the heart, might cause the death of the diver or bring on that dread
paralysis known as diver’s palsy, a disease which renders the lower
part of the diver’s body quite useless.

Strangely enough, it is not in going down that this danger threatens
the diver, but only in coming up. If he comes up too suddenly, the
excess of nitrogen in the blood bubbles like the tiny bubbles in a
siphon of soda and at once his life is threatened. The bubbles are
due to the pressure of the water on the outside of the body growing
suddenly less than the pressure of air inside the body, consequently
the nitrogen seeks to escape in bubbles just as the soda-water seeks
to escape when the key of the siphon is depressed. The pressure inside
the body cannot adjust itself quickly enough to the lessening pressure
outside, and these bubbles are the result.

To avoid this risk, it is necessary for the diver working at great
depths to come up very slowly. He may slide down the shot-rope to
a depth of 120 feet in a few seconds, but, should he stay longer
than half an hour at the bottom, he must not come up in less than
fifty-seven minutes if he would avert danger. He may come up to 40 feet
in eighty seconds, or at the rate of a foot a second. Then he must rest
and exercise his legs and arms on the shot-rope for five minutes before
ascending another 10 feet to the 30-foot level. Here he must rest for a
further period of fifteen minutes, and do those exercises which help to
rid his muscles of their excess of nitrogen. Ascending another 10 feet,
which brings him to within 10 feet of the surface, he is compelled to
rest for twenty-five minutes to allow the excess of nitrogen to pass
from his blood, after which he may rise to the surface.

If a diver happened to remain an hour at a depth of 200 feet, he would
have to spend four hours in coming to the surface to avoid any ill
effects. The exceptional diver who is able to reach this depth should
not, however, remain at the bottom for more than twelve minutes. This
is the safe time, and he can then make the ascent to the surface in
thirty-two minutes.

Remarkable diving experiments were carried out by the British Admiralty
some years ago, during which naval divers attained the record depth
of 210 feet, a record that was long unbeaten. As a result of these
experiments, tables were drawn up showing the time that a man might
remain in safety at certain depths, and indicating the rates at which
he could come to the surface and the depths at which he must rest to
allow the pressure inside his body to adjust itself to the pressure of
the water outside. These tables are followed the wide world over, and
they have made diving one of the safest of occupations, despite the
grave risks the diver is continually running.

Diving was, in fact, so dangerous that exceptional precautions had to
be taken, with the result that the diver who walks about the bottom of
the ocean to-day may be far safer than a man walking across Piccadilly
Circus. The safety of the diver is most carefully watched over, but no
one can foretell when a motor vehicle is going to run down some one
crossing a busy road.

Never was knight attired for the tourney more carefully than the modern
diver is clad before venturing into the depths. It is cold working
at the bottom of the sea, and to guard against the cold the diver
dons warm woollen sweaters and socks, sometimes wearing two or three
sweaters and two or three pairs of thick socks. When he is dressed in
his woollies, the diving dress is fastened about him just as the armour
was fastened on the knights of old. There is a certain ritual about
the performance which must be obeyed. First of all the shoulder pads
are carefully tied on to take the weight of the head-dress, then an
assistant helps him into the rubber diving dress and opens the tight
cuffs for the diver to slip his hands through. The diver sits down
while the assistant ties up the inner collar of the diving-dress and
adjusts the various screws that are to secure his helmet. But before
that is fastened into place the feet are slipped into the boots, each
with its 16 lb. sole of lead.

Ever so carefully the diver’s helmet is put on, for his life depends
upon it being properly fastened. The air-pipe must be carried from the
back of his helmet up under his arm to the front of his body where he
can reach it easily and yet not find it in his way. The air-pumps and
the valves in his helmet are most carefully tested to see that they are
working properly. Then the diver gets on the ladder leading overboard
and a lead weight weighing 40 lb. is adjusted across his breast and
another similar weight is fastened over his back to enable him to sink
to the bottom. The glass of his helmet is screwed up, the pump is set
going, the diver waves his hand to indicate that all is in order, and
the attendant after a final look round gives the diver a smart tap on
the top of the helmet to inform him that he may go down.

Thenceforward the life of the diver is in the hands of the attendant,
who never lets go of the lifeline and air-pipe until the diver comes
to the surface again, feeling the diver at the end of the pipe just as
an angler feels a fish at the end of a line, taking in the slack pipe
to prevent it fouling rocks and wreckage, paying it out as the diver
requires.

The coming of the submarine telephone has certainly lessened the risks
of the diver, for he can now talk to the men in the boat and tell them
what he wants and how he feels. If anything goes wrong and his lines
become entangled, he can inform those at the surface, who can quickly
send down another diver to assist him. In comparatively recent days
it was necessary to signal by means of the lifeline and air-pipe, a
certain number of pulls meaning certain things in accordance with a
code in use by all divers. When a diver wished to convey a special
message he had to signal for a slate to be sent down, and on the slate
he would write what he wanted to convey. It was a slow and cumbersome
method which has been rendered obsolete by the submarine telephone,
which was invented by that famous submarine engineer, R. H. Davis, the
head of Siebe, Gorman & Company.

For ages men have dived for sponges and pearls, remaining at most not
more than a couple of minutes at the bottom. The ancients were fully
alive to the advantages of an invention that would assist men to remain
under water for considerable periods, and they were puzzling their
heads about diving dresses centuries ago. These early inventions,
however, were very crude, one being a sort of barrel with holes through
which the arms could be passed, another a metal cylinder which covered
the head down to the waist where it fitted into leather breeches. Very
strange and wonderful they appear to modern eyes.

No less strange and decidedly more wonderful is the up-to-date diving
dress which has grown out of the invention of Augustus Siebe in 1819.
For eighteen years Siebe experimented with his first type of diving
dress before he achieved, in 1837, the form of dress which is closely
followed to-day. Various people have added improvements, but Siebe’s
form of dress is the one in common use, and the firm of Siebe, Gorman
& Company which he founded to supply his diving dresses are to-day the
greatest submarine engineers in the world.

Inventors have for long been concerned with the problem of a diving
dress that will allow a diver to go to any depth without danger. The
greatest risk of course, is that he will be crushed to death by the
pressure of the water, and to overcome this danger more than one
man has invented an all-metal diving dress with flexible joints. In
appearance these diving dresses seem cumbersome, and the diver looks
more than ever like a knight in armour.

Another form of dress largely in use enables the diver to descend in
shallow water without relying on the usual air-pipe and pump. In such
dresses the diver carries certain chemicals which not only purify
the air he is breathing, but also furnish him with fresh oxygen. One
chemical absorbs the poisonous carbonic acid gas given off by the
breath, and the other chemical gives off fresh oxygen as the moisture
of the breath touches it. The smoke helmet which enables men to enter
a mine after a disaster, or a building full of foul fumes, is equipped
with the same chemicals and made on the same principle as the diving
dress. Instead of completely covering the man, however, this dress is
made like a jacket reaching to the waist, where it is securely buckled.

In this dress it was impossible to penetrate the Redding pit, near
Falkirk, from which five miners were marvellously rescued after being
entombed for nine days, so several naval divers in regulation dress
risked their lives in an effort to penetrate the workings to see if
any other men still survived and to carry stimulants to them. Divers,
at best, have the appearance of creatures from another world, and the
effect of a diver, with his lamp, emerging from the inky water and
coming suddenly on men who had been immured for a fortnight without
food and were at their last gasp had to be carefully considered. Some
of the survivors might have attacked him in their delirium and deprived
their comrades of all chance of succour.

To avoid so untoward an incident, the leading diver carried with him a
message for those men he hoped to find: “This is a diver come to save
you. Don’t touch him, as he cannot speak to you. We are driving a place
for you. Don’t sit down near the water, but keep clear of the damp. If
any of your mates are far through, turn their heads downhill and that
will help them until you are feeling stronger. The diver cannot come up
the hill out of the water to help you, because his tools are too heavy.
He will come back regularly and feed you. You must not drink more than
half a cupful of beef tea each. Wait and take a rest before you drink
another half-cupful. On this paper write who you are. You will be got
out soon.”

Alas, for human endeavour, that message never reached the poor fellows
for whom it was intended! The great falls of roof choked the roads and
proved an insurmountable barrier. Raging, but exhausted, the divers had
to bow their heads in defeat.

So commonplace is the diving dress that it no longer excites curiosity.
Yet it remains one of the wonders of modern civilization. Merely by
utilizing the sap of a tree, which we know as rubber, and fresh air,
men are now able to work and live at the bottom of the sea.




CHAPTER V


It was in 1891 that the steamship _Skyro_ pulled out of the port of
Cartagena, in southern Spain, and set her course for London. The coast
of Spain glided by as she proceeded through the blue seas of the
Mediterranean, speaking Gibraltar as she passed, and setting her nose
north to skirt the coast of Portugal. Oporto dropped far astern, and
the Portuguese coast changed to the western coast of Spain as a fog
quietly stole down and blanketed everything. The fog was dense. Not
a thing could be seen, and the warning notes of the _Skyro’s_ siren
blared monotonously as she felt her way blindly along. The captain and
officers stared anxiously ahead, hoping that the fog would lift; but
there was no sign of a break around them, nothing but fog and the sound
of their siren to warn passing ships.

Of a sudden the ship staggered and halted. It was as though a giant
hand had reached up from the depths of the sea and grasped her keel.
The crew were thrown higgledy-piggledy. There was an awful rending
sound as the _Skyro_ swung onward. She had struck the dreaded Mexiddo
reef off Cape Finisterre, and as she slid over the cruel rocks they
literally tore the bottom out of her. Slowly she carried on, while that
rending sound continued, and twenty minutes after striking she slipped
off the reef and plunged to the bottom.

A few hours later the bell of the _Lutine_ in the Royal Exchange was
clanging loudly. The underwriters paused in their work. All voices were
stilled, and the scarlet-coated crier, mounting his rostrum, announced
in stentorian voice that the steamship _Skyro_ had struck the Mexiddo
reef off Cape Finisterre and was a total loss.

Then the bustle of business began again, but a little knot of
underwriters gathered together and started to talk quietly. They were
interested in the silver bars that the _Skyro_ carried.

“What about salvage?” one inquired.

Another, who joined the group, shook his head.

“Hopeless. She’s down in 25 fathoms, or more.”

“You never know,” said one man who was more intimately concerned.

He was quite right. You never know. Men manage sometimes to achieve the
impossible.

Fuller information made the salvage seem more remote than ever, for
instead of being down in 25 fathoms, as had been supposed, she was
several fathoms deeper, and her keel, resting on the bottom, must have
been well over 30 fathoms from the surface. Nothing had ever been
salved from such a depth before, and it seemed unlikely that any man
could go to this depth and survive the enormous pressure.

However, an expedition went out and fought to get at the treasure, but
the depth was too great, and at last the salvors withdrew from the
spot. Four years passed and there came to the underwriters another
offer to attempt to salve the silver. The salvage vessel anchored off
the fringe of the reef that had stripped the bottom out of the _Skyro_,
and the diver slid down the shot-rope to try to find out how the wreck
was lying and if possible to bring out the precious bars. Before he
could do anything of importance, however, bad weather set in and drove
the salvors back to harbour. But the lesson learned from that attempt
was that, if the treasure were to be recovered, more powerful diving
gear would have to be used.

The winter months were spent in obtaining much more powerful gear from
England, and the following season, directly the fine weather set in,
the treasure-hunters repaired to the Mexiddo reef to try once more to
achieve the impossible. The diver feared nothing. Brave as a lion, he
took the shot-rope in his hands and slid straight down to the deck
of the _Skyro_, which was 171 feet below the surface. Carefully and
quietly he surveyed the ship, seeking the cabin in which the silver
was stored. The deck had collapsed on top of it, and the only way of
getting to the treasure was through the deck.

Angel Erostarbe, the diver, came to the surface and reported what he
had seen. Difficult as was the task, it seemed to him by no means
impossible. So he dropped down the shot-rope again and again. Gradually
and with infinite patience he blasted away the deck, fixing his charges
and withdrawing while they exploded.

So exposed was the wreck that at times he could hardly keep his feet.
Time after time dirty weather came and prevented him from working at
all. The difficulties left him unmoved. He set his teeth and stuck to
his task. He was working at a record depth, a depth which most experts
considered was beyond the reach of a diver at all. The diver did not
worry about this. All he thought about was getting at the treasure.

To attain his end he practically blew the ship to pieces, and his
marvellous feats of endurance were crowned by the recovery, in
two seasons, of fifty-nine bars of silver worth £10,000. It was a
stupendous feat which has never been equalled since. At times he was
actually working in 183 feet of water, so it will be seen that he was
an exceptional man. Toiling at this depth--where his body was subjected
to the huge pressure of about 95 lb. to the square inch--left its mark
on him, and he was never the same man again. His share of the treasure
amounted to £500.

Compared with this, the recovery of the treasure from the _Oceana_,
when she was sunk in the Channel in 1912 as the result of a collision,
was a comparatively simple matter, yet it was not without its
difficulties. The _Oceana_ went down in 90 feet of water and only her
masts peeped above the surface when the salvors arrived on the spot.
Plans of the ship were obtained from the owners and carefully studied
so that once the divers got aboard they would know exactly which way to
go.

It is difficult enough for the average man to find his way about a
strange liner when she is afloat, so it can be imagined how difficult
it must be for a diver to wander about such a vessel when she is 90
feet under water. All the time he is adventuring through the saloons
and other compartments, he is running continual danger of his air-pipe
catching on something and tying him up. He may lose himself. Doors
may slam to with the current and imprison him while cutting off his
air supply. The men manning the air-pumps will quickly find out that
something is wrong, but by the time assistance is sent the imprisoned
diver may easily be in a sorry state.

The ordinary difficulties were intensified in the case of the _Oceana_
by the strong currents racing down the Channel. So strong were they
that even in favourable weather it was only possible for the divers
to work for one hour a day when the tide was at its lowest. To make
matters worse, there was so much sand in suspension that the divers
could see nothing at all. The electric lamps which it was hoped would
help them were quite useless. The divers were like blind men, groping
in the dark, feeling their way about the ship and working by touch
alone.

They blasted their way through two decks and, stumbling along a
passage, found the strong room. Ingot by ingot, they took out the
treasure and sent it to the surface, where each bar was carefully
checked and marked off in the records as it was recovered. If only all
the treasure had been carried in the strong room, the game of blind
man’s buff on the part of the divers would have been at an end. But a
good deal of the silver was stowed in the after hold, and before the
divers could get at it they had to force their way through three decks.
Ultimately all the treasure, to the value of £700,000, that went down
in the _Oceana_ was recovered and the treasure-hunters sailed away in
triumph with their spoil.

[Illustration: THE WRECK OF THE OCEANA WHICH SANK IN THE ENGLISH
CHANNEL AS THE RESULT OF A COLLISION. SHE HAD TREASURE ABOARD WORTH
£700,000]

The astonishing feat of Erostarbe was almost equalled by Alexander
Lambert, one of the finest submarine workers who ever lived and the
chief diver of Siebe, Gorman & Company. He covered himself with glory
during the building of the Severn tunnel when, owing to an error, a
door was left open and the workings were flooded. The water rose some
forty feet up the shaft leading to the workings, and it was impossible
to continue building the tunnel until this door was closed.

[Illustration: DIVERS GOING DOWN AFTER THE TREASURE OF THE OCEANA. NOTE
THE DOUBLE-HANDED AIR PUMP WHICH THE TWO ATTENDANTS ARE WORKING]

Realizing that the only thing to be done was to send down a diver to
close the door, the engineers called on Lambert to essay the task.
Descending the ladder of the shaft, Lambert disappeared under water
and made his way to the bottom, where not a single ray of light could
penetrate. Feeling round the wall of the shaft, he found the opening to
the tunnel, and began slowly to venture along. But the rush of water
had worked tremendous havoc, and the tunnel was strewn with debris
which was most difficult to negotiate. At any moment Lambert’s air-pipe
was in danger of being cut by some projecting piece of the wreckage,
and, in addition to the weight of his dress, he was terribly hampered
by the weight of the 1200 feet of air-pipe which he was forced to drag
along after him as he stumbled about the workings.

Hearing of Lambert’s baffling problems, Fluess, the inventor of the
diving dress which dispensed with the air-pipe, volunteered to go down
in his self-contained dress and see what he could do. Fluess was a
clever inventor, but the only diving he had ever done was in connection
with his experiments on his new type of dress. Besides being a clever
inventor, he proved himself a man of courage.

He arrived on the spot with his diving dress, and studied the plans of
the workings to find out which way he had to turn when he got to the
bottom of the shaft. He thought it would then be just a question of
walking through the tunnel, finding the door and closing it, little
knowing that the place was in a deplorable condition and beset with all
sorts of obstacles.

“Lambert had better go down first to take off my life-line and tell
me which way to go. He knows the place a bit by now,” the inventor
suggested.

Accordingly Lambert went down and waited 40 feet under water in the
inky blackness for the inventor. Fluess made his way down the ladder
in the centre of the shaft, taking a firm hold of the rungs with his
hands and feeling for the next one with his foot. As it happened, the
ladder was short of the bottom by some 10 feet, and they had forgotten
to inform him of this fact. Fluess, coming to the end, felt as usual
for the next rung. It was not there, so he lowered himself one rung by
his hands, expecting to touch the bottom with his feet. His feet merely
churned in the dank water, so he went down rung by rung until he was
clinging to the last rung with his hands. After vainly feeling with his
feet for the bottom, he let go his hold and dropped about 6 feet.

Some boards creaked and tipped ominously under him as he landed, then
he felt his way round until he came to Lambert. The diver took off the
inventor’s life-line, and Fluess fared forth into those underground
workings some 200 feet beneath the surface of the green fields above.
It was a weird experience. At first he tried to walk, and being without
any guide whatsoever he lost all sense of direction. Then he tried for
the sides of the tunnel, but there were ditches and wreckage which
brought him down so often that he was forced back to the centre of the
road. So he went down on his hands and knees and began to crawl along,
feeling the sleepers of the tram-track with his hands, using them as
a guide. He came, after many tribulations, to a place where the sides
and roof had fallen badly and very laboriously managed to crawl over
the heap of debris. After struggling about the underground tunnel for
an hour, he was forced at length to turn back. Another and yet another
attempt he made, each time getting a little farther along the tunnel.

“Why not let me try?” said Lambert at last.

“Very well,” said the inventor.

Lambert had never before used the new type of diving dress, but that
did not deter him. He got into it and had a short trial dive one
afternoon, and the next morning went down the shaft to try in dead
earnest to close the sluice which was letting in the water.

The inventor went down too, and sat there waiting, waiting, and
wondering what had happened to Lambert, and whether the new diving
dress was going to justify his hopes. The diver, meanwhile, was
fighting his way forward over the numerous obstacles in the tunnel,
crawling over the falls and squeezing between the roof and the
debris. It was nervy, risky work, for he did not know whether another
fall would come and bury him or close the small exit, nor did he
know whether he could manage to find his way back again. Under such
difficult conditions, anything is possible.

Nevertheless, he managed to get to the door that had caused all the
trouble. Feeling round, he found one of the valves open and succeeded
in closing it. Then he investigated the door and found that before he
could close it he would have to take up a couple of rails that were
obstructing the entrance. Away down in the bowels of the earth in
that flooded tunnel, far from help, relying upon his own strength and
courage alone, he struggled with the rails and managed to get one free.
The other baffled all his efforts, and reluctantly he turned round and
made his slow way out of the tunnel, after being away for an hour and a
half.

He was drawn up with Fluess, and directly their helmets were unscrewed
the inventor turned to Lambert.

“How far did you get?” he asked.

“Right up to the door,” said Lambert. “It’s wedged open by two rails. I
managed to get one away, and to close one of the valves. I think, if I
take a crowbar along, I shall be able to manage it all right.”

Sure enough, he went down and fought his way along the flooded tunnel
again. After a struggle, he levered the other rail up and succeeded in
passing beyond the door to close another valve, afterwards shutting the
door that had caused all the trouble. Before returning, he knew that
one more valve must be screwed up to keep the water back. The tips of
his fingers slid over the surface of the door like those of a blind man
until he found the valve, then he screwed it round until it would screw
no more.

He little knew, as he screwed away, that he was screwing the valve
open, but so it was. That valve, instead of following the usual rule
and screwing up to the right, actually screwed up to the left. Whether
any one knew of this variation, or whether the engineers forgot it in
their fight to free the tunnel of water, the fact remains that no one
told Lambert, who unconsciously screwed the valve open, with the result
that the tunnel took longer to pump out, because the water still poured
through this valve. Not until the water was overcome was the mystery of
the open valve solved.

The diver who performed this brilliant feat salved many fortunes from
the seabed, and was perhaps the greatest hunter of sunken treasure who
ever struggled into a diving dress. Even the experts, however, thought
little of his chances when he went out to try to salve the treasure
of the _Alphonso XII._, which was down in 160 feet of water off Point
Gando in the Grand Canary.

“Lambert has the job in hand,” said one.

“He can’t do it. She’s too deep for mortal man to tackle!” came the
reply.

Lambert dropped down to the deck of the _Alphonso_, and knew that a
fortune lay under his feet. He paced the deck until he came to the
exact spot beneath which the treasure should lie. Then he began to
investigate the ship, but, skilled as he was, he would not face the
risk of getting lost in its interior, of fouling his lines while he
groped his way in the darkness along passages and through cabins and
saloons to the strong room. To venture into the bowels of the ship
would probably mean that he was going to his death.

He summed up the situation. The treasure lay beneath two decks. To tear
a way through with crowbars or to chop a way through with axes was
impossible. Every movement at that depth was terribly exhausting, and
he had to rest, in order to recover, after doing the slightest thing.
His only means of getting the treasure was to blast a way through with
explosives, to harness explosives to do the work and thus save his own
energy.

He set to work and after tremendous trouble blew through the top deck.
Clearing the shattered pieces away, he let himself down into the
saloon, and began his attack on the second deck. It, too, succumbed
to the mighty concussions of the explosives, and Lambert dropped into
another saloon. He looked about him, and in the floor at the farther
end he found the entrance to the strong room. The trap-door resisted
his efforts, but in the end Lambert’s crowbar, skilfully wielded,
prised it up.

Lambert went into the treasure-room and saw the little chests of
treasure, each one of which contained a fortune. He signalled to the
surface, and a cable was let down. The tremendous pressure hampered
his movements, made them seem slow and clumsy. Nevertheless, he raised
a chest full of treasure and managed to slip a rope beneath it, then
he secured it to the hook hanging beside him. The signal was given,
and Lambert watched his first haul of the treasure mount through the
opening he had blasted in the ship. That chest swinging on the end of
the rope was full of gold coin worth £10,000!

Every time he braved the depths to seek the treasure he took his life
in his hand, but he did what he set out to do, and in the end he
managed to send to the surface seven boxes of treasure worth £70,000,
leaving another two boxes worth £20,000 to be recovered at a later
date. Lambert received £3500 as his share in this deep-sea enterprise,
in addition to his pay of £40 a month and all found.

Thrilling as were these treasure hunts, the most romantic story of all
is that of the _Hamilla Mitchell_. Here we have treasure and pirates
and a desperate chase all mixed up in the most approved adventure-story
style. Only, unlike a work of fiction, this story happens to be true.

The _Hamilla Mitchell_ came to grief on the Leuconna Rock, near
Shanghai, and carried down with her £50,000 of specie. She was a total
loss, and the underwriters, after paying the insurance, considered the
question of trying to salve the treasure. They instructed an expert
to visit the scene and report on the case. The expert in due course
considered that the case was hopeless, that the specie was lost for all
time, and that the wreck had gone down in such deep water in so exposed
a position that it was much too dangerous for divers to work there--not
a very cheerful report for the underwriters to receive.

There, for a time, the matter rested. Then upon the scene came a
Captain Lodge with an offer to do his best to recover the treasure.
The underwriters, unwilling to allow the specie of which they were
the owners to remain at the bottom of the sea, agreed gladly to the
proposal that was placed before them. Captain Lodge considered the
problem most profoundly. He knew that what was lost would not be won
back easily, that the odds were, indeed, very much against a single
ounce of the precious metal ever again seeing the light of day. This
did not dismay him. Securing the services of two clever divers, named
Ridyard and Penk, he made the trip to Shanghai, taking out with him
some special diving apparatus--the finest and most powerful equipment
to be found in the world.

He wandered about Shanghai looking for a vessel that would suit his
purpose, and, coming across a small sailing craft, chartered her and
proceeded on his quest for the wreck. Small as was the salvage vessel,
she was yet too large to take inshore among the high rocks, and so the
divers had to prosecute their search from the small boat which they
towed behind. They searched here, they searched there, dropping over
the side of the boat in their cumbersome dress, facing all the unknown
perils of the unknown depths. Now they were carefully exploring a ledge
perhaps only 20 feet deep, and a little later they would be slipping
down the face of a chasm that plunged sheer into the sea for another
100 feet or more. They did not spare themselves in that search, for at
times they penetrated to a depth of 160 feet.

They were investigating a ledge one day when a dark mass loomed up at
one end. They approached it, to find the wreck at last, noting with
satisfaction that it was in a comparatively shallow depth which made
the prospect of salvage fairly easy. Their jubilation was cut short,
however, as they drew nigh. It was the stern that held the treasure,
and the stern was missing!

Fate had once more been up to her tricks. The _Hamilla Mitchell_ had
settled with her stern overhanging deep water. Not for long did she
remain intact, for the gales soon broke off the unsupported after end,
which slipped off the ledge into the abyss, where the divers managed to
locate it in 156 feet of water.

The never-ending lines of bubbles from their outlet valves flowed
upward to the surface as they slowly explored the stern and prepared
for their assault on the treasure-room. It was a most dangerous as
well as a most difficult task to work in that treacherous chasm. The
currents were strong, the rocks were sharp, and the possibilities of
air lines being cut or fatally fouled were not pleasant to dwell upon.
Nevertheless, they stuck to their task and eventually Ridyard managed
to break a way into the strong room.

The sight which met his eyes as he gazed through the windows of his
copper helmet was like a scene from some fairy tale. The light,
filtering through to that great depth, enveloped the hold in a sort of
twilight gloom, and all over the place he dimly saw heaps of dollars
scattered about. He stooped down to the treasure chests, to find that
woodboring worms had eaten many of them quite away and the contents of
the boxes were spilled in all directions. He walked about on a floor of
solid gold; golden coins slipped about under his leaden soles.

Anything more romantic would not be easy to find, yet the romance did
not appeal to Ridyard. He was working against time, knowing that he
would not be able to stand the pressure for long. Every movement was
slow and difficult. The water was striving to crush him; he was being
saved from this terrible fate solely by the continual flow of air
coming down the rubber pipe to his helmet.

Four times Ridyard underwent that ordeal of getting into the
treasure-room and working under the enormous pressure until he was
quite exhausted. On the last occasion he surpassed his previous feats
of endurance and struggled doggedly on, loading up the treasure and
watching it disappear towards the surface until he had sent up the
contents of sixty-four boxes.

Strong and fit as he was, he became thoroughly worn out with the toil,
so he signalled to those above and made his way slowly to the surface.
They dragged him to the deck of the salvage craft and unscrewed his
helmet. His face was lined, his eyes were very tired, and his body
clamoured for moisture, although he had been immersed in it for a long
time. Not a glance did he give to the treasure lying about, the fortune
at his feet did not interest him.

“Give me a drink,” he said. “I’m dying for a drink of water.”

Penk nipped up a bucket and made his way to a spring at the top of the
island under which they were working. Putting down his bucket to fill,
he scanned the horizon, as sailormen will. A sudden amazement came over
him. The sea was dotted with sails, all making in the direction of the
island.

Wasting no time, he picked up his precious pail of water and ran down
to the ship.

“What’s up?” asked Captain Lodge, as Ridyard took his much-wanted drink.

“The sea’s full of junks, hundreds of them,” Penk replied.

Taking his glasses, Captain Lodge quickly identified the oncoming ships
as the junks of Chinese pirates who were making their way towards the
island from the farther side to avoid being seen. There was no doubt in
his mind as to what they were after. There was but one thing in that
quarter worth having, and that was the treasure stored in the salvage
craft. It was obvious that the pirates had been watching operations
carefully. They had undoubtedly planned to allow the divers to recover
the treasure, then they purposed stealing down upon the expedition
unawares, wiping it out and looting the gold.

The pirates were in overwhelming numbers, and Captain Lodge realized
instantly that the only thing to do was to run for it. Slipping the
anchor to save the time required to haul it up, the salvors hoisted
sail. Gradually they gathered way and stole from under the cover of
the island. Directly the salvage craft appeared in the open, the junks
altered course and started to pursue her.

Pity the poor salvors! The wind had practically failed them, yet they
could see some of the junks bending to a lucky breeze and overhauling
them. In desperation they put out the big sweeps and toiled like
galley-slaves to force their craft through the water. Ridyard, tired as
he was, took his turn at the oars to try to save the treasure he had
salved at such risk. So the salvage boat crept along, with the pirates
slowly gaining.

More exciting grew the chase. With anxious eyes the salvors watched
the distance between their own craft and the Chinese junks growing
gradually less. Harder than ever they strained at the oars, dipping
them into the sea, throwing all their weight upon them, pulling until
the muscles of their arms ached and their backs were nearly breaking.

It looked as though the salvors would lose their lives as well as their
treasure when the sails, which had been flapping idly, began to swell.
A puff of wind stirred their flag, and a steady breeze began to blow.
It was none too soon. The salvage craft started to gather way again and
forge through the water. Still the junks hung on. They were not going
to relinquish their prize without an effort.

The pirates continued to chase the salvage craft right until sundown,
when a friendly darkness hid pursued from pursuers and enabled Captain
Lodge to shake off and lose the bloodthirsty Chinese pirates. In the
end he managed to make Shanghai in safety with the rich treasure
of £40,000 aboard, thus bringing to a happy ending one of the most
exciting treasure-hunts ever known.

If Ridyard had not worked quite so hard and grown quite so thirsty, and
if Penk had not gone to fetch that pail of water, the salvors would
have remained in ignorance of the approaching pirates and would have
met a tragic death at their hands.

That lucky drink of water saved a fortune of £40,000.




CHAPTER VI


For months at a time during the past few years, a little ship may
have been seen floating around a particular spot just off the coast
of Donegal. Barges lay in her vicinity, barges laden with incredible
tangles of pipes and cables. Boats pulled around from barge to ship,
and fussy little launches came from the coast, remained an hour or
two, and then departed. Occasionally a grim, grey destroyer glided up,
moored for a time, and then steamed away. But the little ship remained,
and strangers in those parts wondered what she was doing there.

That little ship was the salvage vessel _Racer_, engaged in the
greatest treasure-hunt of modern times. Never before has there been
such a treasure-hunt, for it was a national treasure-hunt, carried out
on behalf of the British people by the British Navy, and backed by the
whole power of the nation.

When the White Star liner _Laurentic_ left the shores of England in
January, 1917, she carried in her strong-room gold and silver ingots to
the value of about £5,000,000 to settle some of Great Britain’s bills
for the munitions that were pouring out of the factories in the United
States. The Treasury was naturally anxious for the specie to reach its
destination as quickly as possible, for that £5,000,000 was destined
for the pay envelopes of thousands of American factory hands.

Many a time the _Laurentic_ had made the passage with saloons
brilliantly lighted and crowded with wealthy passengers, but never
before had she borne so much wealth as on this occasion. The advent of
war led to her conversion into an armed liner, and those aboard were
now fighting for the freedom of the seas and civilization.

Northward she steamed through the Irish Sea and at last began to breast
the open Atlantic and point westward to New York. Malin Head, on the
north coast of Ireland, loomed up and began to drop astern, and just
when it seemed that all would be well came the blow that sent her to
her doom. A violent explosion shook her, made her lurch and shiver, and
many gallant fellows, watchful at their posts, were instantly killed;
many more were trapped and drowned by the rush of water into the ship.

The survivors sprang to their emergency posts, while the wireless
operator sent out a call for help. The captain realized that the
_Laurentic’s_ days were numbered. Nothing could save her. The water
poured through the rent in her side. More and more she heeled as the
water gained. For a moment her bows lifted clear of the sea, then she
disappeared in a swirl of foam, and the waves were strewn with wreckage
and bobbing heads. When the tragedy was over, and the roll called, it
was found that, of 475 officers and men aboard, 354 had gone to their
last long rest.

The loss of life, the destruction of the ship, the sinking of the
treasure, all were bitter blows. The gallant sailors were beyond
recall, the ship was sunk for ever. As for the treasure, it was down in
120 feet of water, on a coast so fully exposed to the Atlantic gales
that its recovery was an open question.

Prospecting for gold in the desert places of the earth has its
difficulties and its disappointments, but what are these compared with
the problems that confront the men who seek to wrest from the mighty
ocean the gold it has swallowed? Unexpected dangers often confront
those who seek the precious metals in the wild places of the earth, but
the dangers of the diver are continuous. He trusts his life to a frail
rubber pipe and a rubber suit, and directly the metal helmet is screwed
round his neck, and he sinks into the depths, death starts to stalk him
and does not give up the chase until the diver is once more aboard the
salvage ship.

Some of the finest divers in the British Navy were told off for
the treasure-hunt. They were eventually placed under the command of
Commander Damant, who had played so important a part in the diving
experiments carried out by the Admiralty a few years ago, and who had
himself attained the record depth of 210 feet in August, 1906. The fact
that the cleverest diving expert in the British Navy was detailed for
the operation is proof that the Admiralty realized that the recovery
of the treasure would prove no easy task. No one knew at the moment
exactly how strenuous the fight was going to be.

The first salvage craft, which was later replaced by the _Racer_, went
off to the Donegal coast and swept the area in which the _Laurentic_
had disappeared. The salvors found the wreck in due course, and they
had the satisfaction of knowing that they were within 120 feet of a
stupendous fortune of about £5,000,000. A bare depth of 120 feet of
water separated them from the greatest treasure-trove of modern times,
but the treasure could not have been more secure had it been resting
beneath 120 feet of solid steel. Indeed, had the treasure been so
buried, instead of underneath 120 feet of water, it would probably have
been recovered very much sooner.

Despite difficult conditions, a certain optimism prevailed that the
treasure would soon be brought to the surface. But the optimists
reckoned without the enemy. Somehow the Germans managed to find out
where the _Laurentic_ was wrecked, and their submarines quietly waited
their opportunity and began to make things hot for those engaged in the
treasure-hunt.

One enemy submarine haunting the vicinity discreetly vanished as a
British torpedo boat came on the scene. A day or two passed, and the
torpedo boat was called for urgent duty elsewhere. Meantime, there had
not been the slightest sign of the enemy underwater craft, which had
apparently recognized that that particular spot was rather unhealthy
and therefore to be avoided.

Feeling fairly secure, the salvors, according to an unofficial report,
determined to get on with their job. A diver donned his dress, his
helmet was screwed on, and the air-pumps began to heave as he dropped
down to resume operations. He had been down but a short time when he
felt himself plucked off his feet by a mighty pull on his life-line
and air-pipe. He struggled to right himself, but it was quite useless.
An irresistible force dragged him upwards; then he felt himself being
drawn through the sea like a salmon at the end of a line.

Something was running away with him. It was an awful experience. He
wondered what had happened and how it would end. His senses began to
reel; he found a difficulty in breathing.

Somehow he managed to keep his head and act as the emergency demanded,
closing the valve by which the air escaped from his helmet. A minute
later he broke the surface.

He could hear the seas slapping the top of his helmet as he was dragged
along at a smart pace. His heart pounded, a terrible humming droned in
his ears, but he strove hard to retain his senses.

“What’s up?” he thought. “What on earth’s happening?”

He had no chance of finding out. He was prisoner in a metal helmet and
a rubber suit. He knew he was at the surface, because of the light that
filtered through the glass of his helmet and the seas that swished
against the copper. As he was dragged along, he had a tendency to spin
at the end of his line, which gave him a dreadful sensation.

In a dazed sort of way the diver was wondering how long the ordeal
would last, when he suddenly felt himself plucked clear of the water.
The next thing he remembers is something scorching his throat and the
cool air playing about his head. He looked round and found he was lying
on the deck of the salvage vessel, and he thanked his lucky star that
all was well. Then he was placed in the recompression chamber aboard,
so that the dangers of being dragged hastily from such a depth might
be avoided, and the risk of bubbles of nitrogen forming in the blood
averted. The air-pumps were set going to raise the pressure of the air
in the steel chamber to the same pressure as that at which the diver
had been working, and gradually the pressure was reduced until it was
the normal atmospheric pressure and the diver was able to be taken out.

While he was on the bottom, a German submarine had stealthily
approached the salvage vessel. Suddenly it started to attack, and the
salvage steamer had to cut and run for it, dragging the unfortunate
diver in its wake. The attack was so unexpected that there was no time
to pull up the diver in accordance with the rules. To pull him up in
the ordinary way would, as a matter of fact, have taken half an hour.
There was no alternative but to tow him along willy-nilly and haul him
aboard as they fled. The experience might easily have cost the diver
his life, but the recompression chamber fortunately saved him from any
ill effects.

After this rather exciting episode, it was decided that operations to
recover the treasure would have to be postponed until more peaceful
times. The treasure-seekers had their hands full in fighting the stormy
seas and powerful currents, not to mention the great depth of water,
without having to fight the foe as well.

At the end of the war, the battle with wind and wave for the treasure
of the _Laurentic_ was once more resumed. So exposed was her position
that for fully half the year it was impossible for divers to work
there at all owing to the storms that raged. Even in fine weather there
were the currents to fight against. And their strength at times was
almost incredible. They could swirl big boulders along the seabed as
though they were but pebbles.

More than one diver, during his career, has experienced the sensation
of being picked up like a feather and dropped over the side of the
wreck on which he has been working. He might weigh roughly 160 lb.
Slung over his back would be a 40-lb. weight, across his chest would
be a similar weight, while each boot would be loaded with a leaden
sole weighing 16 lb. Fully equipped he would turn the scale at about
3 cwt., yet the current has simply played with him as though he were
thistledown. Its strength has been such that he could not fight against
it. Consequently, he has been compelled to give up all ideas of work
and return to the surface. It is indicative of what the salvors of the
_Laurentic_ had to contend with in this respect.

Two years at the bottom of the Atlantic had wrought a tremendous change
in the once-proud liner. The divers found her plates corroded with
rust, girders collapsing everywhere. The sheer weight of the water
above her was crushing her flat, squeezing her into a shapeless mass
just as you might crush a lily in your hand. Moreover, she was full
of silt and mud. Strange fishes glided about her inky depths. Dread
conger eels of mighty girth lurked in the labyrinths of the wreck.

In spite of the terrible condition to which the wreck had been reduced,
the divers finally managed to locate the strong-room. The bubbles from
their helmeted heads flowed ceaselessly upward as the exhaust air
ascended to the surface. Slowly they made their way forward towards
some bars, dimly seen within the recesses of the ship. They were in the
treasure-room. The gold and silver lay about them. Some of the precious
ingots barely peeped out of the silt.

The attendant on the salvage ship heard the telephone buzz.

“Hallo!” he said.

“We’ve found the treasure,” said a voice from under the sea. It was a
squeaky voice, for, strangely enough, talking in compressed air gives
the voice a high pitch, and at this depth it would be impossible for a
diver to whistle. The pressure of the air on his lips would prevent him.

No time was lost in lowering cables, and one by one the ingots began to
speed to the surface. Then, all too quickly, the signal was given for
the divers to ascend, and the treasure had to be left for another day.

That season ingots valued at £500,000 were recovered from the
strong-room, after superhuman labour on the part of all concerned. So
extremely arduous were the conditions that our crack divers could only
work two spells of fifteen minutes’ duration each day. Half an hour’s
toil beneath the sea took as much out of them as the ordinary day’s
work takes out of the ordinary man.

Once more the winter gales played havoc with the wreck, and next spring
the divers found that the treasure was lost under a mass of twisted
plates and girders. Imagine a street of lofty houses, then imagine that
all the buildings were pushed suddenly down into the centre of the
road, and you will arrive at some faint idea of what the ship looked
like. Great girders were bent into all sorts of strange shapes; iron
bars thick as a man’s wrist were twisted into fantastic curves.

The only way to get to the treasure now was to blast a passage with
explosives. The difficulties of the task were increased by the
necessity of hoisting every bit of plate out of the wreck and towing
it some distance before dumping it, in order to make quite certain
that the plate would not again obstruct the divers. The placing of the
charges in the most effective spots, and the withdrawal of the divers
while contacts were made and the charges exploded, took a long time and
entailed endless trouble. But the salvors kept at it doggedly, and bit
by bit they cut away obstructing plates and girders weighing about 300
tons.

[Illustration: A DIVER GOING DOWN TO BLOW UP PART OF A WRECK TO GET AT
THE TREASURE. THE CHARGE OF EXPLOSIVE, WEIGHING 50 LBS., IS CONTAINED
IN THE LONG TIN OVER THE SIDE OF THE BOAT. SOMETIMES THE EXPLOSIVE IS
PACKED IN A CANVAS BAG THREE OR FOUR FEET LONG AND THREE OR FOUR INCHES
ACROSS]

Thus they opened up a way to the treasure, and once more began to send
ingots of the precious metal to the surface. Things began to look rosy,
and there seemed the prospect of making a clean sweep of all the
bullion, when a terrific storm arose and stopped operations. When the
divers went down again they found that more plates had folded down over
the treasure, as if deliberately to prevent its abstraction. It was a
dreadful disappointment, for very soon afterwards the autumnal gales
put an end to the hunt for the season.

The next year the _Racer_ was back again off the Donegal coast, eager
to resume the great treasure-hunt. But it proved a terrible season.
The weather seemed to mock the hunters. For weeks at a time work was
impossible. As soon as one storm abated, another sprang up.

Waiting with all the patience they could muster, the divers at length
got a chance of going down to the wreck. What a change the gales had
wrought! No longer did the wreck bear any resemblance to a ship. She
was just a great mound of twisted metal, partially buried in the silt.
Plates and wreckage lay scattered over the seabed in all directions,
covering an acre or two of space.

Once more the dangerous task of blowing away obstructions was resumed.
Carried out as expeditiously as possible, it yet proved all too slow
for those engaged on the work. At long last they managed, after
prodigious efforts, to open up a path, only to find the gold as far off
as ever. It was buried many feet deep in sand and mud, and to dig it
out with shovels was an impossibility, for the sea would wash the sand
in just as quickly as the divers shovelled it out.

Forty yards above them lay the _Racer_--a floating workshop full of the
most remarkable inventions that scientists and engineers could devise
to assist submarine work. Aboard was a mighty 18-inch pump capable
of sucking up a mountain of sand an hour. The mouth of this monster
appeared from above. It was placed in position by the divers, and they
watched the silt melting before it as if by magic, flowing up to the
surface to be dumped a little distance away.

It is no uncommon thing to find such a pump sucking up chunks of rock
weighing half a hundred-weight, and even trying to remove bits of
girder and plate. But such objects, like deck planks, are rather apt to
stick in the bend, and then the monster chokes and has to receive the
attentions of the salvors.

Remarkable as was the work done by the gallant divers, the results of
the season’s work were fearfully disappointing, for only seven bars of
gold worth about £10,000 in all were recovered. In no wise discouraged,
the treasure-hunters stole back to the old spot the following spring
to try their luck again. The gales of the winter had torn great plates
from the wreckage as though they were merely sheets of brown paper
and dropped them yards away; the decks that had once resounded to the
laughter of beautiful women were laid down flat with the seabed.
Twisted and rusted iron lay for hundred of yards around. Looking for
a needle in a haystack were an easy task compared with finding the
treasure amid all this tangled debris.

A long, keen search revealed what had once been the strong-room. Great
metal plates were piled over it, necessitating blasting operations
once more. The divers toiled until the plates were cut and dragged
away. Then incredible quantities of silt had to be eaten away by the
sand-pump, the divers watching closely and coming on a bar from time
to time. By the end of August, 1922, gold worth £150,000 had been
secured, and early one morning H.M.S. _Wrestler_ might have been seen
slipping into Liverpool. Directly she moored beside the quay, case
after case was landed from her and placed in a motor-lorry. Those
cases--a dozen in all--were full of gold which had been recovered from
the _Laurentic_, and each case represented a small fortune.

All through the season of 1923 the divers carried on, searching amid
that chaos of rusted iron for the gold and silver bars, wresting them
one by one from their hiding-places on the seabed. For seven seasons
they have fought the ocean for that mighty fortune of over £5,000,000
and their heroic efforts have led to the recovery of £4,750,000.
Considering the depth in which the _Laurentic_ sank, and the perils and
difficulties besetting the workers, the results are beyond compare.

Never before has there been a treasure-hunt of such magnitude, and how
long this will last no one can say. A big fortune of £250,000 still
lies hidden just off the coast of the Irish Free State, and, if the
British Navy fails to recover it for the British Treasury, it will be
for the simple reason that its recovery is humanly impossible.

For every £100 won back from the depths, the divers have received an
award of 2s. 6d., so altogether they have shared among themselves the
sum of £5,937 a sum that has been well and truly earned. It says much
for the efficiency of the British Navy when it is known that the whole
of this perilous treasure-hunt has been carried out without a single
accident to any of the divers engaged.

Many rumours have arisen of wonderful machines being used to locate the
treasure, of instruments with the power to divine the presence of gold,
of scientists standing on the deck of the salvage vessel watching, with
bated breath, a needle oscillate round a dial until it has indicated
that the diver far below is in the vicinity of the precious metal.
These rumours, however, have no foundation in fact, for the treasure
has been recovered solely by straightforward diving. The estimates
of the treasure sunk have also varied from £3,000,000 to £8,000,000,
but the figures given here have been furnished me specially by the
Admiralty, and they are therefore strictly accurate.




CHAPTER VII


British salvage experts have performed extraordinary feats; the
American Navy has produced divers excelling even our own; but it has
been left to the Italians to accomplish the seemingly impossible. As a
sheer feat of salvage, the raising of the _Leonardo da Vinci_ remains
unsurpassed.

The night of August 2, 1916, will long be remembered in Taranto, for
just before midnight the whole town was awakened by a tremendous
explosion. The people leapt from their beds and rushed towards
the harbour, to find searchlights sweeping the bay and the finest
battleship in the Italian Navy belching forth flames and smoke. The
_Leonardo da Vinci_ was doomed. In a moment 250 officers and men
were wiped out of existence, and although the survivors fought most
valiantly to quell the fire that enveloped the ship their efforts were
vain.

Suddenly the decks of the battleship canted beneath them, shooting them
like flies into the bay, and she swung right over and sank upside-down
in 36 feet of water. The searchlights from the surrounding battleships
lit up the darkness. Round and round they flashed, seeking the enemy
who had dealt this mortal blow; but there was no sign of a periscope,
nothing but the heads of the Italian sailors fighting for their lives
in the sea.

A time bomb, secretly introduced into one of the magazines, had robbed
the Allies of one of their most powerful battleships. This loss of a
first-class ship of 24,000 tons, equipped with an armament of thirteen
12-inch guns, was a grave one to the Italian Navy, and the question of
salving her at once arose. Famous foreign experts came on the scene,
gazed on the visible portion of the keel of the ship which had cost
£4,000,000, and shook their heads dubiously.

“Impossible!” they said. “The only thing to do is to blow her to
pieces.”

The eyes of the Italians flashed. Somehow, at some time, they
determined to salve the battleship. It might be impossible during the
war, owing to the difficulty of getting material for the operations,
but in their own minds the honour of Italy would never be satisfied
until the ship which lay at the bottom of Taranto bay once more floated
on the seas.

The sinking of the _Leonardo da Vinci_ was, indeed, a great blow to
the pride of the Italian Navy, and there was a general desire on the
part of the nation to wipe out the stain and turn defeat into a triumph
by refloating the ship. The more difficult the task, the greater the
triumph; the more impossible it seemed to foreign experts, the more
determined were the Italians to achieve it.

Throwing themselves heart and soul into the matter, the officers of the
Italian Naval Engineering Corps studied the problem most carefully and
formulated several schemes, among them a plan to build around the ship
a floating dock which, when completely pumped out, would automatically
lift the wreck. Shortage of steel and other materials at that time
made this plan impracticable. Then General Ferrati, the chief of the
Italian naval constructors, evolved a plan to raise the ship by means
of compressed air and carry her upside-down to the dry dock at Taranto,
where she could be prepared for righting.

It must never be forgotten that the battleship was upside-down, and
that not only had she to be raised, but she also had to be righted.
Rivet by rivet and plate by plate she had in the course of years been
built up by hundreds of men into one of the strongest structures known.
All the rivets and plates had been welded into a compact mass of 24,000
tons which now lay at the bottom of the sea. Afloat, she obeyed the
hand and brain of man, would go wherever he desired; at his behest she
turned to right or left, sped furiously through the sea or stopped.
Now she was immovable as the mountains; to smash her to pieces would
have been a gigantic task, costing months of time, tons of much-wanted
explosives, and well over £100,000 in money. The queer thing is that
Ferrati proposed to harness air to lift the sunken monster, just as
though she were an airship instead of a battleship. In such ways do
master-minds work.

So brilliantly conceived were Ferrati’s plans that orders were at once
given to put them into execution. Divers went down to make a survey
of the wreck, which was so rent by the explosion that a vast hole had
been blown right through her from keel to top deck. A further survey
indicated that the huge ship was literally digging her own grave. The
weight of the upside-down battleship was all resting on the funnels and
gun turrets, and these, owing to the enormous pressure from above, were
piercing a way slowly but surely through the mud. Day by day the ship
sank lower and lower, until the whole of her upper deck was completely
buried and the greater part of her hull at the stern had disappeared.
In six months the funnels cut down through a bed of mud over 30 feet
thick before they encountered a bed of clay, which arrested the sinking
of the ship.

[Illustration: THE ITALIANS BRINGING THE LEONARDO DA VINCI UPSIDE DOWN
INTO DOCK AT TARANTO ON SEPTEMBER 17, 1919, AFTER FIGHTING FOR OVER TWO
YEARS TO RAISE HER FROM THE SEABED]

No wonder the experts gave up hope. It really seemed that nothing but
a miracle could bring the great vessel to the surface again. There
she was, upside-down, buried deep in the clinging mud, an enormous,
unwieldly mass that the biggest cranes ever invented were powerless
to lift. It is a comparatively easy task to raise a weight of 10 tons
from the seabed, but it is quite a different proposition to lift a
mountain of metal weighing upwards of 20,000 tons.

[Illustration: THE UPSIDE-DOWN BATTLESHIP SAFELY DOCKED ON SEPTEMBER,
18, 1919, WITH THE GIANT PONTOONS WHICH HELPED TO RAISE HER STILL
LASHED TO HER SIDES]

In no wise discouraged by the difficulties of the problem, General
Ferrati and his associate, Major Gianelli, ordered large-sized models
of the ship to be built. These were accurately constructed down to the
smallest detail, with miniature engines, propellers and guns; and every
compartment was loaded to represent the things on board the battleship
when she foundered.

A stranger might have laughed at the childishness of the Italian
officers who were apparently playing with toy battleships. But things
are not always what they seem. Actually these same officers were
puzzling out the most abstruse problems, carrying out remarkable
experiments which enabled them to determine how the ship should behave
in certain circumstances. As a result were evolved some intricate
calculations upon which depended the whole operation of raising the
ship.

The small part of the keel still showing above the surface was used as
a platform on which to build huts for the salvage workers. Other huts
were erected, in due course, on platforms built up from the submerged
keel. The assembling of the plant for the work was completed by the
spring of 1917, when the people of Taranto began to observe the
figures of divers about the wreck.

Those divers had no enviable time. They quickly discovered that
the explosion had liberated a quantity of thick oil which clung to
everything within the ship, and as they went down it obscured the
glass of their helmets and rendered the men practically blind. As if
the oil were not sufficient handicap, there were thick clouds of rust
which fogged the water and added to the discomfort of the divers. Yet
the oil, despite its drawbacks, proved something of a blessing, for it
adhered to hundreds of shells and protected them so efficiently from
the action of the sea that the Italians were able to use them after
salving them!

The recovery of the ammunition was the first step to lightening the
ship. Day after day shells were hoisted out of the wreck and loaded
into lighters. It was dangerous work, but it became rather monotonous
to those engaged in it. Monotony, as is well known, is apt to lead to
carelessness, and carelessness in handling shells may lead to terrible
results. It is a fine tribute to the carefulness of the men engaged on
the work to know that they salved nearly a thousand 12-inch shells,
three thousand 4·7-inch shells, some torpedoes, thousands of explosive
charges and hundreds of tons of other ammunition without a single
mishap.

Meanwhile, a cable was laid from the power station at Taranto right out
to the wreck, a distance of a mile and a half; and with the power thus
furnished the divers began drilling holes to take the rivets that were
to hold the patches over the great rents in the hull. Slow and arduous
work it was, and not without danger, for it cost one man his life. The
patches were lowered into place, a layer of rubber was fitted betwixt
the hull and the edges of the patches to make them watertight, then the
patches were successfully bolted home.

More cables were carried out from the power station to work the
air compressors, and, as soon as the divers had made a number of
compartments watertight, the salvors began to pump air into the sunken
vessel. The air which was pumped in naturally rose. It tried to get
away to the surface, but the keel of the battleship, which had been
most carefully repaired and made airtight, prevented it from escaping.

The air was thus caught, as it were, in a trap. There was no way out
for it. It was not strong enough to break through the bottom of the
ship, but it was strong enough to press down the water within. As the
volume of air increased, the belt which it formed grew in depth until
it had forced the water down for a distance of 26 feet below the level
of the sea outside, and men were able to enter the bottom of the vessel
through an air-lock, work in security in this belt of compressed air,
and lighten the vessel by taking out her stores and coals.

By the beginning of November, 1917, the salvors occasionally felt the
battleship stir slightly beneath their feet. Despite the fact that she
was buried deeply in the mud, her bow was showing the slightest of
inclinations to rise. The engineer in charge noted this with delight.
Barely perceptible as was the movement, it was more than sufficient to
encourage him to persevere.

Once more the thick oil cropped up to hamper operations and increase
the many difficulties. As the water was forced down inside the vessel
by the compressed air, the oil was deposited on everything. In most
cases this did not matter much, but it was of far-reaching importance
when it came to searching for leaks in the hull. The oil so obscured
these places that it was extremely difficult to locate them, yet
everything depended on their being discovered, for had they been left
unstopped they might have let out the air and made it impossible to
refloat the ship, or, alternatively, let in the water at a critical
time and led to her sinking in such a position that she could never be
floated again. Fortunately, the Italian salvage men were able to detect
all the leaks and stop them effectively, as the sequel amply proved.

[Illustration: AFTER FLOATING FOR TWO DAYS IN DOCK, THE BATTLESHIP
WAS COAXED INTO POSITION UNTIL SHE SETTLED WITHOUT ACCIDENT ON THE
WONDERFUL TIMBER FRAMEWORK SHOWN HERE. IT WAS A FINE FEAT TO ACCOMPLISH]

Critics of the operations pointed out that, should the salvors succeed
in floating the battleship upside-down, there was not sufficient depth
of water to allow her to be taken across that mile and a half of sea
to dry dock. Even if they managed to get her to dry dock, all their
work would be wasted, for the battleship floating upside-down would
draw at least 50 feet of water, and the dry dock at Taranto was only 40
feet deep.

[Illustration: A REMARKABLE PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN FROM AN AIRSHIP OF THE
UPSIDE-DOWN BATTLESHIP IN DRY DOCK]

These difficulties were fully considered and plans made for overcoming
them. As it was an impossibility to increase the depth of the dry dock,
the only way to solve this problem was to decrease the depth of water
that the battleship would draw. The engineer accordingly proposed to
detach the funnels, gun-turrets and other top hamper from the deck of
the vessel.

So firmly embedded were these things in the mud, that the feat of
cutting them off appeared to be more than mortal man could accomplish.
It was, too, pointed out that if divers tried to clear the mud away
from round the funnels, to enable them to work at their task, the sea
would quickly fill up the cavities again. Yet another aspect of the
problem was that the mud pressing upwards against the deck of the
battleship was preventing her from sinking deeper, and if the mud were
removed the whole weight of the _Leonardo da Vinci_ would once more
rest on her funnels and turrets and drive them deeper still into the
clay.

But the engineer, with a stroke of genius, made no attempt to clear
away the mud at all. Instead, he tackled the job from inside the ship.
Certain compartments were pumped out and used as air-locks, and in one
turret the salvors succeeded, by the use of compressed air, in lowering
the water to a level of 56 feet below the surface of the sea.

The men who performed the mighty task of detaching the turrets from the
ship actually worked 20 feet below the level of the mud. All around
them outside was 20 feet of thick black ooze, and above that the
illimitable ocean; yet the air we breathe, properly compressed, held
back the deadly waters and enabled the men to work in safety. No wonder
the experts say we are only just beginning to discover the remarkable
power of compressed air as an aid to salving ships!

Throughout 1918, some 150 men laboured about the ship to free her from
her top hamper and masts. Despite all difficulties, the gun-turrets,
funnels and other deck projections were detached from the ship and
specially prepared so that when the vessel was raised they, too, could
be brought to the surface. The open spaces in the deck left by funnels
and turrets were covered in and made quite watertight, scores of tons
of cork being packed into the _Leonardo da Vinci_ to give her buoyancy.

Early in 1919 one or two tests showed that they could raise the monster
when the time was ripe. But Major Gianelli, the engineer in charge,
was taking no chances. To make quite sure of lifting her, he caused
eight large pontoons to be fixed to her, each capable of sustaining a
load of 350 tons, so in all he obtained from them the power to lift
2800 tons. These pontoons, or camels as they are sometimes called in
salvage circles, are strong metal cylinders something like big boilers
or tanks. They are of the utmost importance in salvage operations and
figure in most wreck-raising work. All were filled with water and sunk
into position exactly where their lifting power was most wanted. The
divers lashed them with strong steel cables securely to the sides of
the battleship, and by the month of June the work on the mammoth craft
was all but complete.

Remained the problem of making it possible to tow her to dry dock.
Notwithstanding that all projections had been cut away from her deck,
she drew so great a depth of water that it was obvious she would foul
the bottom before going any distance. To obviate this danger, the
Italians set dredgers to work to cut a channel all the way from the
wreck to the gates of the dry dock. The making of this channel, which
was a mile and a half long, entailed the removal of thousands of tons
of mud, but the salvors regarded this task as trivial compared with the
work they had accomplished on the overturned ship.

Then the dock itself required to be specially prepared, for like all
dry docks it was planned to take a vessel upright and not upside-down.
The chocks down the centre of the dock, which normally support the keel
of a docked vessel, were quite useless so far as the _Leonardo da
Vinci_ was concerned. So a forest of timber began to spring up in the
dry dock. Mighty baulks of wood, 15 inches and more square, were built
up from the bottom of the dock. These followed the outline of the ship
so that the deck could be brought exactly over them and allowed to sink
into place upon them. Other gigantic piles of timber were constructed
to support particular parts of the deck.

By September 17, 1919, all these preparations were completed. The
air compressors forced the water out of the pontoons and out of the
hull. Certain compartments of the ship were filled with water in order
to balance her evenly--and then the keel, with the great pontoons
straining upwards, slowly arose out of the sea. For a time a stern
battle went on between the mud which was gripping her and seeking
to hold her down and the air which was striving to lift her to the
surface. Then the air won. The battleship slipped from the grip of the
mud, leaving her guns and turrets still embedded, and floated on the
surface once more.

[Illustration: A UNIQUE PHOTOGRAPH OF THE LEONARDO DA VINCI AS SHE LAY
IN THE BAY OF TARANTO WITH ALL THE SALVAGE CRAFT AROUND HER JUST BEFORE
SHE WAS TURNED OVER]

A rapid survey was made to see that she was fit for her journey, then
the tugs took up their task and began to tow her slowly along the
channel between the lines of buoys marking the passage. A stranger
spectacle than the towing of this upside-down battleship was never
before seen on the seas. The tugs managed to keep the capsized
leviathan right in the centre of the channel, and by nightfall the
vessel was at the entrance to the dry dock, and was skilfully
manœuvred inside on the following day.

[Illustration: TOWING THE UPSIDE-DOWN BATTLESHIP OUT OF DOCK ON JANUARY
22, 1921 IN ORDER TO RIGHT HER]

For two days she floated, held up by the compressed air within her
hull, and during this time certain adjustments were made in the mighty
timber frame that was to support her. The water was now drawn off from
the dock and the _Leonardo da Vinci_ settled down comfortably on her
timber framework.

Her settling down placed a huge strain on the timbers, some having
to bear the very great pressure of 225 tons to the square inch. The
calculations, however, were so cleverly made, and the vast weight was
so evenly distributed, that the framework supported her in perfect
security. In itself this was a remarkable achievement. The slightest
miscalculation, or one weak timber, might have brought about the
collapse of the whole structure, and the battleship would have fallen,
an absolute wreck, on the bed of the dry dock.

For months men swarmed about the upturned battleship, doing the final
repairs that were necessary before she could be righted. The conclusive
test of the Italians was nigh. Could they succeed in turning the great
mass of metal the right way up again? No power known to man would
suffice to right the vessel on land. Before the task could be attempted
it was essential to place her once more in her element, the sea. On
land she was immovable, on the sea she floated and could be more or
less controlled by man, but whether man could perform the miracle of
turning her right way up again, nobody knew.

The bottom of a ship, of course, has to be strongly built to withstand
the pressures to which it is subjected. The deck, not having to stand
the strain that the bottom is called upon to bear, need not be built
so strongly. In this case the deck and the bottom had changed places,
and it was therefore of the utmost importance that the deck should be
strengthened to withstand the increased pressures that would arise in
righting the ship.

Out in the bay the dredgers scooped a deep basin to enable her to turn
over without fouling the seabed, and towards the end of January, 1921,
the _Leonardo da Vinci_ was towed to the place where it was proposed to
right her. Four hundred tons of solid ballast had been loaded into her,
and the engineers made preparations for pumping 7500 tons of water into
certain compartments on her starboard side. Being above the centre of
gravity, this weight would make her so top-heavy that she was bound to
overbalance and thus turn right side up again.

[Illustration: UPRIGHT ONCE MORE AFTER BEING UPSIDE DOWN FOR FOUR
YEARS. SHE RAISED A HUGE WAVE AS SHE SWUNG OVER, AS MAY BE SEEN FROM
THIS PHOTOGRAPH WHICH WAS TAKEN FROM AN AIRSHIP]

There in the bay lay the still stricken leviathan. The valves were
opened to allow the sea to enter her compartments, and the salvage men
scrambled from the upturned keel and pulled away from her in their
boats. The water began to flow in, and by the time some 800 tons
had entered she began to turn ever so slowly. Soon, as the weight of
water increased, she swung over with a rush, raising a big wave as the
deck swept clear of the water. For a moment it looked as though she
would swing right over and finish upside-down again. But the engineers
had worked out their calculations to such a nicety that the battleship
finally came to rest with a slight list, just as they had foreseen.

[Illustration: THE LEONARDO DA VINCI READY TO GO INTO DRY DOCK AGAIN TO
BE REFITTED. A BRILLIANT SALVAGE FEAT IS RECORDED IN THESE REMARKABLE
PHOTOGRAPHS WHICH ARE REPRODUCED BY COURTESY OF THE ITALIAN NAVAL
ATTACHE]

Across her deck, in big letters, was seen the motto of the famous
_Leonardo da Vinci_: “Every wrong rights itself,” painted while the
vessel was still upside-down in dry dock. It was a happy thought, and a
pandemonium of cheering broke out as the legend came into view to tell
of the most remarkable salvage feat ever accomplished.

The salving of the ship and her final righting took four and a half
years. It was a Herculean task, and from first to last cost the Italian
Government £135,000. Unhappily, General Ferrati, who conceived the
brilliant plan, did not live to see it completed. He was succeeded as
director of operations by General Faruffini, who in turn was succeeded
by General Carpi, but during the whole time Major Gianelli was in
charge of the work and to him is due the credit for carrying out from
beginning to end, and bringing to a triumphant conclusion, the most
wonderful salvage feat ever performed by man.




CHAPTER VIII


Before the Great War the number of concerns specializing in salvage
work were so few that probably all could be numbered on the fingers
of both hands. Sweden had a fine salvage unit at Stockholm, a Danish
company worked from Copenhagen, Germany possessed a very powerful
salvage plant, while perhaps half a dozen salvage concerns operated
in British waters, the most important being the Liverpool Salvage
Association, the London Salvage Association and the famous firm of
Henry Ensor, at Queenstown in Ireland.

In the number of marine salvage units she could muster, Great Britain
was thus particularly fortunate. The dangers of our coasts have long
been regarded as a drawback, yet in time of crisis they proved a
blessing in disguise, for the yearly toll of wrecks on our shores has
provided fine experience for our salvage experts and made them second
to none in the world.

When the Germans hurled their challenge at humanity, all the salvage
concerns operating in Great Britain were at once taken over by the
Admiralty and placed under the command of Commodore F. W. Young.
For long Commodore Young had acted as chief salvage officer to the
Liverpool Salvage Association, and forty years’ experience of raising
wrecks had given him a knowledge of the subject that was unique.
Wandering round our shores in storm and shine, fighting to get ships
off the rocks, struggling to save their cargoes, he learned to know our
rugged coast better than the average man knows the lines on the palm
of his hand. The reefs from which a ship might never escape, the sandy
bays that provided shelter, the bars that lurked in wait for unwary
ships, all were known to him. His knowledge was such that he was able
to sum up the chances of a ship directly he heard where she was wrecked.

Whatever blunders may have been made in appointing other men to other
commands, the First Lords of the Admiralty made no mistake in selecting
Commodore Young to be Director of Naval Salvage. Generals came and
went, Admirals were moved up and down, but this one man was in control
of the Admiralty Salvage Section throughout the whole war, bearing the
grave responsibilities of a most important post from beginning to end.

The first work of the Admiralty Salvage Section was purely naval. These
were the men who laid the mines to guard our harbours, and upon them
devolved the duty of laying down those long lanes of mighty nets to
protect our troopships hurrying from England to France. When the _Lion_
was so sorely stricken at Jutland, it was one of the section’s salvage
steamers that helped her into port, and they were men of the Salvage
Section who patched her scars and made it possible for her to limp home.

But the work of the Salvage Section changed completely with the coming
of the unrestricted campaign of the German submarines. No longer was
it purely naval in character. Thenceforward it became general, and the
officers and men of the section had to stand ready to save merchant
vessels as well as warships.

So grave a menace was the enemy submarine campaign that foreign
shipowners refused to take the risks of sending ships to Great Britain,
for no underwriter with any sense could be expected to insure ships
when the Germans were torpedoing merchantmen at sight. Similarly no
shipowner with any sense would send a ship here that was uninsured, for
if his ship were torpedoed the whole loss would fall on him. For this
reason alone there was a likelihood of diminishing supplies of food and
munitions coming to our ports.

The British Government rose to the situation by becoming the biggest
underwriting concern in the world and insuring every ship entering and
leaving our ports. Great Britain accepted the responsibility for all
losses, and the shipowners knew they were sure to get their money
in the event of their ships being sunk. As a further precaution, the
system of convoy was instituted, whereby half a dozen or a dozen
ships journeyed together under the escort of some of our warships. An
additional measure to cope with the marauding submarines was to arm
our merchantmen so that they stood at least a chance of beating off an
attack.

Shrewd as were the German calculations of winning the war by the
submarine campaign, and nearly as the enemy succeeded, they reckoned
without our Admiralty Salvage Section. While all the powers of the
British Admiralty were concentrated on destroying the German underwater
craft, the abilities of the Naval Salvage Section were focused on
repairing the damage wrought by enemy torpedoes. From a comparatively
minor position, the Salvage Section sprang into paramount importance.
As the list of torpedoed vessels grew day by day, so our salvage
organization was enlarged to grapple with the extra duties.

Directly a ship was torpedoed, the news was wirelessed to Whitehall,
and the nearest available naval craft was ordered to stand by and
render all the assistance possible until a salvage steamer arrived
from the most convenient depot to take over. Salvage steamers and
depots were dotted at various ports all round the coast, and as soon
as particulars flashed through to the Director of Salvage he detailed
his nearest available unit for the job. If a vessel still floated, he
despatched powerful tugs to tow her to port; if she sank, he instructed
a salvage officer to report on her position immediately.

No time was wasted, for the loss of one tide might easily have meant
the total loss of the vessel. Within a few minutes of the report coming
to hand, the Director dealt with the case and suggested how it should
be treated.

Commodore Sir Frederick Young’s calmness was indeed amazing. I have
vivid recollections of seeing him in his room at Whitehall when the
submarine campaign was at its height. The newspapers were full of the
tales of sinking ships, people were talking about it agitatedly, faces
in the inner precincts of Whitehall were grave and obviously concerned,
but the Director of Salvage remained quite unruffled. As I sat talking
with him, the news came through of seven more ships being sunk; on top
of it arrived the information that one of the salvage ships herself had
been torpedoed in the Mediterranean. Yet the Director of Salvage did
not turn a hair.

He asked one of his officers the whereabouts of another salvage craft.

The officer told him.

“Send her out to replace the ----,” and he mentioned the name of the
sunken salvage ship, which I have long since forgotten.

He puffed quietly at his pipe, screwed a monocle into his eye, and
scanned the telegrams with their bad news. Then he gave a few orders,
and in a moment or two the wires were humming with instructions to
various salvage units to hurry to the aid of the stricken ships.

It was all done so quietly and simply, without one sign of flurry or
fuss on the part of the sturdy figure clad in a simple blue serge suit
such as thousands of civilians wear to-day. Yet coming in and out
and waiting deferentially on his word were naval figures resplendent
in gold braid. The contrast emphasized the simplicity of the man
controlling this supreme service. His unaffected ways and quiet
manner masked an amazing cleverness, for no man alive was imbued with
a greater genius for sea salvage work than this modest man sitting
composedly at his desk by the pleasant window in Whitehall.

His big room was set off in the centre by a round polished table
containing a bowl of flowers. Photographs of salvage ships dotted
the walls, while various charts of the British Isles stuck full of
coloured flags bristled with information to those able to read them.
Other charts were concealed beneath spring blinds that sprang up at the
touch of authority. By studying these charts, the Commodore was able to
tell at a glance just how the situation stood, where ships were sunk,
where ships were beached, where his salvage units were working. On a
side-table was a big book of charts that could only be lifted with an
effort, and another table contained a model ship showing the standard
patch.

Called into being by the war, the standard patch certainly proved one
of the greatest aids of the Salvage Section, for many a ship that would
have ended her days at the bottom of the sea was brought safely into
port under the protection afforded by this invention. The standard
patch was formed of grooved timbers fitting one into another, something
like matchboards, and in appearance it resembled the top of a gigantic
roll-top desk. Owing to its construction, it was admirably adapted for
fitting the curves of the hull of a ship.

[Illustration: A TORPEDOED SHIP WHICH WAS SAVED BY BEING BEACHED]

In fitting a standard patch, the size of the hole in the hull was first
ascertained, then the patch was made, bolted into position, and the
edges were made watertight with cement. Many ships had to be beached
at the nearest spot in order to save them from foundering, and the
standard patch was then fitted to enable them to reach port and undergo
permanent repairs. Other ships still remained afloat after being
torpedoed, and it was no uncommon sight to see the ship’s carpenters
constructing a standard patch upon the deck. When the patch was
finished, it was lowered over the side, the bottom edge being weighted
to make it sink in an upright position, while the divers guided it
into place and secured it with bolts and nuts.

[Illustration: THE STANDARD PATCH WHICH WAS FITTED OVER THE HOLE IN THE
SHIP’S SIDE. AS MAY BE SEEN, EACH TIMBER WAS BOLTED HOME AND THE EDGES
WERE MADE WATERTIGHT WITH CEMENT. THESE PATCHES WERE OF GREAT SERVICE
IN DEFEATING THE GERMAN SUBMARINE CAMPAIGN]

Despite its temporary character, the repair was strong enough to enable
the ship to journey to the dock set aside for her reception. Yet many
a ship met various adventures on the way, and her journey to port was
rather a protracted affair. One such case was that of a large vessel
torpedoed by the Germans. Luckily, she did not sink immediately. Her
bulkheads held and her captain was able to head for the shore until
she touched bottom and settled down. Along came the salvage unit, and,
ascertaining the damage, worked desperately to fit a standard patch.
The patch was duly put on, the many bolts screwed up, and the vessel
pumped out and towed off to port.

The salvage officers were congratulating themselves on work well done
when the unexpected happened. There was a dull explosion and a giant
cascade against the side of the steamer. She had been caught a second
time by a German submarine! Her nose was headed inshore and once more
she touched bottom.

Quickly as they could, the salvors tackled her, for she was not the
only ship on the sea receiving the unwelcome attentions of the Germans,
and the salvors were in constant demand all along the coast. They sized
up the new damage, made another patch, drilled the holes in the hull,
fitted a felt bed for the patch to rest against and screwed it tightly
home. Then the pumps were set going, the damaged hold was emptied and
her keel came up from the sandy bed in which it had been resting.

The ship, which had survived two German torpedoes, continued her
interrupted journey, but she had only been an hour or two on the way
when another enemy submarine got her. Whatever the salvage men said and
thought, they started to patch her up again, and in time they had the
thrice torpedoed vessel continuing her slow journey to the dock where
she was to be repaired.

Before they could get her home, however, her rescuers were compelled
to beach her and struggle to save one or two very urgent cases. They
accordingly put her ashore in a sheltered bay in the Isle of Wight
where they knew she would be quite safe until such time as they could
attend to her. She was months making a short trip of a few miles
round the south coast, but she seemed to have as many lives as a cat,
and eventually reached dry dock where the damage wrought by German
torpedoes was properly repaired.

The remarks of the Germans must have been rather interesting when
they discovered that they were torpedoing the same ship time after
time. Probably they thought it was some trick the British were playing
on them, some gigantic bluff to make them waste torpedoes. Anyway,
although they tried and tried and tried again, the Admiralty salvage
men, not to be outdone, managed to save the ship from the clutches of
the Germans after all.

So long as the submarine campaign continued, it was indeed a gigantic
tussle between pumps and patches and torpedoes. At first the torpedoes
had it all their own way, but pumps and patches in the skilful hands of
the Admiralty Salvage Section began to rob the Germans of more and more
of their prizes, and they ultimately proved a most important factor in
bringing home to the foe that the game was not worth the candle.

The demand for pumps of all types was tremendous. Motor pumps, steam
pumps, electric pumps--all were required, and the pump-makers were kept
busily employed night and day. The war brought out the good points of
one pump known as the electric submersible pump. Invented in pre-war
days by an electrical engineer named Macdonald, this invention did not
attract the notice it deserved, and in the end the inventor sold out
his rights and emigrated to Canada. Since then his pump must have been
very successful financially, for one or two that happened to be aboard
a battleship at the battle of Jutland did such wonderful service that
the whole of the British Navy was fitted with them.

Many had tried to solve the problem of an electric pump, but generally
they came to grief owing to the current short-circuiting in the water.
Macdonald worked at the problem until he succeeded in overcoming it,
and the result was a drum-like pump with the inner parts spinning at
a high speed and forcing the water upwards through the pipe. Instead
of fixing his pump at the top end of a suction pipe, Macdonald placed
his pump at the bottom end of a pipe and dropped it into the water.
The pump weighed about half a ton, and owing to the fact that it
worked entirely under water, with water flowing all round and through
its bearings, it was not liable to suffer loss of efficiency through
air leakage. The tendency of the pump to overheat owing to the speed
at which it worked was checked by the cold sea water always passing
through it. It was, in effect, a water-cooled pump that was excellent
for working at depths a little beyond the reach of the ordinary pump.

[Illustration: THREE OF THE ELECTRIC PUMPS WHICH PROVED THEIR
EFFICIENCY DURING THE WAR. THEY REMAINED IN THE HOLD OF THE SUNKEN
WESTMORELAND FOR THREE MONTHS UNTIL SHE WAS RAISED. WORTH £3,000,000,
SHE WAS BY FAR THE RICHEST SALVAGE PRIZE OF THE WHOLE WAR]

For touch-and-go cases the submersible pump was much in demand by
salvage officers, but for cases that required long and steady pumping
for days and perhaps weeks the wonderful Gwynne pumps were not to be
excelled. Their extraordinary reliability is marvellous. So long as
you give them the steam to work with, coupled with proper attention,
they will do almost anything that you ask of them. They will pump
steadily for days and even weeks without stopping, throwing overboard
the specified number of tons of water an hour. They are, indeed,
among the mechanical marvels of the age, practically as perfect as any
machine is ever likely to be.

[Illustration: THE DAMAGE WROUGHT BY A GERMAN TORPEDO. A GOOD IDEA OF
THE IMMENSITY OF THE HOLE MAY BE GAINED BY COMPARING IT WITH THE LEGS
OF THE MAN STANDING ON THE SCAFFOLDING IN THE WRECKED ENGINE ROOM.
DESPITE THE DAMAGE, THE SHIP WAS SAVED]

So sure are they, that salvage men will willingly put to sea in a badly
leaking ship and set out on a voyage that may last a week or two. If
the pumps stopped, the ship might founder in two or three hours. The
men know it, but they do not worry. They have implicit faith in the
pump, and although merely the power of the pump stands between them and
death they carry on quite unconcerned. And while the water is finding
its way into the breaches in the hull of their ship the pumps are
steadily throwing it over the side.

As Henry Ensor, one of the cleverest salvage experts alive, once
remarked to me: “For a long voyage in a leaking ship, give me the
Gwynne.”

Pumps, indeed, played a big part in beating the German submarine,
and it was the submersible type that figured in the case of the
_Westmoreland_, for three placed in the hold of this vessel were left
submerged for nearly three months and upon withdrawal worked quite as
well as when they were put down.

No richer prize than the _Westmoreland_ fell to the Salvage Section
during the whole war, for ship and cargo were worth about £3,000,000.
The vessel was steaming in the neighbourhood of St. Bees Head on her
way to Liverpool when an enemy submarine let loose a torpedo. The
missile ran true, and a moment later a terrific explosion told the
Germans they had bagged their game. Whereat the attacking submarine,
knowing the sea thereabouts was likely to be well patrolled for some
little time to come, quietly slid off.

True as the torpedo ran, the Germans made a slight miscalculation.
Though trifling, it made all the difference in the end. Instead of
the torpedo hitting in that vital spot amidships and destroying the
engines, it struck forward in No. 2 hold and tore an enormous hole in
the hull of the ship big enough to drop a small house into. The heart
of the ship, the engine-room, was untouched, and the captain still
retained the power to drive his ship through the seas.

Slim destroyers slipped over the horizon and crowded round the
torpedoed vessel. Fortunately her bulkheads held firm and, although
the damage was such that it looked as if the ship might founder at any
moment, the captain held his course in a valiant attempt to reach port.

Slowly the bow of the ship sank lower and lower in the water, until it
seemed impossible for her longer to remain afloat. At last a destroyer
manœuvred into position and took off captain and crew, and they stood
by to see the last of the ship. Instead of sinking, however, she still
hung there, and the captain and crew returned to her in order to try
once more to get her to port. There was just a chance that they might
succeed, and the captain was not going to lose that chance.

Engineers and stokers went below to give her steam, and she limped
lamely along, continuing to go down by the head. As her bow went down,
so her stern came up until it was obvious that if she did not soon sink
she was bound to become unmanageable, for in a short time her screws
would be clear of the water and churning the air instead of the sea.
Heading her for the beach while there was yet time, the captain took
her in until her propellers were right in the air and her bow scraped
the bottom, then he and the crew were taken off and the _Westmoreland_
quietly settled down.

If only she had settled at high tide, the _Westmoreland_ might have
proved an easy case for the Salvage Section to deal with. But with the
usual perversity of things, she went down at low water, and as the tide
rose, the sea began to pour out of the broken hold along the shelter
deck and over the tops of the bulkheads into all the other holds.
Unluckily her bulkheads had not been built right up to the top deck.
Instead, they reached only to the previous deck, the shelter deck,
and there was nothing to prevent the seas washing the whole length of
the shelter deck, which was just what they did. The consequence was
that the whole ship filled with water, and at high tide she was quite
submerged, with her top deck 30 feet below the surface.

Commander Kay hastened to the spot and surveyed the wreck. Quickly he
saw that the only way of raising the ship and getting her to port was
to prevent the seas from washing out of the damaged hold into the sound
holds. It appeared simple, but the men who began to strive to carry out
the scheme had the struggle of their lives.

It was February, when the weather was just as bad as it could be. The
heavy seas and strong currents effectually prevented any work being
done for three or four days a week, and on the other days it was only
possible to work for two or three hours at low tide. Watching their
opportunities, the divers scrambled into the wreck and gradually
timbered in a mighty hole, 40 feet across, that was blown in the
shelter deck by the force of the explosion. The first step in their
struggle with the sea was looked upon as won.

Barely was the work completed when the sea, frothing with fury, raged
through the hole in the hull and battered continuously at the underside
of the work until the timbering was reduced to matchwood. I have
already mentioned that salvage men are sparing of words, and, if they
said but little on this occasion, no doubt what they said was to the
point.

With that patience which is beyond all praise, they resumed their
efforts with a firm determination not to be again cheated by the
sea, so they used steel to counter the force of the waves. Whenever
tide and weather served, they worked with might and main to build
watertight walls--or a steel trunkway, as the salvors called it--from
the shelter deck of the damaged hold right up to the top deck in order
to confine the sea to that hold and prevent it from washing over the
tops of the other bulkheads. By then the salvors realized that it was
quite hopeless to attempt to patch the hull of the ship to prevent the
seas from entering, for no temporary work could withstand the full
force of the Atlantic gales. Consequently, the divers concentrated on
building their trunkway, and in a month it was completed and the water
was effectually shut off from washing into the other holds.

The salvors determined now to try to move the ship to a more sheltered
position where they would be able to work for longer periods and with
fewer interruptions. Accordingly, pumps were set to work pumping out
the water in the sound holds, and in time the _Westmoreland_ swung
clear of the bottom. The tugs caught hold of her and towed her inshore
for a couple of miles, when she bumped the bottom again and was allowed
to settle. It was 2 miles to the good, the water was much shallower,
but even more important was the additional shelter which made it
possible for the men to work more continuously.

So the divers toiled away with renewed vigour, hauling the cargo out
of the ship to lighten her, hoisting out case after case of butter for
which the people were clamouring. It was, fortunately, none the worse
for its immersion, and I believe it duly reached the tables of the
people, who had no idea that they were eating butter which had been at
the bottom of the sea. If the true story be told, there is little doubt
that a large quantity of food rescued from the clutches of Neptune was
duly eaten by the British people without their being any the wiser.
Necessity knows no law, and when famine is looming nigh, as it was
then, butter that has been on the seabed is better than butterless
bread. In any case the butter ration was so small--but two ounces a
week--that no danger could possibly accrue through eating it.

Tons and tons of timber props were built into the ship to strengthen
her in all directions. The problem of patching the vessel was
again considered, but the weather was such as to render patching
impracticable. So the salvors allowed the waves to thunder in through
the gaping hole in her side, whence they gushed out of the top of the
ship in fountains of spray. There was nothing else to be done in the
circumstance. Had the salvors succeeded in covering in that mighty hole
in the shelter deck strongly enough to keep back the seas, the seas
would have raged about inside the damaged hold and smashed everything
to pieces; consequently it was much wiser to leave them an outlet. The
trunkway was a safety valve by which the seas escaped after tearing
through the gaping wound.

[Illustration: ONCE THE FORWARD HOLDS OF A SHIP FILL AND DRAG HER DOWN
BY THE BOW SHE IS RENDERED HELPLESS. SHE MAY STILL REMAIN AFLOAT, HER
ENGINES MAY BE PERFECT, BUT HER CAPTAIN NO LONGER HAS ANY CONTROL OVER
HER BECAUSE HER PROPELLER IS OUT OF WATER]

Fourteen weeks after work was first started, Commander Kay decided that
the time had come to make the final lift and get the _Westmoreland_ to
dry dock. The electric pumps were switched on and kept running until
the waterlogged holds were cleared, and the torpedoed vessel rose off
the sandy bottom and floated. Then cropped up the vital matter of
balance. For weeks the divers had been fighting to rid the ship of
water, and now, paradoxically enough, they found they had pumped out
so much that her stern came up clear of the surface, while her bow was
barely clear of the sand.

It was useless to attempt to tow her to port under such conditions,
for in a short while she would have been digging her nose into the
sand and sinking once more. Before the journey could be essayed, it
was essential to balance her properly, and this could only be done by
leaving a sufficient weight of water in the after holds to balance the
water in the forward hold. They had to trim the ship by using water as
ballast. Calmly they allowed the after holds to fill again, then they
set the pumps going until she rose on an even keel. The stumpy tugs
fastened on to her and did not let her go until she was safely in dock.

Altogether the Admiralty Salvage Section during the war salved nearly
500 ships, valued with their cargoes at about £50,000,000. While the
submarine campaign continued, the British need for shipping was so
great that all salvage efforts were concentrated on those ships that
could be quickly salved and put into commission again. The easiest
cases were dealt with first, and the more difficult cases were left
until there was a reasonable opportunity of coping with them.

A careful list compiled by the Admiralty after the war showed that
there were 416 war wrecks lying in less than 20 fathoms, or 120 feet,
around the British coast, and of these it was estimated that one in ten
might perhaps be raised. Actually 51 war wrecks were salved after the
Armistice, but as some of these were lost in foreign parts the original
estimate was not so wide of the mark.

These wrecks, upon which the British Government had paid out millions
in insurance, were the property of the State, but the chances of
raising them were accounted so slight that it was not considered policy
to spend further money on them. Well-known salvage concerns, however,
had no difficulty in obtaining permission to salve any ship which they
had a fancy to raise. They had but to go to the shipping department
concerned in order to win a sympathetic hearing. The terms of the
contract were on the “no cure, no pay” principle, which meant that any
salvage firm with the courage to risk a few thousand pounds in trying
to raise a particular wreck was quite at liberty to do so. In return
for the concession to work on the wreck, they agreed to give the
Government a certain percentage of the value recovered, the percentage
being arrived at by mutual agreement. All risk was consequently borne
by the salvage concerns, who lost their money in the event of failure
and shared their winnings with the Government if they were successful.

The high cost of shipping at that period led to considerable activity
on the part of salvage concerns, for if luck happened to be with them
there was the prospect of making a fortune out of one operation. But
a shipping slump without precedent in all history quickly worked a
tremendous revolution. Some new ships halved their value in six months,
second-hand ships fell in price from £30 a ton to £7 or less a ton.
One great shipping firm had to set aside a fund of half a million in
order to write down the value of their new ships directly they were
launched, for their new liners were worth more on the stocks than they
were in the water. The only way of making their ships pay at all was
to decrease their cost, and this could only be done by sacrificing the
money saved and placed in reserve. In many cases shipowners paid huge
sums to shipbuilders in order to be released from contracts, for they
were able to buy new ships at half the price similar ships would cost
to build.

This remarkable change was brought about by the great shipbuilding
programmes forced on the Allies by the submarine campaign. Not until
after the war was the full force of these programmes felt. The new
ships coming off the stocks made up the lost tonnage in a few months.
The seized German ships helped to increase the slump, and the world
found itself richer by 11,000,000 tons of shipping than it had been in
1914. The war had destroyed the markets, the Continental nations had no
longer any money with which to buy goods, and the result was the most
dramatic change in history. Shipowners who a year previously had been
clamouring for ships at any price, were compelled to let 8,000,000 tons
of shipping lie idle.

Of course these conditions played havoc with salvage concerns. The
fortunes that might have been locked up in war wrecks quietly vanished.
It must be borne in mind that enemy torpedoes in the first place had
done enormous damage to the sunken ships, and what the torpedoes had
left undone the storms of the Armistice years had finished.

The immersion of a ship for a year or two in the sea, with the
consequent rust set up in the metal, works sorry havoc, while sand and
mud swirling about in the engine-rooms tend not to improve the engines.
Every hour that a ship spends on the ocean bed she deteriorates in
value. Mud is silting into her, sand and rust are gnawing away at her,
the swell is shaking her continuously. The sea soon finds out the weak
spots and hammers at them until the whole structure collapses into a
fantastic mass. It can be imagined what some of the war wrecks were
like after a thousand days of such treatment. They were not worth
salving, for no salvage concern would risk thousands of pounds just
to recover a little scrap metal. These factors eventually led to a
cessation of salvage activity around our shores.

For long after the Admiralty Salvage Section had ceased to operate
in home waters, one or two units were working on the Belgian coast,
struggling to clear the harbours of Ostend and Zeebrugge from the ships
that British sailors had so gallantly sunk in order to prevent the
Germans from using them as submarine bases. When the _Vindictive_ went
down in her allotted place, she covered the British Navy with glory.
All the might of Germany, all the skill of which she boasted, failed
to move the sunken ship from the spot where the British had placed
her. The Germans did their uttermost--for they were anxious to use the
harbour--but they were beaten.

The genius of the Admiralty Salvage Section, Commodore Sir Frederick
Young, studied the problem. The _Vindictive_ was not only full of
cement, which had set hard directly the water ran into it, but there
were also many mines aboard, and no one knew whether all these mines
had gone off or whether some of them were still alive. Added to the
problem of the _Vindictive_ was the fact that the Germans, in their
retreat, had sunk all sorts of craft in the harbour to bottle it up
completely, and ensure that the Belgians would never use Ostend again
without going to an awful amount of trouble.

For months the divers of the Salvage Section were struggling with the
wrecks in Ostend, clearing the channel, blowing tons of cement out of
the _Vindictive_ in order to lighten her, cutting away hundreds of tons
of steel so that there should be so much the less to lift. Mighty steel
cables were passed under the _Vindictive_ by divers and attached to
two lifting craft, one on either side of the ship; two giant pontoons
were sunk into place and attached to the hull so that when the time
came they could be pumped out and their power used to help lift the
stricken ship off the bottom. Some of the compartments in the wreck
were made watertight, and after about a year of strenuous toil the task
of lifting the structure was undertaken. Pumps were set going, and as
the tide rose the shattered British warship came off the bottom and was
moved some distance before the falling tide baulked further endeavours.
The next day saw the operations carried to a successful conclusion amid
scenes of wildest enthusiasm.

The raising of the _Vindictive_ signalized the last days of the Naval
Salvage Section, but it was by no means the least of the many triumphs
that crowned it during the war.




CHAPTER IX


During the days of the fateful German submarine campaign, the divers
of the Admiralty Salvage Section played their part in many a drama,
ferreting out clues of vital importance, acting as detectives of the
deep. While the _Untersee_ boats of the Germans menaced our national
existence and ruthlessly committed many crimes against humanity, the
deep-sea detectives of the Salvage Section were always on their track,
studying their habits, learning their methods, recovering from watery
fastnesses those sealed orders which Tirpitz and his staff would have
given anything to keep out of the hands of our alert Admiralty.

More than one U-boat, struggling frantically to free herself from the
mighty nets in which she had become entangled, found herself caught in
a trap from which there was no escaping. The guardians of the nets,
going their rounds, marked the agitation of the buoys which told of a
giant fish struggling below, and if the prize could not be brought up
and captured, a depth charge soon put an end to its struggles.

Sometimes a submarine was found on the bottom without any visible
damage to the hull. An accident to her machinery had rendered her
helpless. The Germans fought desperately to put things right. As they
grappled with the damaged machinery, they saw death coming nearer and
nearer. When it was obvious that they could do nothing, that there
was no escape for them, many shot themselves to put an end to their
sufferings. Entering these steel tombs, the divers of the Admiralty saw
ghastly sights--shot Germans lying about all over the place. In some
cases it was apparent that the trapped men had been driven mad by their
terror and had run amuck and fought each other savagely before they
died. They were pitiless to others, but in the end the fear of death
had turned their brains and transformed them into madmen.

Of all the submarine crimes which dishonoured the name of Germany, one
of the worst was the atrocity of the _Belgian Prince_. It started with
the sound of guns and the whine of shells from which it was impossible
to flee, and as the wireless mast of the _Belgian Prince_ went
overboard her captain rang down to the engine-room and the ship heaved
to. The U.44 approached warily, waiting to strike again at the least
sign of resistance, but seeing that the _Belgian Prince_ had frankly
surrendered a collapsible boat put out from the submarine, which was
now lying idly on the surface, and pulled off to the steamer. Captain
and crew of the steamer were ordered to take to their boats and pull to
the submarine, and, as they rowed to the U.44 under armed escort, the
Germans went down below to open the sea-cocks of the vessel and place
bombs to blow the bottom out of her.

Their work completed, the boarding party of Germans rowed back to the
U.44. Paul Wagenfuhr, the German captain, ordered the crew of the
_Belgian Prince_ to line up on the deck of the submarine. They were
searched for arms, ordered to take their outer clothes off, their
lifebelts were taken from them, and their boats destroyed with axes.
Leaving the seamen partially undressed still standing on the deck, the
Germans entered the conning tower of their boat and shut it after them.

The crew of the _Belgian Prince_ still stood as they were ordered,
wondering what was going to happen to them, expecting that now their
ship and boats had been destroyed the Germans would take them into the
submarine.

Gradually the U.44 began to move on the surface of the sea, and
continued to forge ahead for about ten minutes. Then suddenly, without
warning, just as darkness descended, the submarine dived, and the
forty-three helpless and defenceless men were thrown into the water.
For a time the air was rent with their cries as they fought the eternal
sea for their lives. Then the darkness blotted out the sights and
sounds, and one by one they sank.

It was as deliberate and cold-blooded a murder as was ever
committed--the very epitome of that order of the German Naval
authorities to “destroy without trace.” The destruction of the boats
with axes to cut off all means of escape, the deliberate taking away
of the lifebelts, the search for weapons, the order to the men to take
off their outer clothes, all were thought out, were part of a settled
policy on the part of Captain Wagenfuhr, if not on the part of the
German Higher Command. All were easy to understand. Even the object of
depriving the crew of their clothes, which is obscure to many, becomes
plainer upon consideration. Men carry papers and things in their
pockets which lead to identification. In taking their clothes from the
men, the Germans were also robbing them of their identity, for if any
of the poor victims happened to be found clad only in their shirts
floating dead in the sea, there was practically nothing to furnish a
clue as to who they were, what ship they belonged to, if they belonged
to a ship at all.

But the Germans, in their hurried search of the men, overlooked
the fact that three of them wore lifebelts concealed beneath their
clothing, and these three men, by the aid of their lifebelts, managed
to survive until they were picked up. So the world learned of the
German crime. But for these three witnesses, nothing would have been
known except that the _Belgian Prince_ had vanished with every soul
aboard.

Throughout August 1, 1917, the naval craft were scouring the
neighbourhood for a sign of the U-boat, trying to get on its track. The
sea was empty. Casting farther and farther afield, one of our torpedo
boats sighted a periscope on the afternoon of the next day nearly a
hundred miles from the scene of the outrage. Keen eyes at the other end
of the periscope must have detected the torpedo boat almost as soon as
the torpedo boat saw the periscope, for our naval gunners had time to
get in only a couple of rounds before the periscope disappeared. Racing
to the spot, the torpedo boat dropped a depth charge. But she was too
late: the enemy was gone.

A torpedo fired at a cattle boat proceeding from Ireland to England
furnished the next clue to the enemy submarine. The torpedo missed, and
the cattle boat, calling up patrol boats by wireless, managed to escape.

The U-boat hunted warily, for Paul Wagenfuhr had a definite mission
to perform. His task was to lay a minefield in the way of the cattle
boats coming out of Waterford harbour in order to interfere with the
regular traffic to England. The submarine was equipped with a number of
huge mines and special mine-laying apparatus which enabled her to lay
these death-dealers while she herself was snugly out of sight beneath
the surface. Mostly the mine-laying was done at night, and regularly
about once a month a U-boat would scatter her deadly cargo and pen the
shipping in harbour until the mines were swept up and a passage cleared.

Hardly a ripple stirred the sea when darkness stole down over Waterford
on the evening of August 4. The fisherfolk along the coast, gathering
in the village inn, spent an hour or two smoking and chatting over the
doings of the day. Some were still standing before the doors of their
cottages about midnight when they were startled by the sound of a
terrific explosion at sea, a sound that reverberated over the water in
the absolute silence of the night. Then, faintly, cries were heard.

The cries sent the fishermen speeding to the quay. In a short time
three fishing boats were speeding over the sea, heading in the
direction whence the cries came. None knew what lay ahead of them, none
troubled even to ask. Death might be lurking for them, but that aspect
of the case did not concern them. The sound of the explosion and the
cries still rang in their ears, betokening a disaster which sent the
fishermen on their swift errand of mercy to succour whomsoever they
could find.

Standing alert in the prows of their boats, the fishermen scanned the
sea for signs of wreckage. From time to time they called, and listened
vainly for an answer. They were about 4 miles from shore when a dark
object loomed in the water, a faint cry answered their calls. A minute
later a man was dragged over the side of one of the boats.

The stranger was in a bad state. It was obvious he could not long
survive. Heading about, the fishermen landed the man as quickly as
possible, but stimulants liberally administered had little effect. Just
for a time he rallied and managed to gasp out the information that he
was a member of the crew of the U.44, and that they were laying mines
when a tremendous explosion occurred and shot him up to the surface.
His end came suddenly soon afterwards.

The U.44, laying mines in the stilly night to deal death and destruction
to others, strayed unwittingly into one of our minefields. One of her
mines in floating upwards after its release knocked against one of
ours, and the two exploded with such terrible force that the stern of
the submarine was practically blown away and the men who manned her
were drowned like rats in a trap. Thus Nemesis overtook the Germans.

By Monday, August 6, Commander G. Davis of the Admiralty Salvage
Section was recalled from another salvage case with instructions to
recover the sunken U-boat. All that night the salvage officer and his
men laboured at getting the necessary gear aboard the salvage ship,
and at midnight on the Tuesday they reached Waterford.

Early next day minesweepers were at work clearing a passage for the
salvage vessel. It was dangerous to move in that area at all, as was
manifested during the morning when one of the minesweepers herself
struck a mine and foundered. Without waste of time, Commander Davis
tackled and raised the minesweeper as a preliminary to the important
task of raising the U-boat.

The usual method of finding the wreck by dragging the seabed with
grapnels was adopted, and the submarine was located in 90 feet of
water, lying right athwart the current which, owing to its strength in
this spot, did much to hamper future operations.

The Admiralty was particularly anxious to recover not only the papers
of the submarine, but also the submarine itself. Given the German
submarine, the British naval experts could go over it at their leisure,
see exactly how German design was developing, browse among the latest
German improvements and pick to pieces all the most recent German
ideas. Not that the British Admiralty lagged behind German design, but
it had the good sense not to despise the enemy and to realize it might
be possible to learn something even from Germans.

To issue an order for the sunken submarine to be brought into harbour
was easy. A few words in code tapped out on the wireless and the
thing was done. But the carrying out of the order was beset with
difficulties. Commander Davis decided to adopt one of the best known
methods of raising the wreck by utilizing the lift of the tide to
accomplish his purpose.

One of the outstanding things about salvage experts is their uncanny
ability for seizing on any power that happens to be handy and
compelling it to serve their own ends. There is unlimited power in the
rise and fall of the tides, and the salvage men are clever enough to
harness this power to raise wrecks off the seabed. They literally use
the sea to rob the sea of its prey, and the ways they follow are more
or less those put into practice by Commander Davis, who decided to lift
the submarine in a cradle of cables and carry her ashore.

A mighty steel cable was taken from one salvage boat to another, an end
was secured on each boat, and the cable was dropped until the loop of
it dragged on the bottom. Then this cable was swept under the submarine
and hauled along by the salvage boats until they had dragged it into
position right under the wreck. Directly it was in place, the two ends
were buoyed, and the salvage men began juggling with another cable. One
by one the cables were worked into position, and by the ninth day the
salvage officer had as many cables as he desired lying snugly under the
U-boat from end to end.

The tenth day brought a gale that made further salvage operations
impossible. Dirty weather continued for twenty-four days before the
gale blew itself out. The salvors, desperately anxious as they were to
get on with the job, had perforce to cool their heels ashore while the
seas played battledore and shuttlecock with the buoys at the ends of
the cables.

On September 10, however, the day dawned fine, and soon after daylight
the sweepers were clearing a passage out to the wreck--a task they had
to perform every day any work was undertaken. No sooner was the passage
swept than the salvors brought to the spot one of those modern lifting
vessels which helped to perform many wonderful feats during the war.

In appearance the lifting craft is like a huge, flat barge with a
covered deck. Its hull contains a series of great tanks, or watertight
compartments, which can quickly be flooded or emptied, just as the
salvage expert desires. As the tanks are flooded, so the craft sinks
lower and lower in the water, and as they are pumped out so she rises
again. When the tanks are full, the lifting craft sits 4½ feet lower
in the water, and if she is then attached to a wreck and her tanks be
emptied she is capable of lifting a weight of 1200 tons from the seabed.

[Illustration: IN RAISING THE U-44 AND CARRYING HER TO PORT, COMMANDER
DAVIS, R.N.R., THE NEAREST FIGURE ON THE LIFTING VESSEL, ACCOMPLISHED
A BRILLIANT FEAT. THE PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS THE U-BOAT JUST AFTER SHE WAS
BROUGHT TO PORT AND ALSO GIVES AN EXCELLENT IDEA OF WHAT A LIFTING
VESSEL LOOKS LIKE]

Say that the difference between low tide and high tide is 16 feet. If
the lifting craft be placed in position over a wreck at low tide and
pumped out, the cables between the lifting craft and the wreck being
made taut, as the tide rises, so the lifting craft swings the wreck off
the seabed, and at high tide the wreck lies slung under the lifting
craft over 20 feet from the bottom. She can then be towed inshore until
she grounds again.

[Illustration: HOISTING OUT THE DEADLY CARGO OF MINES FROM THE U-44]

In other words, a vessel floating on the surface is nearest to a
submerged wreck at low water. If the tide happen to rise and fall 20
feet, the vessel will be 20 feet nearer the wreck at low tide than
at high tide. By filling their lifting craft with water the salvors
can bring it another 4½ feet nearer the wreck, and if they then pump
out the water tanks they can raise the wreck 24½ feet from the bottom
at the top of the tide, provided they have craft capable of lifting
a weight as great as that of the wreck. Towing into shallower water
follows, as before described.

Commander Davis placed his lifting vessel in position exactly over the
wrecked submarine, and the cables running under the wreck were brought
up on each side of the surface craft and securely fastened. The tanks
of the lifting craft were blown out with compressed air and, as the
tide began to rise, the lifting craft rose with it and dragged the
U-boat from her bed 90 feet below the surface. Just before the tide was
at the full the salvors began to tow the lifting craft with her burden
inshore and succeeded in covering a distance of three-quarters of a
mile before the submarine grounded again. Next day, at the top of the
tide, the performance was repeated, and the wreck was carried inshore
for another three-quarters of a mile. In two days the salvors thus
gained a mile and a half, and the wreck now rested on the bottom, about
three miles from the beach.

The salvors, making the most of favourable conditions after their
enforced idleness, were toiling until far into the night on the
wreck. They feared a recurrence of bad weather, and their fears were
well-founded. Wednesday brought in its train a strong wind that
increased in strength all the morning and made work impossible. By the
afternoon it was blowing a gale, and so severe was the storm that one
of the salvage lighters was unable to withstand its fury. She started
to founder, and it was only with the utmost difficulty and in the face
of tremendous risk that one of the salvage men managed to get aboard
and bring her safely to harbour.

The calm courage and confidence of the salvors were things to marvel
at. They knew beyond doubt that live mines were aboard, and that these
mines were liable to go off at the slightest jar and blow them all to
pieces, yet they went about their jobs for hour after hour, day after
day, as though such things as mines did not exist. Time after time
the sea bumped the submarine against the bottom and, every time it
happened, death in its most horrible form hovered near them. Once the
submarine dropped sheer from the cables, and no one knows even now why
they were not all wiped off the face of the sea. There was just one
tense moment, then, as nothing happened and their luck held good, they
started to get the submarine back into the slings again.

Another lifting craft was brought on the scene and, picking up the
wreck again, the salvors went ahead with the work tide by tide. In
their passage shorewards they performed the extraordinary feat of
carrying the wreck over a bar of sand that rose steeply for 14 feet--an
operation requiring the greatest skill and delicacy in adjusting the
lifting cables. The nose of the submarine had to be lifted inch by inch
until it attained an angle that enabled it to rise up the slope without
digging its bow into the sand. Had the nose of the craft been lifted
too high, she might easily have slipped backward out of the cables
supporting her, and such a slip might not have ended so happily as the
previous one. However, Commander Davis succeeded in negotiating this
supreme difficulty surely and safely, and his brilliant work was later
rewarded with the Distinguished Service Cross.

In the end, after making twenty-one lifts in twenty days, the salvors
beached the infamous U.44. She proved a golden haul, for the mass of
confidential information recovered from her turned out to be of the
utmost importance. She had on board nine mines, which were cautiously
taken out by Commander Davis and rendered innocuous, besides several
torpedoes and a big collection of shells.

Followed the grim and ghastly task of disinterring the dead. On
September 26, twenty-one bodies were removed under the direction of a
surgeon and carefully searched. One by one the dead Germans were sewn
in canvas and weighted with firebars.

That evening the salvage ship, fitted for the occasion with special
platforms on which the bodies were placed, steamed out to sea. At
midnight she stopped. The salvage men with bared heads stood solemnly
by while the chaplain read the burial service in grave, sonorous tones.
Then, very reverently, the dead were committed to the deep and the
cleansing sea closed over them.




CHAPTER X


Although we live in an enlightened age, superstition is still rife, and
not many people would care to dive for the first time in a submarine
bearing the unlucky number 13. Yet in spite of the fact that sailors
are generally credited with being more superstitious than most people,
no thought of danger crossed the minds of the seventy-three men who
during the war stepped aboard the British submarine K.13 in order
to carry out her trials. She was a wonderful craft, 334 feet long,
just under 27 feet wide amidships, and as she lay at her moorings she
displaced 1880 tons.

Like her sister ships of the same type, she was one of the fastest
submarines afloat, capable on the surface of overtaking most
battleships in order to send them to their doom, able to take her place
with the Grand Fleet and steam along with them at top speed without
being left behind. This wonderful speed was attained by fitting her
with steam turbines in addition to the usual oil engines and electric
motors. Her stumpy funnels folded down when she was diving, and the
introduction of steam made it essential to fit fairly big ventilators.
In order to dive she could take into her ballast tanks 800 tons of
water in four minutes, but with a big submarine over 100 yards long,
all divided into many compartments, diving was a delicate operation
that depended for its safety upon all the men carrying out their duties
instantly. It was necessary that the crew should be quite conversant
with their craft and that there should be perfect team work. But an
absolutely new craft is bound to present some strange features to
her first crew. In this case she was a new development in submarine
practice, and it was probably the fact that the K.13 was unfamiliar
that brought about the ensuing disaster.

Built on the Clyde, she was taken along to the Gareloch to be put
through her paces. The Gareloch was quiet, away from spying eyes, free
of the attentions of the unwelcome enemy submarine, and here the K.13
carried out her surface trials satisfactorily. The conning tower was
closed, the funnels were dropped back flush with the deck, and orders
were given to trim the boat for diving. The watertight doors were shut
and the sea began to flow into the tanks. Then, as the craft submerged,
came disaster. A mighty rush of water swept into the after part of the
ship, drowning instantly the thirty-one men on duty there, and carrying
the K.13 stern downwards to the bottom. It was afterwards discovered
that in diving some of the ventilating scuttles had been left open and
these had flooded the stern of the ship. It was a tragic oversight that
in a moment swept thirty-one men into eternity.

In the forward part of the K.13 forty-two men were imprisoned, held
fast on the seabed by the weight of water in the ship. There was no
trace of panic. Nobody turned a hair. As quietly as though they still
floated serenely on the surface, they stood by and carried out their
commander’s orders.

For hours they strove to get the ship to move, to lighten the tanks
sufficiently to bring her to the surface again. The ship remained fast.
No trace of movement was to be detected. The watertight bulkhead across
the centre of the vessel held death at bay for the moment, but no one
knew how long it could withstand the terrific pressure. At the other
side of the bulkhead lay their dead companions, and the hungry sea was
waiting to engulf the living. Death threatened them from all quarters,
death from drowning, death from asphyxiation owing to the exhaustion of
their air supply, death from starvation even if the air held out. Hour
by hour death came nearer. They realized it only too well, but still
they remained cheerful.

When it was seen that all their efforts were useless, Commander Godfrey
Herbert, D.S.O., who was in command, and Commander F. H. M. Goodhart,
D.S.O., who was aboard to watch the behaviour of the vessel before
taking over the command of K.14, conferred and agreed to try to get to
the surface, 90 feet above their heads, in order to obtain help. They
knew perfectly well that they were probably going to their deaths, that
the odds were so tremendously against them that they were not worth
considering. They did not think of themselves; they thought only of the
forty men caught in that death-trap.

The one way of getting to the surface was through the conning tower.
But the terrific weight of the water above closed the lid so tightly
that the strongest giant in the world could never lift it. To raise
it were beyond the strength of mere human beings. The only way of
accomplishing the feat was to let into the conning tower compressed air
until the pressure of the air equalled the pressure of the sea, and as
the air burst a way upwards the gallant officers hoped to be carried
with it to the surface.

Quietly they entered the conning tower, and partially flooded it. The
compressed air was turned on. Minute by minute the pressure increased,
minute by minute the officers waited, wondering if death or life was to
be theirs, whether their attempt was to succeed or fail.

So great grew the pressure that the air could no longer be kept within
bounds. With incredible strength it burst upwards and Commander
Goodhart was dashed violently against the steel sides of the conning
tower and killed instantly.

By the greatest good fortune Commander Herbert missed the full force of
that deadly upthrust of air. Still he, too, was hurled upwards and, as
the water rushed in and the air gushed out, was carried clean through
the conning tower to the surface.

Already the disappearance of K.13 was arousing anxiety up above, and a
salvage craft had been called to the spot. A couple of men in a boat,
noticing the figure of Commander Herbert as he came up in the Gareloch,
pulled quickly towards him and dragged him over the side. He was almost
dead with exhaustion, and the wonder is that he ever survived that
terrible ordeal.

As soon as he was sufficiently recovered, he gave an account of what
had happened and told how the men were trapped in the submarine. The
urgency of the case was obvious. It needed no stressing.

Then began one of the most thrilling salvage fights in the history of
the human race. It was a fight, not for treasure, but for human life.
It was a race against time, a long tussle with death.

Divers dropped down the shot-ropes to the bed of the Gareloch and began
to search for the sunken submarine. The light was none too good, owing
to the water being fogged with mud, but they were searching only a
short time when the dark hull of the submarine loomed in front of them.
They hurried up to it. One drew an axe from his belt, hammered hard at
the side.

Answering knocks came from within, and those waiting anxiously on the
surface heaved a sigh of relief as the divers telephoned up:

“We’ve found her. They’re still alive!”

Surveying the wreck, the divers discovered that the bow of the
submarine was about 20 feet higher than the stern, which was already
covered by a dozen feet of mud. Wading in slime sometimes up to the
armpits, the divers worked their way round her, then quickly sped to
the surface and reported her position.

At once the experts summed up the situation. The K.13 with her stern
full of water, covered up aft by a dozen feet of mud, was too heavy to
raise bodily. She was well over 3000 tons, and up to that time nothing
like this weight had ever been lifted from the seabed. The only thing
to be done, the sole hope of saving the imprisoned men, was to strive
to lift the nose of the craft to the surface while leaving the stern
resting on the bottom. Nothing else was possible.

“The first thing to do is to get through supplies of food and air to
them,” the salvage officer remarked.

The divers slid down to the bottom and, disregarding all thought
of their own safety, laboured hard and long to connect up with the
entombed men. They must have broken the endurance record of the world,
for one worked for over twelve hours continuously on the seabed without
taking food, without resting. Time was too precious for them to waste
a second. They realized the risk, but they accepted it as gladly as
Commander Goodhart ran the risk which led to his death. They worked
until they were ill and dizzy, floundering in the mud, wrestling with
giant steel cables.

Forty men were depending on them for their lives. The thought nerved
the divers to prodigious things. It was essential to communicate with
the imprisoned men, to let them know that everything possible was
being done for them, to strive to sustain their spirits. Commander Kay
of the Salvage Section found the way. Sending down a submarine flash
lamp, he instructed the divers to rig it up in front of the periscope.
By peering into this instrument the prisoners were thus able to read
the messages that were flashed to them in Morse Code, and were made to
understand that they were not entirely cut off from the world after
all. With many a struggle, the divers managed to open a valve in the
hull and to attach a pipe through which food such as Bovril, bottles of
hot soup and chocolate, as well as life-giving air, were passed from
the surface. All this entailed long hours of endeavour.

The coolness of the men in the submarine was almost unbelievable.

“Send us down a pack of cards to while away the time!” one shouted up
the pipe.

The cards were procured and sent down, and these British seamen played
cards while Death peeped over their shoulders.

Up to then the men had been carefully conserving their supplies of
compressed air, not knowing how long they would need them to keep
alive. Now that air was being pumped from the surface, they were able
to use what was left of their own supplies to blow all the oil out of
the forward tanks. This lightened their craft considerably.

After a terrific struggle, the divers managed to fix mighty steel
cables under the nose of the submarine. Salvage craft and lifting
vessels strained away. For a time they made no impression. Then slowly
the grip of the mud began to relax and the bow of the submarine,
lightened by the blowing out of the oil tanks, began to rise nearer and
nearer the surface until, about midnight, it broke clear into view.

It was a weird sight. Great arc lamps lit the scene, and under
their glare the salvage men attacked the steel hull of the K.13
with oxy-acetylene blow-pipes. Every one was desperately anxious,
afraid that the submarine might slip. Under the intense heat of the
blow-pipes, the steel grew soft and melted. Gradually, laboriously, the
salvors burned their way through the stout outer plates.

[Illustration: HISTORY REVEALS NO MORE THRILLING RESCUE THAN THAT OF
THE SURVIVORS OF THE K.13 AFTER SHE HAD BEEN AT THE BOTTOM FOR TWO AND
A HALF DAYS. THIS RARE PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS THE BOW OF THE K.13 AFTER IT
HAD BEEN HAULED TO THE SURFACE TO ENABLE THE MEN TO BE CUT OUT]

They now made an onslaught on the inner hull, directing the flame on
the steel shell. The metal glowed and flowed. A rush of air leaped
upwards from the interior of the vessel and blew out the roaring flame
of the blow-pipe.

“Get us some matches!” the divers called to those above.

Under their very noses a hand from inside the ship suddenly slid
through the hole in the metal, the fingers holding up a box of matches.

“Here you are,” said a cheery voice, and the divers knew that all was
well.

Another period of strenuous endeavour and the hole in the metal was big
enough for a man to squeeze through. Then, as the forty prisoners were
helped and carried to freedom, the cheers of the salvage men echoed to
the shore.

Never will men be nearer death than those saved from the K.13. For
fifty-seven hours they were imprisoned in the sunken submarine at the
bottom of the sea, for two and a half days they lived with death at
their elbows, not knowing when the end would come. Their ordeal has
never been equalled, and their rescue is one of the most thrilling
deeds in the annals of sea salvage.

Barely were they rescued when a storm arose. The cables holding up the
K.13 snapped asunder, and the submarine plunged again to the bottom.
The men had been cut out not a moment too soon.

In due course followed the salvage of the unlucky K.13. It was effected
solely by the use of compressed air, which was pumped down one pipe
into a compartment until it had driven all the water away through
another pipe to the surface. In this way she was pumped out compartment
by compartment, but even when all the water was expelled she still
stuck in the mud. For two or three days the salvors strove to drag her
from the clinging mud, but not until she was freed of the overlying
silt by sand-pumps did she bob to the surface just like a cork. Proving
little the worse for her adventure, she was put into commission again
under another number, so the unlucky K.13 vanished for ever from the
British Naval Lists.




CHAPTER XI


Quite as thrilling as the experience of the men who went down in the
K.13 was the adventure which befell the crew of an American submarine,
the S.5, and it is doubtful if any popular novelist, with all his
imagination and powers of invention, ever thought out a more remarkable
situation than that in which these American sailors found themselves.

The American submarine concerned had been travelling on the surface,
when the commander gave the order to prepare to dive. Down she went,
and for a time glided unseen in the depths. Then her commander got
ready to bring her up once more.

Of a sudden something went wrong. The air failed to blow out the
forward tanks. The men felt the floor slip away under their feet as
they rose. They were thrown on their backs, on their faces, rolling
sideways in all directions. There was no shock, not the slightest jar.
The submarine just swung like a pendulum, and when the officers and
men managed to disentangle themselves from the various positions into
which they had been thrown, they found the bulkheads had changed places
with the floor of their craft.

The submarine was actually hanging perpendicularly, bow downward, with
just the end of the stern showing above the surface. It was a terrible
plight to be in, and every man aboard recognized at once that he was
face to face with death. Their only hope was that a vessel would sight
them and manage to rescue them before their air gave out, yet there was
so little of the stern peeping above the surface of the sea that the
odds against it being noticed were tremendous.

Most submarines nowadays are equipped with a portable telephone which
can be floated to the surface, where it is supported by a buoy. This
telephone was designed for just such an emergency, and the commander
quickly uncoiled the cable and sent the telephone floating upward.

Followed a most nerve-racking experience. For hour after hour they
swung about under the sea, rocking this way and that, spinning
sometimes like a top, ringing on the telephone at regular intervals,
and waiting tensely for the sound of a voice to tell them that they
were found. All day they waited without any reply. Air was being used
up every minute, and death by suffocation was not pleasant to think
upon. Even worse was the thought that at any moment the submarine might
cease to swing, and would plunge to the bottom like a stone, fracture
her plates and wipe them all out in a few seconds.

Twenty-four hours passed. All through the darkness of night until dawn
those insistent signals went up to the telephone and a sailor waited
tensely for an answering voice. None came.

Another day of suspense began. The men were like prisoners in a
condemned cell, not knowing whether they were going to their doom or
whether a reprieve was coming. All the time they were striving to find
out what was wrong, struggling to right their craft again. The task
was beyond them. Their efforts were of no avail. Still they rocked
and swung like a pendulum in the broad Atlantic. It was a nightmare
situation. For men to remain so strong and yet so helpless was
maddening. So the dreadful hours crept by.

An American transport, the _General Goethals_, was steaming down to
Panama when one of the men aboard thought he heard the sound of a
telephone bell.

“What’s that?” he said.

His companion looked at him, “What?”

“Sounded like a telephone,” said the first man.

His shipmate was about to retort when he, too, heard the sound of the
bell.

“There it is again,” said the first man.

“Sure!” answered the companion.

Other men came crowding up.

“What’s wrong?” they inquired.

“Didn’t you hear it?” asked the first man.

“What?”

“The telephone!”

At that moment the sound came to them again. They looked at each other.
Some wondered if they were bewitched. They were far out on the open
sea, and it seemed impossible that a telephone bell could be ringing
there.

More and more men crowded round, and more and more heard the bell.
There was no mistaking it. It was certainly a telephone bell. So plain
was it, so insistent, that at last the captain signalled down to stop
the engines.

Half a dozen seamen took their places in a boat. Outwards it swung from
the side of the ship and a moment later sat with a splash in the sea.
Rowing in the direction of the mysterious sound, the sailors at last
sighted the buoy with the telephone attached. The stern of the craft
was barely visible.

Imagine the transports of those unfortunates when voices hailed them
cheerfully from above! They had been swinging about in their awful
predicament for thirty-five hours when the telephone was picked up, and
air was running so short that they had only enough to last them for an
hour or two longer.

Instantly the men below made clear their peril. The troopship flashed
out her wireless call for help.

Not a ship within radius heard the call.

Then cropped up another of those strange tricks of Fate. An American
schoolboy, named Moore, keen on wireless long before the wireless boom
set in, was experimenting with his home-made set when he picked up the
call. Proudly he sent out this message of life and death on his own
transmitter. The nearest naval depot picked it up and destroyers with
special plant aboard were hurried at full speed to the rescue.

Meanwhile the captain of the transport had managed with the greatest
difficulty to get strong hawsers round the submarine, lashing them
tightly to his transport in order to keep the stern of the submarine
above water. Then his engineers after a deal of labour cut a small hole
in the steel skin and began to pump fresh air in to the prisoners.

This was the situation when the destroyers appeared on the scene.
Immediately they fixed more hawsers round the submarine to prevent her
from slipping to the bottom, and with the special appliances at their
command they managed to cut through the rivets and force out one of the
plates of the up-ended craft.

One by one the twenty-seven men and their commanding officer scrambled
through to the open air again, after being imprisoned for forty hours
in that crazy submarine swinging about under the sea. Thus a telephone
ringing in the open sea, where no telephone could possibly be expected,
and a boy playing with his wireless set were instrumental in saving
the lives of an entire crew after a most terrible experience.

Not so fortunate were the crew of a British submarine which, like the
K.13, met with a mishap that sent her plunging to the bottom. All were
killed except one man, who with his own lips afterwards related how he
had battled with death and won his way back to life after one of the
most amazing adventures that have ever befallen man.

He happened to be in the engine-room when he perceived the water
pouring in through the conning tower in one mighty cascade. In a flash
he realized that the boat was doomed. Rushing along the engine-room he
shouted at the top of his voice to warn his comrades in the other parts
of the ship. The sea swept into the engine-room after him. In a moment
the floor was flooded.

Fast as he moved, the water was faster. Before he could get out, he
heard the sinister sound of the engine-room door slamming. He turned
and thrust his shoulder against it. It would not budge. He was trapped
in the engine-room of a sunken submarine! The rush of water had closed
the bulkhead door, and the space beyond was completely flooded, making
it impossible for the imprisoned man to move the door. Even if he had
succeeded in opening the door, it would have been merely a matter of
seconds before the hungry sea drowned him.

He stood to compose his thoughts, to make up his mind what to do. More
than once he had imagined himself trapped in just such a manner, and he
was well aware that if he could succeed in equalizing the pressure of
the air inside with the water outside he might get out of the submarine
and escape.

But to work things out in theory is much easier than to carry them out
in practice, especially if your life depends on your doing everything
exactly as it should be done, when the least little slip means death.

The man reached out his hand to grasp a metal lever. His fingers closed
on it. He recoiled from a severe electric shock. He touched something
else, and again felt the jolt of electricity. His knee knocked against
one of the engines and he felt a big shock in his leg. Very gingerly
he put his finger on another metal object, and once more experienced
the sensation of electricity. Everything around him was charged with
electricity, and it was some time before he realized that the flooding
of the engine-room had short-circuited the electric current.

Now another factor crept in to make the situation still more desperate.
The sea water, flooding the electric batteries, began to set free
chlorine gas. The smell of it grew stronger, made him gasp. So to the
risks of drowning and suffocating was added the danger of gas poisoning.

In like circumstances few men could have kept their nerve. Most men
would have abandoned themselves to their fate, would have given up all
hope in the face of so many perils. But not this British sailor. With
all his strength he began to fight to get out of the submarine, to put
his theories into practice in order to save his life. He must have
possessed tremendous will power, wonderful courage and determination.

He tried the torpedo hatch, to make quite sure that the pressure above
was such that he could not shift it. He might have been pushing against
Mount Everest itself. Wasting no time, he set the bolt of the hatch so
that the merest touch would release it, then he opened a valve to let
in more water. As the water flooded the compartment, the air in it was
compressed more and more. Higher and higher crept the water, greater
and greater became the pressure of the air until he felt he could stand
it no longer. He slipped the bolt of the hatch, and as he felt it give
to the pressure he slipped a hand on the outside. A gust of air swept
out, held up the cover momentarily, then the great metal lid slammed
down again, crushing all the fingers of the brave man’s hand.

Maimed though he was, his courage remained unshaken. Giving up his
idea of escaping by raising the air pressure, he determined on the
most desperate expedient of all. He made up his mind to flood the
compartment completely, when the pressure of the water inside and
outside would be equal, and he could open the hatch--if he were not
drowned in the attempt.

Opening more valves, he scrambled on top of the engines and watched
the water pouring in. It rose to the hatch coamings, till only his
face was above the surface. Then with a quick heave of his shoulder he
pressed against the hatch. The imprisoned air burst out and the water
rushed in, sweeping over his face and head. Holding his breath, he
thrust again at the hatch, which luckily passed the vertical and fell
backwards with a clang. Then he struck out desperately towards the
surface.

A destroyer steaming along saw a tiny patch of white in the water.
It was the face of the hero of the submarine. He was to all intents
lifeless, practically dead. Wasting not a moment, they forced the water
from him and after a hard struggle succeeded in bringing back to life
one of the bravest men who ever breathed.

Not without its amusing side was the adventure which befell three
unhappy men on an American naval submarine. She was engaged in making a
series of cinematograph pictures, and orders were given to prepare for
a very rapid dive, known as a crash dive.

Two cinema men were still standing on the deck with their cameras, and
the commander was in the top half of the conning tower, which was,
of course, open. To their consternation the boat began to submerge.
Realizing that there had been some misunderstanding, and thinking only
of saving his ship and crew from a terrible disaster, the commander,
who had no time to enter the ship, shouted to the men to close the
hatch under his feet.

It was slammed not a moment too soon, and the commander inside the
conning tower was carried beneath the surface. His first thought was
to escape. He scrambled upwards towards the opening. Something stopped
him, held him fast, kept him a prisoner.

What had happened was that a projection in the conning tower had caught
in his open pocket and was holding him down.

Struggling desperately, and swallowing a deal of water, he managed to
tear himself free and kick up to the top. Gulping in the fresh air, he
looked around him. One cinema man was swimming strongly some little
distance away. Of the other, there was no trace.

Just as the commander was beginning to give the other man up for
lost, the submarine herself reappeared. The commander gazed at her
in astonishment, hardly believing his own eyes. With her came the
half-drowned cinema man, his arms thrown round his camera and the
wireless mast, and clinging to them like grim death.

“What the dickens did you go down with her for?” asked the amazed
officer, when he was taken aboard.

“I couldn’t swim a stroke, so I thought it safer to stick to the ship,”
explained the camera man naively.

Luckily for him the crew instantly saw that something was wrong and
brought the boat up at once.

So recently as the last days of October, 1923, two American seamen,
Henry Breault and Lawrence Brown, were immured for thirty hours in a
submarine at the bottom of a bay near the Panama Canal. Breault most
heroically dashed into the ship as she was sinking to see if he could
assist anybody who happened to be within. He found Brown asleep in the
torpedo-room, and they just succeeded in closing the door when the O.5
went down in 40 feet of water.

There was not a morsel of food aboard, not a drop of drinking water.
First the lights failed, then the batteries exploded and caused a fire
which blazed furiously for some time.

Meantime, a third man, Charles Butler, caught in the engine-room, took
refuge in an air pocket, stripped off his clothes and made for the
hatchway. Emulating the plucky fellow who escaped from the British
submarine, he thrust open the hatch. So enormous was the pressure
that he was blown right out of the water, breaking the surface like a
leaping salmon. He was soon picked up, after being at the bottom for
eight minutes.

In three hours the other two prisoners heard the knocks of a diver and
knew that attempts were being made to rescue them. Nine hours later
they felt the submarine begin to move upward. For a little time she
continued to rise, then their hopes were dashed by a sharp snapping
sound and they felt their craft fall with a bump to the bottom again.

The ticking of the clock for hour after hour, the dreadful dragging of
the hands round the face of it nearly drove them distracted. They could
not bear to watch it longer. There they sat, wondering, hoping.

Another sixteen hours passed before they felt the submarine again begin
to rise, moving so slowly that both men were consumed with anxiety. The
maddening clock ticked on as the craft was wound up. Water splashed on
the deck, the pent-up air gushed out, footsteps sounded and they knew
deliverance was at hand. Breault pushed open the hatch and both men
stood blinking blindly in the dazzling sunshine.

Their heads reeled. So sick and ill were they owing to the sudden
change of pressure that grave danger was only averted by quickly
placing them under the same pressure in another submarine, and then
slowly reducing the pressure in accordance with the recognized diving
practice. Thus they came unscathed through their dreadful trial.

The K.5 during battle practice with the British Fleet in 1921 sank
in such deep water that no attempt was made to recover her. But the
American naval experts, when a similar disaster overtook the submarine
F.4 at Honolulu in March, 1915, were so anxious to find out what had
happened that they determined to do their utmost to retrieve the
sunken craft.

Going out for a practice spin, the F.4 quietly submerged and was
never seen again. Boats were soon in search of her, and the result of
dragging operations led to her discovery on the bottom outside Honolulu
harbour in just over 50 fathoms, or 304 feet, of water.

Unhesitatingly the greatest salvage experts in the world would have
pronounced her lost beyond recovery. She was 100 feet deeper than the
British record dive of 210 feet, a depth which no other divers in the
world had ever reached, and she was far deeper than any craft hitherto
lifted from the seabed.

The experts of the American Navy, aware of these and other facts, knew
that they desired to achieve the impossible, but instead of admitting
that it could not be done they straightway set about doing it. A big
rise and fall in the tide would have been of tremendous assistance to
them, but at Honolulu the tide rises and falls only 18 inches. It was
of no help to them at all. So they made their plans to haul her up
bodily by winches and tow her into shallower water until she grounded;
while for the last stage of the journey into the harbour they placed
their faith in six pontoons, each sheathed in a jacket of timber 4
inches thick to prevent the cables from cutting it. This stout timber
casing successfully protected the pontoons from all damage when they
were brought into play. Nor was it unnecessary, for, incredible as it
may seen, the chafing of the submarine during a sudden gale quickly
wore through the mighty steel cables as she rubbed them against the
bottom.

It was in connection with the cables that the greatest diving feat in
all history was accomplished. The cables were swept underneath the
submarine by surface craft in the usual way. But the salvors could
not be sure that the cables were exactly where they ought to be. With
cables too near the bow and the stern, the submarine would just fold up
as she was lifted and break her back, the two halves, falling apart,
probably defying recovery. Even if they could be raised, the damage
would be so great that all traces of the original accident would be
destroyed and the experts could never learn why the submarine had
foundered.

The one way of finding out whether the cables were properly in place
was to send down divers to see. A diver in Lake Huron in the ’nineties,
trying to recover sunken treasure, was crushed to pulp at a depth
of 198 feet; even a diving bell, operating later on the same wreck,
was unable to withstand the pressure, consequently it seemed like
sentencing a man to death to order him to dive to a depth of 304 feet.
However, the cleverest diving expert in the American Navy pondered
over the matter and, in the light of recent experiments, considered it
could be done provided all the rules were most rigidly observed. The
finest divers in the American Navy, men who had been specially trained,
were thereupon sent to Honolulu to carry out this gigantic task.

The leading diver struggled into his suit. For aught he knew, he would
never come up alive; the enormous pressure of the water might squeeze
his unprotected legs and body and arms until it had squeezed all the
blood in his body through his eyes and ears and nose and mouth. He knew
that the metal helmet protected his head from the sea pressure, which
was the reason why the nip of the sea drives all the blood in the body
up to the head. But he smiled cheerfully as his helmet was screwed into
place.

A few moments later he was sliding down the shot-rope. Down and down
he went, the sea pressing heavier and heavier on his body. Up on the
surface the air pumps heaved quickly to pass down to him the air that
would prevent him from being squeezed to death.

Reaching the wreck at last, he found the pressure so enormous that it
was almost impossible for him to lift his hand in the water. To move
at all was really like pushing his way through some solid substance.
Nevertheless, he managed to survey the wreck and was slowly drawn up
again to safety, after spending ten minutes at the bottom.

Several times he and his fellow divers penetrated to these startling
depths to see that adjustments were properly made. Then, just when
everything seemed all right, the sense of impending tragedy gripped the
watchers on the surface. They had drawn up one gallant diver to 200
feet, when he found that his lines were entangled and that he was stuck
fast. It was a fearful situation. For a diver to be caught at this
great depth is almost certain death.

Relays of divers were sent down to his aid, and for two hours they
struggled and fought to release their comrade who was dangling there
at death’s door 200 feet below the surface of the sea. In the end they
disentangled him, and he was drawn up in a most critical state. Double
pneumonia struck him down, and for months his life was despaired of.
Eventually a fine constitution and tireless nursing enabled him to pull
round and regain his lost health. But it was a desperately close shave.
That any man could reach this depth and still live is little short of a
miracle.

Eventually the ill-fated F.4 was towed into harbour. In raising her
according to plan, the American Navy broke three records. By attaining
the incredible depth of 304 feet, the American divers wrested the
diving record from the British Navy; that unfortunate diver who was
forced to remain at 200 feet for two hours, without fatal results or
permanent injury, created another record; and their third record was
achieved by lifting the submarine from the greatest depth at which any
wreck has ever been raised. It is impossible to praise the divers and
salvage officers too highly for these magnificent feats.

If the American Navy has robbed the British Navy of the diving record,
the British Salvage Section still has a few more records left. For
instance, when a German submarine was put down in 190 feet of water
off our rocky northern coast, the British Admiralty calmly ordered the
Salvage Section to bring the submarine to port.

In the face of a definite order of this sort, there was nothing to be
said. The Director of Salvage hastened to the spot, and sent divers
down to survey the wreck and if possible recover the papers. They found
an arm protruding from the partly-closed conning tower, the fingers,
stiffened by death, clutching as in a vice some of the secret orders
which the commander was endeavouring to cast away when he saw that
capture or destruction was inevitable. Before he could rid himself of
the papers, the submarine plunged to her doom and the cover of the
conning tower slammed down on his arm.

With an effort, the divers unlocked those clammy fingers and took the
papers. Then they managed to raise the lid of the conning tower and
enter the ship, although it was practically at the limit of the depth
at which divers can possibly work. Their submarine lamps lit the gloom
of the interior, and a search brought to light the log and other
papers, which were sent post haste to the Admiralty.

The order to take the wreck to port was much more difficult to obey.
She was down on such a rocky coast in such a position that lifting her
in the ordinary way was quite out of the question. Commodore Young
thereupon decided to do what had never been done with a craft of this
size since the world began, that is, raise her from the depths by sheer
mechanical power. The cables were swept underneath, and divers saw that
they were properly in place. Then the powerful machinery installed in
the salvage ships began to work, and slowly but surely the great steel
cables, thicker than a man’s wrist, were wound up until the U-boat was
within a few feet of the surface. It was an extraordinary feat to lift
this wrecked submarine, weighing nearly 1000 tons--practically four
times the weight of the American F.4--from a depth of 190 feet by the
sheer power of machinery.

The salvors crowned this remarkable effort by carrying the submarine in
her cradle of slings nearly 40 miles round the coast, which was another
record the British Salvage Section made that month. Just as they got
her to the mouth of the harbour, she slipped from the slings and went
to the bottom again. Picking her up once more, the salvage men towed
her into dock so that the submarine experts could dissect her.

Another astonishing feat performed by British salvage men was the
raising of a collier that sank right in the fairway at Rosyth. The
danger of other ships striking her and piling up was so great that her
removal became imperative. To pick her up in the approved style by
sweeping cables under her and using lifting craft to swing her clear of
the bottom was the obvious way of clearing the channel. But she was a
dead weight of 3000 tons, or about 1000 tons heavier than the heaviest
wreck raised by such methods.

If her cargo had been bales of cotton or something easy to handle,
divers would have gone down and removed part of her burden in order to
lighten her. But coal is about the worst thing in the world to deal
with under water. Consequently the salvors tackled the job with a brace
of lifting craft, which enabled them to master 2400 tons, and a couple
of mighty pontoons, which provided the power to lift the remainder.
Everything was fixed, and as the tide rose the salvors managed to
drag the wreck out of the way of other ships, and eventually, after a
terrific fight lasting a considerable time, succeeded in beaching her.

Commodore Sir Frederick Young also mastered a weight of about 3000 tons
in lifting Captain Fryatt’s ship, the _Brussels_, at Ostend, and these
two feats performed by British salvage experts constitute a world’s
record for the greatest deadweight ever raised in recent times from the
bottom of the sea.




CHAPTER XII


The resources of the salvage experts in fighting for the life of a ship
are amazing. They will cheerfully run the gravest risks, do the most
extraordinary things to get her into port. But that they, whose avowed
aim in life is to save ships, should deliberately sink them, savours of
something akin to madness. Yet occasions arise when prompt decisions
have to be made, when the salvage officer is literally between the
devil and the deep sea. An outbreak of fire aboard a ship places him
in this quandary. Damage to a ship by water can be remedied, but fire,
once it gets a hold, consumes ship and cargo. Of two evils, the salvage
man chooses the lesser, and if there is no other way of combating the
fire he will calmly sink the ship as a preliminary to saving her.

[Illustration: A GIANT OIL TANKER WHICH BLAZED FOR DAYS, BLOTTING OUT
THE HEAVENS WITH DENSE CLOUDS OF SMOKE. THE SALVAGE MEN WERE EVENTUALLY
COMPELLED TO SINK HER TO PUT OUT THE FIRE]

More than once during the war British salvage officers had hot times
with burning ships, and one of their most thrilling adventures sprang
from a collision between two oil tankers called the _War Knight_ and
the _O. B. Jennings_. A big convoy of ships was proceeding along
the English Channel in the early hours of March 24, 1918. It was pitch
dark, and the ships with their attendant destroyers were steaming at
full speed without lights in order to dodge the attentions of German
submarines. Too late the officers on the _War Knight_ saw a dark shape
appear immediately in their course. A moment afterwards came a terrific
impact. The bow of the _War Knight_ cut into the side of the _O. B.
Jennings_, bursting one of the mighty tanks full of naphtha. It flashed
into one gigantic flame which instantly blotted out most of the crew
of the _War Knight_, and in a minute or two a Niagara of naphtha from
the fractured tank was setting the whole sea ablaze. The one or two men
still alive on the flaming _War Knight_ frantically hurled themselves
overboard, to meet a terrible end in the fiery sea. It was an awful
sight.

The fire leaped to the skies, while the men of the _O. B. Jennings_,
in that moment’s respite before the blazing naphtha floated round to
the other side of their ship, rushed to their boats and got away. But
Captain Nordstrom and his officers stuck to their ship, though she was
belching flames and every moment her other tanks threatened to explode
and blow her sky high. Then a British destroyer speeded into the full
glare of the light, and one by one the little band of heroes jumped to
safety. The captain, leaping last, slipped between the two vessels to
what seemed certain death, and for a space it seemed that he, too,
was to lose his life, but the prompt measures of the British sailors
eventually led to his rescue.

By now the two ships were blazing like funeral pyres in a sea of
flames. Great billows of smoke rolled from the stricken tankers in the
dawn, blotting out the heavens, looking almost solid enough to stand
on. With incredible pluck a naval officer, watching his opportunity,
plunged into the inferno aboard the _War Knight_ and made fast a mighty
steel towing hawser. Jumping back to his ship, he took in tow the
flaming tanker which had now drifted right into one of our minefields.
It was a gallant piece of work. British mines were all around him,
waiting to blow him to pieces, but regardless of danger he kept his
course. Once a big explosion shook the stricken vessel as she struck a
mine. Luckily, the ship towing her escaped, and the salvage officer,
seeing at last that it was not possible to prevent the tanker from
burning out, decided to sink her by gunfire on a sandy bottom where
there was at least the prospect of salving her later on. Never again,
however, did the _War Knight_ sail the seas. She proved a total loss.

[Illustration: A STRIKING PHOTOGRAPH, TAKEN FROM THE AIR, OF THE
CAMOUFLAGED TROOPSHIP ONWARD LYING ON HER SIDE BY FOLKESTONE QUAY AFTER
SHE HAD BEEN SCUTTLED TO PUT OUT A FIRE. THE SALVAGE SHIP IS ANCHORED
JUST OFF THE ENDS OF HER FUNNELS, WHILE THE RAILWAY LINES ON THE QUAY
ARE SEEN IN THE FOREGROUND, THE UPRIGHT PILES OF THE QUAY ITSELF HAVING
THE APPEARANCE OF THE SLEEPERS OF A RAILWAY TRACK]

The _O. B. Jennings_ was also taken in tow and brought to Sandown
Bay in safety. Day after day the fire continued to rage in her, vast
clouds of smoke continued to foul the heavens. Nothing could quench the
flames, and at the end of ten days the Admiralty salvage officer
gave instructions for a torpedo boat to shell the tanker until she sank.

[Illustration: THE ONWARD WITH HER FUNNELS CUT OFF AND DECK HOUSES
REMOVED. NOTE ONE OF HER PROPELLERS JUST SHOWING ABOVE THE WATER AND
ALSO THE LIFTING CRAFT BETWEEN HER AND THE SALVAGE STEAMER]

It was a desperate remedy, but it proved a brilliant solution of the
puzzling problem. As she went down, the sea just overwhelmed the fire
and allowed the salvage men to tackle the wreck. Divers tapped the
undamaged tanks of the ship, pumps were connected up and 8000 tons of
oil taken from the sunken vessel. Then the places where the shells had
pierced the hull were repaired and the _O. B. Jennings_ was pumped out
and floated into dock.

A patch was put on her wound, and she set out for the United States;
but, as ill-luck would have it, she was caught by another German
submarine less than 100 miles from New York and sent to the bottom for
good, so all the efforts of the British salvage men were wasted in the
end. That collision cost Great Britain just £1,000,000.

Another outstanding case where the ship was deliberately scuttled in
order to put out a fire was that of the troopship _Onward_, which
carried many thousands of troops to France. She was lying about
midnight at the quay at Folkestone when flames suddenly burst from her,
owing, it is thought, to a thermit bomb secreted by a spy. She blazed
up furiously, threatening destruction to the whole quay and endangering
our communications with France. The destruction of the quay at that
time would have been a disaster compared with which the loss of the
steamer was as nothing, so quickly the decision was made to sink the
_Onward_ by opening her sea-cocks. This was done, and the fire went out
in a venomous hiss as the sea swept in.

Unluckily, in sinking, the ship turned over on her side, and before
she could be raised she had to be set upright. As she lay, she was
preventing a much-wanted berth of the quay from being used, so the
Salvage Section was given a month to get her out of the way.

Masts, funnels and various cabins were cut off the upright deck to
clear the vessel of all her top hamper. Then the salvors, toiling night
and day, built enormously strong tripods out of huge baulks of timber
on the quay. By the time these were finished, lifting vessels were
brought on the spot and moored close to the overturned ship. Cables
were taken from the lifting vessels down under the keel of the ship and
attached to the visible upper side of the hull, so the lifting craft,
in straining upward, would tend to pull her over. Other cables were
made fast to the deck and carried across the tops of the tripods on the
quay.

[Illustration: FIVE RAILWAY ENGINES HAULING THE OVERTURNED TROOPSHIP
UPRIGHT. THIS EXTRAORDINARY TUG OF WAR BETWEEN A WRECK AND RAILWAY
LOCOMOTIVES IS UNIQUE IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD]

Then came the touch of genius on the part of the Director of Salvage
which makes the case unique. Five powerful railway locomotives steamed
on to the quay and came to a stop by the sunken ship. The ends of the
cables were made fast to the locomotives, and there followed one of
the strangest tugs of war in the world between railway engines and a
sunken ship. The five railway engines began to pull, and they pulled
and hauled and strained away until they dragged the _Onward_ upright.
Pumping out soon followed, and within a month the scuttled troopship
was raised and in dry dock. It was a difficult and novel feat,
admirably performed.

[Illustration: PUMPING OUT THE SUNKEN TROOPSHIP IN ORDER TO RAISE HER
AFTER SHE HAD BEEN PULLED UPRIGHT BY THE RAILWAY ENGINES]

It was by no means the first overturned ship that Commodore Sir
Frederick Young had dealt with, for some years ago he righted and
raised H.M.S. _Gladiator_ after the _St. Paul_, of the American Line,
had crashed into her during a blinding snowstorm on April 25, 1908, and
sunk her in the Solent. The British Admiralty called in the assistance
of the Liverpool Salvage Association, who sent Captain F. W. Young, as
he was in those days, to deal with the case.

Up to that time it was as gigantic a task as any one had ever
undertaken. There the cruiser lay on her side, 6000 tons of dead
weight, on the sandy bed of the Solent, a fifty-foot hole ripped in her
hull, several of her boiler rooms exposed to the sea, her grey plates
just showing above the water.

The salvage expert was not a bit dismayed. He began to lighten the
ship in every possible way. Her guns were taken out and salved. Then
uncouth divers got busy with pneumatic chisels and cut off the funnels
and ventilators and other deck fittings. Every hole in the deck was
covered with wood and made watertight. Only the gash in her side, where
the thick armour plates had folded down like tinfoil, was left open,
and this in turn was dealt with by the divers, who carefully blasted
away the ragged plates to prevent them from impeding the righting of
the ship.

Seven enormous pontoons, each 50 feet long, were made and lashed to
the wreck. Two strong tripods were built up from the side of the hull,
so that cables attached to the ends of the masts could be carried over
them and hauled on by a couple of tugs when the time came to right the
ship. The cables from the masts ran straight up in the air to the tops
of the tripods, and when tugs began pulling, the tendency was to drag
the ship over into an upright position. Inch by inch the _Gladiator_
was turned after a terrific struggle, helped by 280 tons of iron
which the salvors piled on the keel to press it down while the tugs
were hauling up. The fight was severe, and even when she was righted
her upper deck was still several feet under water, so the salvors
determined to cover it with a huge coffer-dam built of strong planks.
This coffer-dam looked like a great deck-house built up from the sides
of the ship, and as it was made watertight and pumped out, it helped to
pull the vessel to the surface.

[Illustration:

    _By courtesy of the Merritt & Chapman Wrecking Company_

A VERY STRIKING VIEW OF THE OVERTURNED LINER ST. PAUL, WHICH PROVIDED
SOME DIFFICULT PROBLEMS FOR THE AMERICAN SALVAGE EXPERTS]

Five months of strenuous work saw the pumps conquering the sea. The
cruiser rose sluggishly, the tugs caught hold of her, and nightfall
saw the little procession creeping into Portsmouth harbour. The cost of
raising the wrecked cruiser was £50,500, and ultimately the Admiralty
sold her to the shipbreakers for £15,125.

[Illustration:

    _By courtesy of the Merritt & Chapman Wrecking Company_

TEN YEARS TO THE VERY DAY AFTER THE LINER ST. PAUL SANK H.M.S.
GLADIATOR IN THE SOLENT, SHE HERSELF TURNED OVER AND SANK AT HER QUAY
IN NEW YORK. SAILORS MAY BE SEEN MAKING A PROMENADE OF HER HULL THE
NEXT DAY]

The end of the _Gladiator_ was the beginning of a dramatic sequel, a
sequel so remarkable that it borders almost on the uncanny, raising
once more the question whether there is anything in those legends of
ghostly ships, like the _Flying Dutchman_, flitting about the seas
until they are avenged or their long quest is over. For year after year
the _St. Paul_ sped along the sea lanes between America and England,
thrusting through fog and shine and storm. Then the Great War demanded
her conversion into a troopship, and early in the spring of 1918 the
work was completed.

On April 25, 1918, ten years to the very day that she sank the
_Gladiator_, the tugs were manœuvring her beside her quay in New York
when she slowly began to heel over. Men gazed on her with amazement
as she heeled more and more. Her masts touched the quay and crumpled
like twigs, and as they smashed she went down on her side, even as the
_Gladiator_ had gone down in the Solent. In a short time 2000 tons of
liquid mud gushed through her open portholes, which had now taken the
place of her keel, and the salvage experts of the Merritt and Chapman
Wrecking Company found her settled comfortably in a dozen feet of mud
between the two quays. Why she sank is still a mystery.

Mr. R. E. Chapman, the salvage engineer, had a most difficult problem
to tackle. He had to grapple with a dead weight of 13,000 tons in a
space so circumscribed that there was hardly room for the salvage craft
to move. He did not worry. He set his squads of divers to work cutting
away funnels and all the tackle from the top deck, as was done to the
_Gladiator_, and when they had finished he sent them into the bowels
of the ship in pairs in order to close all the open portholes that
were buried many feet in the mud and over 50 feet below the surface of
the harbour. It was inky black down below; they had no lights, because
lights would not have penetrated the gloom, so they relied on their
fingers instead of their eyes, and by using powerful hose to wash away
the mud they managed to close over 500 openings in the ship.

One particularly clever piece of work was the making of a steel plate
to fit over an opening around which were seventeen bolt holes. To get
the bolt holes in the plate directly opposite the bolt holes in the
ship seems almost an impossibility, but the diver solved the problem
by taking down a sheet of lead which he hammered all round the opening
until he had made a pattern with every bolt hole exactly in its place.
From this pattern the steel plate was made, and it fitted perfectly!

Bulkheads to a ship afloat are an undisguised blessing, but the salvors
found them a decided drawback on the sunken _St. Paul_. The bulkheads
effectually stopped the flow of water from one end of the ship to
the other, and before pumping could start it was imperative that the
water should flow freely to the pumps throughout the whole length of
the ship. It meant breaking through the bulkheads. The divers blasted
through one or two with explosives, but the damage was such that the
salvors decided to cut holes through the remainder with the electric
torch.

Among the modern miracles that are little understood may be ranked
that of creating a flame hot enough to melt metal immersed deep in the
sea. Plunge a lighted match into water and the flame goes out; sink
a blazing ship in the sea and the fire is conquered; yet the divers
working on the _St. Paul_ not only made a flame burn under the sea, but
they also melted and cut holes through strong steel plates.

This marvel was worked by combining electricity and gas. The end of the
torch was shaped like a cup, and the gas, driven at a high pressure
through the pipe from the surface, reduced all the water within this
cup to steam. Set in the centre of the cup was the electric terminal,
and by holding it close to the metal plate to be cut an electric arc
was formed with the terrific temperature of 6700 degrees! Under it the
metal flowed like wax, and the divers were able to cut a dozen round
drainage holes through the bulkheads. So blinding was the glare from
the torch that even the muddy water was insufficient to stop it, and
the divers were compelled to fit masks over their helmets in order to
protect their eyes.

Meantime the men had been busy outside the ship, and there arose
a long line of twenty-one legs, built of steel girders, all along
the overturned hull. Shaped like the letter “A,” 30 feet high, they
presented a remarkable spectacle, and to gaze under their whole length
was like staring at the under-framing of some mighty bridge.

Dredging a deep trench at the bottom of the next quay, the salvors sank
twenty-one giant blocks of concrete, burying them with 15 feet of clay
to make them immovable, and from these blocks they carried strong steel
cables over the tops of the legs, and back to twenty-one steam winches
set on the quay. When the time was ripe all the winches started to
haul on the great legs, which began to lever the liner over. Powerful
pontoons and wonderful floating derricks lent their aid, and after a
ding-dong struggle lasting a week the liner came over sufficiently for
the salvors to put in hand the final phase of the operations. Just as
the _Gladiator_ was floated at last by building a large coffer-dam over
the deck, so the _St. Paul_ was encased in a coffer-dam from end to
end. Came a day when the pumps were set going, and the liner floated
once more.

[Illustration:

    _By courtesy of the Merritt & Chapman Wrecking Company_

THE WONDERFUL MAZE OF STEEL LEVERS OR LEGS, SHAPED LIKE THE LETTER “A,”
30 FEET HIGH, ERECTED ON THE OVERTURNED HULL OF THE LINER. BY HAULING
ON THESE LEGS WITH STEEL CABLES THE SALVORS MANAGED TO DRAG THE ST.
PAUL UPRIGHT]

[Illustration:

    _By courtesy of the Merritt & Chapman Wrecking Company_

AN EXCELLENT VIEW OF THE ST. PAUL AFTER SHE WAS RAISED, SURROUNDED BY
THE MAMMOTH FLOATING DERRICKS WHICH PLAYED SO IMPORTANT A PART IN THE
SALVAGE OPERATIONS]

Salvage men are used to so much that they will tackle almost anything;
but even salvage men would not tackle the 200 tons of decayed meat in
one of the refrigerators of the liner. So horrible was the stench that
they positively refused to go anywhere near. Money would not tempt them
to the task. Eventually the trouble was overcome by a diver, who went
into the refrigerating chamber fully equipped and was thus able to
remove the carcasses without suffering from the offensive smell. It was
a happy way out of the difficulty.

While the experts will dwell upon the brilliant feat performed by the
salvors in righting and raising the _St. Paul_, the average person
will think of the strangeness of the case. That the liner should
sink without cause on the tenth anniversary of the day that she
sank the warship, that she should overturn like the warship, that
pontoons, coffer-dams and legs erected on the hull should play so
important a part in both cases, are all links in a chain of remarkable
coincidences, the final link of which is provided by the fact that
the salvage operations on liner and warship each took five months to
complete. These are the incidents which make the case of the _St. Paul_
so noteworthy.

The blizzard which caused the collision between the _St. Paul_ and the
_Gladiator_ cost Great Britain a considerable sum, but not so much as
the fog which led to the wreck of H.M.S. _Montagu_ on the Shutter Rock
at Lundy Island. The British Admiralty spared no effort or expense to
get the battleship off, but after spending £85,000 in salvage work the
navy had to confess itself beaten. So the proud battleship which cost
over £1,000,000 was sold for the trifling sum of £4250 and was broken
up for the sake of the metal she contained.

But for the genius of Commodore Young, the dreadnought _Britannia_
might have met with a similar fate. Returning from a sweep of the North
Sea during the war to her anchorage in the Firth of Forth, she was
thrown by a heavy squall hard on the rocky island of Inchkeith. Tugs
and torpedo boats failed to move her, and when Commodore Young came on
the spot he found the rocks had not only pierced her bottom, but had
also fractured her double bottom. Hopeless though her position seemed
to others, the Director of Salvage considered it possible to refloat
her.

All her stores, ammunition and coals were hauled out to lighten her.
Still she sat tight, held firmly in the grip of the rocks. So a
poultice of cement was fixed over the fractured plates in the second
bottom to enable the engine-room to be pumped out, after which were
made many connections leading into the flooded bottom. The air-pumps
were linked up and set going, and as the air was driven into the
flooded bottom it formed a belt which increased in depth until it
expelled all the water through the holes made by the rocks.

Directly the salvors felt the battleship stir, they towed her off
the rocks into dry dock, where the damage was quickly repaired. Duty
called her later to the Mediterranean, where she was caught by a German
torpedo and this time sent to the bottom for good.




CHAPTER XIII


Of the many remarkable salvage feats performed during the war, that
concerning the s.s. _Araby_ is of more than passing interest. Driven
ashore on the French coast on December 21, 1916, owing to an accident
to her steering gear, she was towed off two days later and by Christmas
Eve arrived at Boulogne. The tugs were shepherding the cripple into
harbour when trouble overtook her once more. The towing hawsers parted,
and she was swept by the strong tide broadside across the harbour
mouth, her bow being jammed against the end of one quay and her stern
against the end of the other quay.

The excitement was intense, for she was blocking our most important
port of entry into France. To make matters worse, the tide was almost
at the full, and unless she were got off at once it was obvious that
her days were numbered. As the tide fell she was sure to ground at the
bow and stern, and a deep channel between the quays left nothing to
support her amidships, so she would be lucky not to break her back.

[Illustration: HOW THE ARABY BLOCKED THE ENTRANCE TO BOULOGNE
HARBOUR]

[Illustration: AS THE TIDE FELL, THE ARABY BROKE HER BACK. THIS
PHOTOGRAPH CLEARLY SHOWS THE FRACTURE BETWEEN THE BOW AND THE STERN
WHICH LED TO HER FALLING COMPLETELY IN HALVES]

Despite the utmost efforts, the _Araby_ remained wedged between the two
quays, and as the tide ebbed, her huge cargo of oats began to make its
weight felt. Slowly she sagged in the middle until her keel was unable
longer to support the strain. She broke her back and settled down right
across the fairway, doing very effectively to Boulogne what the British
Navy so gloriously succeeded in doing to Ostend and Zeebrugge.

It was a desperate case, calling for prompt measures, for somehow,
anyhow, Boulogne harbour had to be cleared, and that quickly. Its
urgency led to the happy co-operation of army and navy, so while the
divers were jettisoning the cargo, in order to lighten the ship,
Lieutenant-Colonel R. V. Jellicoe, D.S.O., of the Royal Engineers, was
planning to make history by salving the first ship with the aid of
ferro-concrete. Never before had anything like this been suggested. It
seemed an impossible sort of dream.

The engineer was determined to prove that the seemingly impossible was
possible. So on each side of the fracture, which was amidships, wooden
moulds were deftly built up in the form of bulkheads stretching right
across the inside of the ship. Cement and gravel were carefully mixed
in certain proportions laid down by the engineer, and into these moulds
the concrete was thrown. It set as hard as rock, forming two watertight
walls shutting off the bow and stern of the ship, and leaving the
fracture between them open to the sea.

The rapidity with which the work was carried out was so remarkable
that by January 11, just eighteen days after the _Araby_ was wrecked,
the flooded compartments were being pumped out. To the joy of the
salvors the rising tide lifted the ship clear of the bottom, and
clever manœuvring enabled Captain H. Pomeroy, the salvage officer, to
clear the harbour entrance and haul the ship into position practically
parallel with the quay. By the end of the day she had been worked
some little distance up the harbour and ships could pass in and out.
The falling tide let her down again in the middle of the channel, but
although she still interfered with traffic the salvors had carried the
work a big step forward.

The hauling and the towing, however, had subjected her to a tremendous
strain, as a result of which the crack across her keel began to extend
up each side of her hull. This necessitated two strenuous days being
spent in strengthening her, before she could again be pumped out and
lifted a little farther into the harbour. Again she grounded at the
fall of the tide, and once more as the tide rose she was lifted higher
up the harbour. Throughout it was only possible to keep her afloat by
continuous pumping, and once the pumps stopped she soon sank under the
inrush of water.

[Illustration: BOTH HALVES OF THE ARABY BEACHED IN BOULOGNE HARBOUR,
WHERE THEY LAY FOR MANY MONTHS]

During these operations the crack had been creeping higher and
higher up the hull under the alternating strains to which she was
subjected. The mighty steel plates were rent and wrenched open until
the greatest calamity of all overtook her and she broke right in two.
She just fell apart, as a sliced apple falls apart, and sank to the
bottom.

[Illustration: TOWING THE STERN OF THE ARABY BACK TO ENGLAND. THE SIGHT
OF HALF A SHIP AFLOAT AT SEA IS SELDOM SEEN]

Such a disaster would daunt most men, who would probably decide that
the only thing to be done in so parlous a case was to finish the job
by blowing the ends to smithereens and then to dredge up the pieces
and throw them on the scrap heap. But the men tackling the case were
in no wise disconcerted. If the problem had been complicated in one
way, it had been simplified in another. For one thing, a ship breaking
in halves required more delicate handling than one broken in halves,
because the salvors would naturally try to prevent the worst from
happening. Once the worst had happened, the salvors could go ahead
without any thoughts of impending disaster. So, wasting no time,
Captain Pomeroy brought some giant pontoons into play. Each was capable
of lifting a weight of 800 tons, and by their aid, after a tremendous
tussle, the two ends were lifted and beached out of the way of traffic
in the inner harbour.

For weeks the tide washed in and out of them, leaving behind a foul
sediment, and the remains of the _Araby_ gradually became part of the
landscape of Boulogne harbour--two ends of a broken ship, rusted and
scarred, with the boilers in the engine-room exposed to sea and air.
A year passed, during which the German submarine campaign kept the
Salvage Section busy day and night, then the _Araby_ was found to be
interfering once more with our war activities. It was essential to
extend the landing-place for flying boats and seaplanes at Boulogne,
and the only available space was the strip of beach occupied by the two
ends of the _Araby_.

In July, 1918, the frequenters of the harbour saw figures again at work
on the wreck. The job of preparing the two ends to enable them to put
to sea was carried forward with vigour. Then, unwittingly, came one of
those tragedies which are fortunately rare in the annals of salvage.
The ends still contained quantities of oats quite spoiled by the action
of the sea. Grain in these conditions gives off fumes so poisonous that
any one caught in them is instantly gassed and killed. Generally the
fumes are kept down by spraying with chemicals, a procedure adopted
during these operations.

One of the divers, however, penetrated too deeply into the hold without
his diving dress and somehow got into a foul pocket of this gas. Almost
at once he was overcome and fell in a state of collapse. No sooner had
he fallen than his mate was also stricken by the fumes and rolled over
unconscious.

[Illustration: THIS TORPEDOED SHIP WAS THE FIRST IN THE WORLD TO BE
PATCHED WITH CONCRETE. THE TIMBER FRAMEWORK COVERING THE HOLE IN THE
HULL FORMS THE MOULD INTO WHICH THE CONCRETE WAS POURED]

Followed one of the gallant deeds which add fame to Britain’s name.
Discovering that the two men were in difficulties, and knowing full
well the deadly danger that lurked below, a salvor lowered himself in
an attempt to rescue them. Instantly the gas attacked him, and he, too,
went down. By the time the three men were hauled out they were all dead.

[Illustration: THE CONCRETE PATCH FROM THE INSIDE OF THE SHIP, SHOWING
HOW THE CONCRETE WAS REINFORCED WITH STEEL RODS]

Marred as it was by this sad tragedy, the work aboard the _Araby_
was pushed ahead with unabated zeal. The concrete bulkheads, erected
as described under the direction of Lieutenant-Colonel Jellicoe some
fifteen months earlier, remained solid walls, impervious to the
encroachments of the sea. So the Admiralty salvage officer completed
arrangements for removing the remains of the _Araby_, and about the
middle of July powerful tugs were hauling on the after end of the ship.
At high tide they succeeded in towing the end off the beach into deep
water, and the sailors of the Dover patrol later witnessed the strange
sight of half a ship floating serenely to England. They were more
astonished a few days later to see the other half being towed across.

In this wonderful way did a soldier, forsaking his own element, assist
to salve a ship that broke in two, and so brilliantly successful was
his work that he was “lent” to the Admiralty Salvage Section. On
another occasion his genius was exercised upon a steamer which had a
vast hole blown in her hull by a torpedo. Taking the case in hand, the
soldier salvage officer determined to prove that ferro-concrete used
under expert supervision would unite perfectly with the steel hull and
make the ship as tight and sound as she had ever been. That concrete
ships were possible was already proved, for there were one or two
afloat to confound the sceptic, but the patching of a steel ship with
concrete was not generally considered feasible.

However, the engineer set to work, and under his supervision divers
built a huge mould over the gaping wound. The engineer himself donned
a diving dress and went to the bottom to inspect the work and see that
everything had been carried out to make the experiment successful. The
concrete, reinforced with steel rods, was rammed into the mould, where
it set almost as hard as the iron with which its edges were solidly
united. Concrete piers were moulded inside the ship to strengthen the
back of the patch and enable it to sustain the force of the waves, and
when the vessel was pumped out and floated officials of the seamen’s
union, calling to inspect it, expressed their approval by certifying
the ship as fit to go anywhere. It was an amazing new departure in
salvage that proved an unqualified success. It was probably the first
ship to be patched with concrete, although it was rumoured that
the German cruiser _Goeben_, which gave us so much trouble in the
Mediterranean, was also patched up with that material.

[Illustration: HOW THE CONCRETE PATCH WAS STRENGTHENED WITH CONCRETE
PIERS ON THE INSIDE OF THE SHIP TO WITHSTAND THE HAMMERING OF THE SEA]

The _Araby_, however, was by no means the first ship to be salved
in halves, for years ago Mr. Tom Armit, one of the cleverest salvage
experts who ever tackled a wreck, undertook to recover the s.s.
_Montgomery_ which had sunk and broken in two in the river Garonne.
Under his instructions divers timbered in the open ends of the vessel
to make them watertight, and eventually each end was pumped out and
raised. They were afterwards taken to dock and joined together again
without the ship being one whit the worse for her adventure.

[Illustration: A VIEW OF THE CONCRETE PATCH IN THE SHIP’S SIDE AFTER
SHE HAD BEEN PUMPED OUT]

Equally remarkable was the salvage of the steamer _Milwaukee_ which,
going ashore on the rocks near Aberdeen during her maiden voyage in
1898, was held so securely that there was no hope of ever towing
her off again. The salvors who were called in to deal with the case
recognized this in a flash, but, gifted with a vivid imagination, they
determined on an extraordinary experiment. It was the bow of the ship
that was caught by the rocks, but all the valuable machinery was in the
afterpart. Unable to save the ship whole, they made up their minds to
try to save the half that mattered, planning to operate on the vessel
just as a surgeon operates on a man, but, instead of using scalpels,
they sought to cut with dynamite. A belt of dynamite cartridges was
fastened round the ship just forward of the engine-room bulkhead. The
brainy salvage men pressed the button. Scarcely had the sound of the
explosion reached their ears when they saw the ship break in two and
the stern slide into the sea.

They had reason to be proud of their success, for it requires courage
as well as imagination to operate on a ship in this manner. Eventually
they towed the stern of the _Milwaukee_ back to the Tyne, and in due
course another bow was built and spliced on to the stern, thus making a
new ship of her.

This noteworthy instance of ship surgery was duplicated in the case of
the Atlantic liner _Seuvic_ which went ashore on the Stag Rocks on the
ragged Cornish coast. The untiring efforts of the salvors failed to
move her, so they calmly cut her in two with dynamite and brought the
after end to port, where she was made whole again!

Those who get a living by marine salvage need be resourceful, masters
of a hundred tricks to win ships from the grip of the sea. When the
liner _City of Paris_ came to grief on the same cruel coast, the jagged
rocks cut right up through her hull and held her so tightly that her
position from the first appeared hopeless. It seemed that she was
destined to remain there hard and fast until the sea had battered her
to pieces.

Whatever the underwriters thought, there was one enterprising salvage
man who was prepared to match his skill against the strength of the
sea. Offering to salve the ship on the “no cure, no pay” principle, he
set his divers to work and little by little they blew away the rocks
that transfixed the ship. It was a ticklish operation. Too strong a
charge of dynamite would have injured the hull and made the case worse
than ever; too weak a charge would have failed to remove the rock, so
it was necessary to wed judgment with caution in this work. Bit by bit
the rocks were blasted away and in the end the _City of Paris_ was
patched and floated. She was taken into Falmouth harbour for repairs,
and when she again took the seas she was known as the _Philadelphia_.

That feat, performed a good many years ago, was equalled by Commander
Cunningham of the Salvage and Towage Company when the Furness Withy
steamer _Norton_ ran ashore on Zogria Island off the coast of Greece
a year or two ago. The rocks threatened to tear the whole bottom out
of the ship if an attempt were made to tow her off, so the salvage
expert, seeing there was no other way back to the sea, decided to blow
the age-old rocks from beneath the bilges of the steamer. He set to
work, and, using extraordinary judgment in placing the dynamite and
gauging the power of the charges, succeeded in eight strenuous days in
pulverizing the imprisoning rocks without doing any further injury to
the steamer. At the top of the tide the tugs and salvage craft towed
her into deep water and finally took her to port.

She was a rich prize, worth with her cargo some £330,000. The repairs
to the steamer cost about £20,000, and the salvors by their fine work
earned an award of £22,000. This seems a large sum for the salvors to
make in so short a time, but it must be borne in mind that such prizes
do not often come along, and the upkeep of a salvage steamer and her
trained crew may easily run to £150 or more a week, without reckoning
the cost of the steamer and plant, so it is plain that a big capital
is required to keep a salvage unit in continual commission. In other
words, although the award was good, taken in conjunction with the
capital employed and the risk run, it was not by any means excessive.




CHAPTER XIV


A ship cast ashore always reminds me of a hospital ward and the men and
women who are deprived by illness of the power to carry on the struggle
of life. The ship, too, is a cripple, driven out of her element, unable
to carry on the duties for which she was created, and this is why my
curiosity in a case is always tinged with a little sadness. To the
salvage expert, however, the beached ship is merely a problem, and his
mind, like that of the physician, is wholly occupied in effecting a
cure.

If straightforward towing will not get the ship off, he will try other
means. He may set a gang of men digging a deep trench round the keel
of the vessel at low tide, and as the tide rises the water, flowing
into this trench, will give her just enough buoyancy under her keel to
enable the tugs to do the rest. Or he may try a trick that was tried
very effectively on one occasion during the war when a whole convoy of
ships grounded during a fog. The salvage officer, when his tugs failed
to shift them, set torpedo boats thrashing round at a high speed and
the wash they created lifted the grounded ships sufficiently for the
tugs to get them off. It was a simple, yet clever, solution to the
problem.

But there may be factors in the case which make these methods useless,
as happened when the s.s. _Timbo_ was thrown ashore in Carnarvon Bay in
1921. She drifted at the mercy of a terrific gale, which was blowing
dead on the shore. Lifeboats that put out to succour her were swamped
by the enormous seas, and more than one brave man lost his life that
stormy day before the _Timbo_, absolutely helpless, was driven right
across the bay. Just when tide and tempest were at their height, she
was caught up by a tremendous wave and thrown heavily ashore.

That tide happened to be exceptionally high, and when Mr. Henry Ensor
came on the scene he found a strip of shingle just 100 feet wide
separated her from the sea when the tide was at the full. There she
lay, broadside on to the ocean, and over 30 yards beyond the reach
of the largest comber that rolled up the beach. She was indeed out
of her element, so much so that 30 yards or 30 miles would have made
no difference to the average city-dweller, for to him the problem of
getting her back would have been insuperable.

[Illustration: BY DIGGING A DEEP TRENCH ROUND THIS WRECK, THE SALVORS
MANAGED TO TOW HER OFF INTO DEEP WATER]

To tow her off on a beach like that was not to be thought of, for
if tugs had been set to work they would merely have added to the
difficulties. Directly they began to haul, the stony beach would
have heaped up under the weight of the steamer, and the more they
pulled, the deeper the wreck would have burrowed into the beach.

[Illustration:

    _By courtesy of H. Ensor & Sons_

THE TIMBO, CAST ASHORE A HUNDRED FEET ABOVE HIGH WATER MARK, WHERE SHE
WAS THROWN DURING A TERRIFIC GALE. SALVORS PROPPING UP HER BILGES TO
PREVENT HER FROM FALLING OVER BEFORE THEY STARTED THEIR STERN STRUGGLE
IN THE DARK]

The first thing the salvage expert did was to put timbers under the
bilges of the steamer to prop her upright and prevent her from falling
on her side. Then, using lifting jacks, he gradually raised her and
placed launchways beneath her keel to prevent her from burrowing into
the shingle when the tugs started to pull her off. This work was
completed just before the highest tide there was likely to be for some
time, and rather than miss this tide the salvors started to get the
steamer back into the sea in the dark.

Inch by inch they hauled that steamer across the intervening shingle
until half the space was covered, until the seas lapped the launchways,
splashed the keel. It was a tremendous fight. The tugs were hauling to
their last pound. Slowly the launchways disappeared into the water and
at last the salvors felt the _Timbo_ tremble. Another long, strong pull
and the steamer rose to the swell. Success had crowned the efforts of
the salvage specialist.

Refloating the _Timbo_ was a fine piece of work, just as was the
raising of the steamship _Fleswick_ with compressed air by the same
expert, many years ago. But in raising the _Silurus_, Mr. Ensor
accomplished a feat that ranks with the finest wreck-raising feats
ever accomplished. The _Silurus_ was a dredger, one of the most
powerful ever constructed. Built for duty in the port of Bombay, she
was completed about eighteen months after the outbreak of war. As it
was considered far too risky to attempt to tow her out to India at that
time, she was taken to the Gareloch, where enemy submarines were not
likely to penetrate, and anchored until such days as peace returned.

She had been serenely sheltered in that haven on the Scottish coast
for nearly a year, when dirty weather sprang up. In the ensuing gale,
she dragged her anchors and was driven hard ashore. Had she remained
upright, a tug might have remedied the matter in a simple fashion
when the tide rose again. But unluckily she grounded on a very steep
shore, which shelved away rapidly, and as the tide dropped she capsized
and buried her funnel so deeply in the mud that she was all but
upside-down. The top of the tower carrying the dredging buckets was
thrust into the bottom of the Gareloch, and while the tower tended to
pull her over, once she had overturned, it no doubt prevented her from
finishing with her keel right in the air.

As in the cases of the _Onward_ and the liner _St. Paul_, the problem
was to right the ship before she could be pumped out and raised. But
with the _Silurus_, the difficulties were increased by the top hamper,
consisting of the tower with the dredging buckets.

[Illustration:

    _By courtesy of H. Ensor & Sons_

THE CAPSIZED DREDGER SILURUS, WITH TIMBER FRAMING ERECTED ON HER HULL
TO PREVENT THE STEEL ROPES FROM CUTTING RIGHT THROUGH HER]

[Illustration:

    _By courtesy of H. Ensor & Sons_

THE WONDERFUL TANGLE OF WIRE ROPES AND GREAT BLOCKS THAT WERE USED TO
PULL THE SILURUS ON TO AN EVEN KEEL AGAIN]

Mr. Ensor, as unlike a miracle-worker as any one could imagine, went
to the Gareloch and quietly looked over the sunken dredger. She was a
big problem, but not too big for him to tackle. Moreover, he had the
courage to back his ability with his own money. Calmly he offered to
salve the vessel on the usual “no cure, no pay” principle. It meant
risking quite a fortune, but this did not worry him.

Then he began to get out his plan for righting the vessel, the
intricate calculations such a plan involves being not only amazing,
but perfectly incomprehensible to the average man who is not possessed
of engineering ability. He calculated on obtaining 1000 tons of
lift by pumping compressed air into some of the compartments of the
overturned vessel, and looked to pontoons attached to the tower and
other parts of the structure to aid him in his plans. But, for the real
work of pulling the ship over, he determined to rely on the power of
steam-engines operating on the shore and hauling on a series of giant
steel cables attached all along the ship.

The risk of pulling the ship to pieces in a job like this is so great
that the novice would drag the ship apart far quicker and easier than
he would drag it upright. If a cable were placed round the hull and a
powerful steam-engine given full play ashore, that cable would crumple
up the steel plates and gradually cut through them like a wire through
a cheese, instead of moving the ship. These were the risks that had to
be avoided.

Divers started to strengthen the ship with gigantic logs, 12 and 14
inches square, in order to withstand the terrific strain. A huge,
strong frame of similar logs, protected by steel grooves, was fixed to
the hull, to prevent the cables from cutting the ship to pieces.

It was slow work, for the salvors could only devote time to the wreck
when there were no important war jobs to claim their attention.
However, they managed to get in a day now and again, preparing for the
great tug-of-war, upon which depended a fortune. Materials were not
easy to obtain owing to the demand for munitions at the Front, so the
salvors had to make shift with anything that would serve their purpose.

The divers, who set to work with hacksaws to cut holes through the
steel plates for the passage of some of the cables, were greatly
handicapped by the rust and mud, which made the water so cloudy that
the work was difficult to see. Yet they stuck to their job and slowly,
monotonously ate a way with their saws through the metal. Then they
took up the task of preparing the seabed for the ship to come over on.
She was practically lying on a submerged hill, and about a thousand
yards of the seabed had to be removed to make a flat table on which the
ship could rest in safety without slipping over again. All this took
time as well as money.

Then it was necessary to find something ashore that would withstand the
pull of the ship when the tug-of-war started, something that would be
absolutely immovable while nearly 2000 tons was dragging on the ends of
the hawsers. The salvage expert tackled this difficulty by getting four
old boilers, sinking them into pits dug down to the rock, and filling
them and the space about them with concrete, thus making them as solid
as the rock on which they stood. These boilers were in this way turned
into four bollards, each capable of resisting a pull of 200 tons. Then
a propeller shaft, 12 inches in diameter, was cut into suitable lengths
and from it eighteen more bollards were made and set hard in concrete,
each bollard being capable of withstanding a pull of 100 tons. These
were placed at various intervals on the shore opposite the wreck, and
by the time they were ready the salvors began to juggle with some 10
miles of steel cable, from 6 inches up to 8½ inches in circumference,
that had been specially made by Bullivant, whose cables have dragged
many a ship back into her element while making a snug sum for the
salvors.

If there is any special work to be done, any heavy weight to be lifted,
the salvage expert the world over knows he is safe with Bullivant’s
cable, that it will not break at the psychological moment and let him
down. Some of these cables made of twisted strands of steel wire are
12 inches round--as thick as a man’s leg at the calf--and they will
support without breaking a weight of 320 tons: 320 tons could dangle
from this cable in the air and a man could stand under it in perfect
safety.

The largest hempen ropes made for salvage work are up to 24 inches
round, even 25 inches on occasion, so it can be imagined how difficult
they are to handle. If 1 foot of a 25-inch rope were cut off, it would
be more than most men could lift, for it would weigh 146 lb. A short
length of 15 feet would weigh practically a ton. A rope of this size
will withstand a pull of 125 tons, against the 320 tons of a 12-inch
steel rope. It might be thought that a rope half the size would support
half the weight, but a peculiarity about hempen ropes is that, while
a rope of 4 inches will support 4 tons, if you treble the size of
the rope to 12 inches you increase the breaking strain by more than
sevenfold to 29 tons; double the size of the rope again to 24 inches
and it will support just four times the weight of the 12-inch rope,
or 115 tons. Similarly, the bigger the wire rope, the bigger the load
it will take in proportion. Whereas a 4-inch steel cable will support
35 tons, an 8-inch cable will carry 150 tons, or nearly five times as
much, while a 12-inch cable will support 320 tons, or nearly four times
as much as the 6-inch cable, which takes 88 tons.

[Illustration:

    _By courtesy of H. Ensor & Sons_

THE SILURUS RAISED, WITH THE PONTOONS, WHICH PROVED OF THE UTMOST
ASSISTANCE, FLOATING NEAR BY]

Few people know that such wonderful ropes exist, but the salvage expert
has full knowledge of where to get them when he requires them, as
he did in the case of the _Silurus_. The ropes were all fixed in place
on the edge of the Gareloch, two batteries of boilers were set up to
supply the power, but before they could be used it was necessary to
arrange a series of signals owing to the fact that the boilers were
out of sight of each other. For one lot to haul faster than the other
would have been fatal. It was absolutely essential that each rope took
its share of the load and that all were hauled on at the same time. As
showing how carefully everything must be considered in so important a
case, the salvors even worked out how much efficiency they would lose
through friction when hauling on the ropes. They left nothing at all to
chance.

Giant wire ropes were lashed round some of the top gear to prevent it
breaking away when the ship came over, a big trench was cut for one set
of ropes to work in, as only by cutting the trench was it possible here
to get a direct pull on the ship, and at last the signal was given to
haul away.

Slowly the _Silurus_ came up, her funnel was tugged from beneath 10
feet of mud. The hauling went on until the pontoons were clear of the
water, until they were no longer a help but a hindrance, so the salvors
cut through the wire lashings with blowpipes and freed them from the
ship. Adjustments were made and the next haul set the _Silurus_ on a
fairly even keel. Despite the strain to which she had been subjected,
the salvor made all his calculations so carefully that she was not in
the least damaged by the operations. Over £56,000 was spent by the
salvor on these operations, but he won his tug-of-war with flying
colours, and the award he received was the reward of sheer merit.

As already mentioned, the divers used hacksaws to cut holes in the
hull under water. In other cases they may bring into play a range of
pneumatic tools--hammers, chisels, and drills worked by compressed air,
which is pumped through a pipe from a boat on the surface. The hammer
and chisel will deliver hundreds of blows a minute, each blow doing an
almost imperceptible amount of work, but the hundreds of blows tell in
the end. An air-driven drill, in spite of the disadvantages of working
under water, will cut a hole an inch in diameter through a plate or
girder an inch thick in one minute.

Frequently, it is desired to remove some submerged rock which
interferes with navigation, and for this purpose pneumatic drills are
often brought into play to make the holes for the charges of dynamite.
The diver proceeds by drilling a series of holes, inserting his
cartridges, after which he stops up the top of the hole with a special
stopping in order to drive the force of the explosion downward. Then he
withdraws to the surface and the boat removes to a distance before the
dynamite is exploded.

Sometimes, however, when it is desired to deepen a rocky channel, a
powerful rock-cutter weighing several tons is brought into play. This
tool is shaped like a pencil and the nose is fitted with a specially
hardened cutter. It is raised to a height and allowed to drop upon the
rock, which it gradually pulverizes and breaks up, the rock-dredger
coming along and completing the work.

Another method followed in the deepening of the channel of the Clyde
was to use diamond drills for boring the holes for the explosives.
The famous Enderslie Rock which caused all the trouble was revealed
one day about the middle of the nineteenth century through the keel
of a steamer coming into contact with it. Up till that time nobody
knew of its existence, but when this steamer damaged herself the
authorities started investigations. They found a bed of rock just over
900 feet long by 320 feet wide, which menaced the bigger ships that
were beginning to navigate the river. The only way of making shipping
safe was to deepen the channel by removing the rock. Accordingly it
was attacked by men working in a diving bell who began blasting it
away with gunpowder. By 1869, after working on it for five years and
spending £16,000, half the channel was deepened to 14 feet, the other
half remaining at 8 feet.

Eleven years later the rock was again attacked, this time by diamond
drills worked by steam-engines. Five years of continuous work saw
the rock removed to a depth of 20 feet over the whole channel. This
improvement, which entailed the blasting away of over 100,000 tons
of rock, cost £70,000, so the Enderslie Rock, upon which the Clyde
authorities spent in all a sum of £86,000, proved rather an expensive
obstruction to find in the river. But it was no mean feat to remove it,
as was done, without in any way interfering with the traffic.




CHAPTER XV


There have been few pluckier fights for a ship than that waged over a
great, camouflaged merchantman torpedoed by the Germans off the Cornish
coast during the war. She was badly holed, but her captain bravely
stuck to her and managed to beach her near Bude.

Hastening to her aid, the salvage officer found her on a beach exposed
to the full force of the Atlantic. With wind and sea rapidly rising,
it was obvious that nothing could prevent her from going to pieces.
The rollers were battering her, shaking and straining her ominously,
seeking to finish what the German torpedo had begun.

So desperate was her situation that her one chance lay in reaching a
more sheltered spot. The salvage officer looked at the sky, saw the
wind blowing the crests off the waves, then he got busy. Working at
pressure, he and his men managed to set a few baulks of timber within
the ship to strengthen the damaged hull, and as the tide rose his tugs
and salvage vessel started to haul her off the beach. He knew she was
in a sinking condition, that she might go down before he could get her
to a place of safety, but against this risk was her certain loss if she
remained where she was.

Then began his struggle to beat the coming gale. The steamer was quite
unmanageable, so he set two tugs hauling away in front, while he hung
on behind with the salvage vessel, making his ship play the part of
a rudder to the damaged craft. Along the coast northward the little
procession made its way. The pumps were working continuously, throwing
out tons of water, but they could not conquer the inrush. The captain
and crew were still aboard, fighting hard to keep down the water. But
all their efforts were useless. Gradually the ship sank lower and lower
in the seas, and by the time they had reached Hartland Point--one of
the most dangerous spots on that exposed coast--her end seemed but a
matter of minutes. Her decks were practically awash. Heavy seas rolled
right over them, and it became imperative to take off the men aboard.
A dozen attempts were made in those heaving seas before the crew were
rescued, and as the last man left he cast off the towing hawsers.

Only the _Ranger_, that famous salvage ship, hung on, still straining
at the stern of the sinking steamer. A man stood by to slip the cable
as she foundered, and the rescued crew crowded round to see her go, all
waiting tensely for the end.

[Illustration: THE SHIP WHICH WAS GIVEN UP FOR LOST, AFTER HER MEN HAD
BEEN RESCUED WITH DIFFICULTY. THE TUGS, TO AVOID BEING DRAGGED DOWN BY
THE FOUNDERING VESSEL, CAST OFF THEIR HAWSERS, BUT THE SALVAGE STEAMER
STILL HUNG ON TO THE STERN AND 7 GALLANT MEN GAMBLED WITH DEATH IN A
LAST EFFORT TO SALVE HER]

For a few moments the salvage officer watched the torpedoed ship.
A few miles along the coast was Clovelly and safety. He wondered if
he could make it in spite of everything, if there was yet a chance of
snatching a victory over wind and wave, not to mention the Germans.
After a close scrutiny of the ship, he determined to try.

[Illustration: IN THE FACE OF INCREDIBLE DIFFICULTIES THE SALVAGE MEN
TRIUMPHANTLY BEACHED THE SINKING STEAMER AT CLOVELLY]

Turning to his men, he called for volunteers to help him make one last
attempt. Half a dozen men stepped forward. All knew the odds were
against them, that a watery grave probably awaited them. Yet none
hesitated.

Watching their opportunity, they brought their boat alongside the
sinking ship and scrambled aboard. Then they took up the fight again.
By great good fortune she had a donkey-engine on her upper deck, and
the salvors succeeded in starting it up and getting the pumps working
again. That donkey-engine proved their salvation, just enabled her to
keep afloat. But it was touch and go all the time.

These seven gallant men in the end brought the ship to Clovelly harbour
and put her ashore on that stony beach right under the picturesque
village. She was nicely sheltered, and the salvors were able to fit her
with a standard patch before taking her to dry dock. Thus the salvors
wrested a victory out of the very jaws of defeat.

Several successful dramatists have staged a thrilling fight between
divers, many a novelist penned vivid descriptions of similar
encounters to make the hearts of his readers beat a little faster. Yet
such struggles between real divers in the depths of the sea are so rare
that it is doubtful if more than one authentic case exists.

This historic fight between divers took place at the bottom of the
Solent during the recovery of some of the relics from the _Royal
George_. The two divers, Jones and Girvan, were keen men, proud of
their skill as submarine workers, each a little jealous of the other.
One day Jones came across a cannon buried in the sand and, being unable
to deal with it, marked it for a future occasion. Divers as a rule
are extremely chivalrous. They would scorn to take a mean advantage,
and they would never think of breaking the rule that what one finds,
the finder salves. Whether Girvan, coming on the cannon, thought it
a new find that he was entitled to salve, or whether he deliberately
made up his mind to try to salve the other diver’s find, is not known.
All we know is that Jones, who had been working some little distance
away, came on Girvan trying to get out the cannon. Naturally, Jones
was indignant, and indicated to Girvan by energetic dumb show that the
latter had no right to deal with the piece.

Girvan was by no means inclined to relinquish the cannon, and further
remonstrances were followed up by blows. The divers began a rough and
tumble fight at the bottom of the sea, striking at each other savagely
with their fists. They were by no means equally matched, for Jones was
much the smaller man of the two. Realizing that the encounter might
cost him his life, he took the first opportunity of trying to get to
the surface. Reaching the shot-rope, he went up it about 5 or 6 feet,
closely pursued by Girvan who, grabbing his legs, did his utmost to
pull him down again. The divers fought desperately in their rage, Jones
to get away from those clutching hands that gripped his legs, Girvan
to drag him to the seabed again, and that dramatic fight reached its
climax in the greatest disaster that can overtake a diver. The glass
of Girvan’s helmet was smashed by a blow, and as the water swept in it
seemed that his end was nigh.

Luckily, however, the men on the surface, unable to explain the violent
agitation of the lines and feeling that something serious must be
wrong, dragged both men to the top. Girvan’s smashed helmet told its
own tale and set them working frantically to pull him round. He was
at his last gasp. Another minute and they would have been too late.
He was removed to hospital, where his splendid physique, coupled with
excellent nursing, enabled him to pull round. Those two divers who
fought that strange fight at the bottom of the Solent came to the
conclusion that it did not pay for divers to disagree, so they ended
their differences by becoming the staunchest of friends.

Other attendants in tropic waters, feeling a strange dragging at the
lines, have also drawn the divers to the surface without loss of time,
to find them in the clutches of the deadly octopus, whose horrible
tentacles have been coiling round the divers, striving to draw them
within reach of the deadly beak that would go through the rubber diving
dress as though it were paper. There, on the deck of the diving vessel,
they have had to fight desperately to free the divers from the grip
of the loathsome creature, only succeeding in the end by chopping
and hacking away the encircling tentacles. As recently as the spring
of 1924, when I happened to be in the South of France, a diver at
Marseilles had to be rescued from an octopus in this thrilling manner.

The octopus, or squid, is, indeed, the greatest danger that the diver
has to face beneath the surface of the sea so far as the denizens of
the deep are concerned. Those squids occasionally found round the
British coast are too small to threaten the diver, but in warmer
waters, where the squid attains a huge size, he will rapidly attack any
unlucky diver who unconsciously ventures too near his deep-sea lair.

The habits of fish are rather quaint. Should they be near the surface
when a shadow falls on the water, a flick of the tail sends them
disappearing into the depths. But undersea they are as inquisitive as
cows. When fish see a diver standing still on the bottom, they find
something about him too fascinating to withstand. Perhaps it is his
form, perhaps the long line of bubbles flowing continually from the
exhaust valve of his helmet. Whatever it is, they are drawn to the
strange creature, and their fishy mouths suck at arms and legs and
body in an effort to find out whether the diver is good to eat. The
least movement sends them speeding away. The bigger fish are just as
inquisitive, and just as easily scared. The diver needs only to open
his air valve to let a little air escape in order to frighten them out
of their fishy wits. Even the shark, the so-called tiger of the seas,
is not generally feared by divers, for he is as scared by a sudden
escape of air from the valve as are the smaller fish.

Yet the shark is fearfully inquisitive, and will come back again and
again to see what the strange figure is doing. Sometimes, indeed, the
same shark becomes such a confounded nuisance, and the diver wastes so
much time in scaring him away, that he is forced to put an end to the
intrusion by slaying the monster. One diver, who had been worried day
after day by the same shark, was compelled to signal to the surface for
a knife. He then calmly held out his hand as bait, just as you hold out
a bone to a dog, and as the monster turned to snap the delicacy, he
stabbed it to death. Slipping a noose round the body of the fish, he
sent it to the surface so that it would not attract other unwelcome
visitors--for the scent of death in the sea is carried far afield by
the invisible currents and soon brings the sea creatures swarming
round--and was then able to resume his work in peace.

As already mentioned, it is often difficult for divers to see owing to
the sand and mud suspended in the water, especially near the mouths of
big rivers. A few feet down, and the light is quite shut out by the
clouds of mud and sand floating about. Sometimes the divers work up to
their armpits in foul slime--I recollect some years ago when a racing
yacht was recovered from underneath 20 feet of mud--at other times
the mud is so deep and thick that they spread-eagle themselves on its
surface and manage to work in this recumbent attitude.

But when the diver gets to a hard bottom he is not handicapped in this
way, and in sunnier climes and seas he can easily see at a depth of
100 feet. The sea-growths around Great Britain are not to be compared
in size and colouring with the lovely tropic growths of coral and
fern-like weed found in the warmer waters. Out, for instance, in the
Pacific the depths of some of the lagoons are just like Fairyland:
filmy forests of ribbons and ferns, inhabited by fish of the most
gorgeous and dazzling colours, butterflies of the deep. This submarine
scenery, in its way, is as beautiful as anything to be found on earth.

More than one salvage man in the past has made a snug fortune salving
ships on the distant coasts of South America and the Pacific, often in
the most simple manner by patching and pumping. Until comparatively
recently the salvage man, if he wanted to lift a vessel, generally
bought up a couple of old hulks and used these for slinging the wreck
inshore. By the time the wreck was beached, the hulks were about
smashed to pieces.

The principle of lifting a ship by means of a coffer-dam has already
been indicated. It was a principle of which Mr. Tom Armit was a
brilliant exponent. He raised several ships this way, building timbers
all round to extend the hull upward, and then timbering all this over,
virtually adding another deck to the ship. This coffer-dam, covering
the whole ship, was made watertight, and, as it was pumped out, the
added buoyancy refloated the ship. If leaks happened to manifest in the
coffer-dam during pumping operations, the salvors calmly fed spun oakum
into the water which carried it into the leak and soon stopped it!

On occasions during a collision at sea, mattresses and clothes have
been thrown into the water, which has carried them to the leak, where
they have become wedged, enabling the sailors aboard ship to tackle
the damage from the inside. Collision mats are specially made for such
emergencies so that they may be lowered over the hole, the pressure
of the water holding them tightly against the side of the ship and
enabling the carpenter to get to work on the inside as the inrush of
water is stopped. Another salvor’s trick is to stretch a tarpaulin over
the hole to hold back the water. It is but temporary, yet it enables
him to gain time to get timbers in place inside so that the pumps can
then deal with the water that finds its way in. There are also special
patches that may be pushed through the hole in the hull from the inside
of the ship and opened out like an umbrella, after which they are drawn
tightly against the hull by screwing up from the inside.

Pontoons alone have raised more than one little wreck in the manner
already described. Other small ships have been raised by filling their
holds with air-tight bags which, upon being blown up, have striven to
rise to the surface, carrying the wreck with them, much to the delight
of the salvors.

Vickers, the great armament firm, have their own patent system of
raising wrecks by means of canvas containers. An American concern has
a submarine machine, something like an army tank in appearance, for
drilling holes in the hull of a sunken ship. These holes are drilled
in line and large hooks are inserted, to which are attached strong,
air-tight containers, one to each hook. The intention is to drill holes
along each side of the hull of a wreck, attach the air bags, blow them
up and lift the craft.

Whether the plates composing the hull of a ship are strong enough to
support the entire weight of a ship in this way, or whether they would
collapse under the strain of raising the ship from the bottom remains
to be seen. It must be borne in mind that the backbone of a ship is
the keel, that the whole ship is built up from the keel, which is its
strongest part, the foundation of the ship. The inventors of this new
system propose to lift the dead weight of the ship from the seabed, but
hitherto salvors who have accomplished these feats have always swept
their cables under the keel of the vessel to avoid the risk of pulling
her to pieces.

Before the War there existed at least one special lifting craft,
consisting of two steamers linked together by strong girders. These
twin craft were brought into position so that the wreck lay between
them, cables were fixed under the wreck, and the lifting craft picked
up the sunken ship as the tide rose, steamed away with it until it
grounded again, when the operation would be repeated next tide.

The salvors have several ingenious ways of getting cables into
position. Sometimes two tugs towing cables between them sweep them
under the wreck. At other times the end is let down to a diver who digs
or scrapes a hole under the keel and forces the cable through; another
rope is then let down from above, the diver attaches it to the end of
the cable, which is drawn to the surface and attached to the lifting
craft. A quicker method of forcing a hole under the keel is to use a
powerful pump which, directed by the diver, rapidly drives a way under
the wreck for the lifting cable.

It was while using a pump for this purpose on the wreck of the
_Intrepid_ on the Belgian seaboard that a most amazing adventure befell
a diver of the Salvage Section. The wreck was buried 20 feet in clay
and mud, and the diver by skilful use of the pump dug his way down to
the keel. He was standing at the bottom of this pit when it caved in on
top of him. He was buried alive, held as in a vice under a dozen feet
of mud and clay, the weight of which doubled him up.

Luckily he still retained his hold of the pump, and after a desperate
struggle managed to direct the jet of water on to himself until he
loosened one arm. As the water softened the clay, he worked the other
arm free, then little by little his legs. Wrapping them round a wire,
he directed the pump upwards and inch by inch wriggled and burrowed his
way through that dozen feet of clay to the surface. His air-pipe was
hopelessly entangled, so he was compelled to cut it before he could be
hauled up to safety. No diver would care to undergo such an experience
a second time.

Comedy so seldom plays a part in diving adventures that a case which
occurred some years ago is worth recording. Divers had been at work
for some time hauling the cargo out of a submerged wreck, when one
of them, upon being drawn up, displayed quite exceptional signs of
exhaustion. A sleep soon put him right, and he resumed work next day.

Again he showed signs of acute fatigue, which passed away after a
night’s rest. The following morning he went down as usual, and this
time when he came up he was quite unable to stand. He collapsed on the
deck, while those aboard crowded round, very concerned about his safety.

Hastily unscrewing his helmet, one of the salvors sniffed in a puzzled
sort of way. A familiar smell came to his nostrils. He sniffed once
more, the others looking at him queerly.

“What’s wrong?”

“Whisky!” muttered the kneeling man, thinking his sense of smell must
have betrayed him.

They all sniffed in unison, and the smell was unmistakable.

“He’s drunk!” said the first man.

The idea was preposterous!

“But how----?” queried another.

That was the question which baffled them. How was it possible for
a diver to get drunk under water? The mystery would have delighted
Sherlock Holmes. There were cases of whisky in the wreck at the bottom
of the sea, but the diver would be drowned if he attempted to drink
it. He was imprisoned in his suit. So how?

Not a word did they say to the drowsy diver, but when he went down the
following day another diver discreetly followed. He saw the first diver
take a bottle of whisky and proceed to a cabin. Instantly the mystery
was cleared up. The exhaust air from his helmet, collecting here, had
formed an air pocket, and the diver, poking his helmet out of the
water, calmly unscrewed the glass front and took a good pull at the
bottle. In this ingenious manner did he manage to get drunk under water!

For recovering metal objects, such as anchors accidentally lost in
dock, there is the electric magnet. Among other inventions for seeing
on the seabed and recovering lost treasure is the hydroscope of the
Italian, Cavaliere Pino. The hydroscope is a floating chamber, from
which depends a series of steel pipes that may be extended or shortened
at will, just like a telescope. The pipes terminate in a chamber with
observation windows made of stout glass, and a man sitting here can
observe the whole seabed round about, provided the water is clear,
while the hydroscope is being slowly towed along on the surface.

[Illustration: WHEN A SHIP OVERTURNS ON QUICKSANDS, THE SALVORS ERECT
GREAT LEGS ON THE HULL, AS SHOWN HERE, AND TAKE STRONG STEEL CABLES
FROM THE MASTS OF THE WRECK OVER THE TOPS OF THESE LEGS AND HAUL ON
THEM UNTIL THEY DRAG THE SHIP UPRIGHT]

The hydroscope has done some good work, and by its aid one wreck was
raised in five hours after salvors who had been working on it for
months had declared that the craft was lost for ever. It was this
Italian invention that the Japanese used in clearing the sunken
Russian fleet from the bottom of Port Arthur after the termination of
the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. A similar invention worked out by a Mr.
Williamson has resulted in some extraordinary underwater cinema films
being secured.

The War led to a big development in the use of compressed air for
raising wrecks, divers sealing up all the apertures in the tops of the
wrecks with concrete to imprison the compressed air, which was then
pumped into the ship until enough water was expelled to enable her to
float. The War also hatched a crop of cranky salvage ideas that gave
some of the salvage experts one or two happy moments.

One such moment was just after the War, when an American walked into
one of the British shipping departments and requested to be allowed
to salve a ship in order to demonstrate the efficiency of his new
method. The officer to whom the stranger went was courteous, listening
attentively to the American’s demand, and inquiring at last which ship
of the few hundreds sunk round our coasts he would like to demonstrate
on.

“Any one!” said the American. “I don’t mind. The bigger the better.
What about the _Lusitania_?”

“She’s rather deep,” it was suggested.

“That doesn’t matter. It makes no difference to me what the depth is,”
came the easy reply.

The officer put a few questions, and then learned that the stranger
designed to use a submarine, which was to fire torpedoes right through
the _Lusitania_, each torpedo carrying with it a steel cable. These
were to be picked up at the other side and taken to the surface, and
then the wreck was to be dragged bodily out of the depths!

That scheme to salve a ship by first of all smashing a series of holes
through her hull with torpedoes did not commend itself to the British
expert. It was, indeed, quite impracticable.

None the less, there are people who still wonder if it will ever be
possible to salve the _Lusitania_, which was torpedoed off the Irish
coast on May 7, 1915. From time to time the matter keeps cropping up.

Those who are curious on the subject may be interested to know that
the chances of raising the _Lusitania_ are so small as to be almost
negligible. The sheer weight of the sea quickly obliterates man’s
handiwork, and the _Lusitania_ probably ceased to be a ship years ago.
It is extremely likely that the tremendous pressure to which she was
subjected at the depth of 288 feet long ago crushed her flat. Proposals
have been made to try to salve the valuable 30-ton safe from the
strong-room of the liner, but personally I should not care to back such
an enterprise.

The marvellous endurance of divers in going to great depths has been
touched on in previous chapters, but perhaps the strangest task ever
given to a diver was that of saving a cathedral. Some years ago,
Winchester Cathedral was in such grave danger of collapsing that it
became necessary to underpin the walls and strengthen the foundations.
The whole cathedral stood upon a water-logged peat bog, the ancient
builders upon reaching water having laid logs of beech to take
their foundations. The modern architect, Mr. T. G. Jackson, and his
engineering collaborator, Mr. Francis Fox, knew that to pump the water
out would be practically to pump the cathedral to destruction, for the
drift of the water was bound to carry the silt and gravel away from
other portions of the building to where the pumps were working, and so
bring about the collapse of the famous edifice.

After careful study of the difficulties, the engineer called in one
of the crack divers of Siebe, Gorman & Company to carry out his plan.
It was found that the beech logs put in by the ancient builders at
water-level were resting on 6 feet of clay, which in turn covered a
depth of just over 8 feet of peat, this in turn resting on a bed of
gravel. To save the cathedral it was essential to excavate all the clay
and peat down to the gravel, and replace it with concrete up to the
foundations of the building.

The walls of the cathedral, properly supported, were treated in small
sections of about 5 feet. The clay was dug out, then the diver
entered the hole and, working in absolute darkness, removed the peat
down to the level of the gravel. Bags of dry concrete were lowered
to him and packed in tightly, a layer at a time, the diver splitting
them open and spreading the contents evenly. In this way the hole was
completely filled. The water soon turned the concrete into a rock-like
mass, upon which the masons were able to build solidly right up to the
foundations, from which the beech trees were carefully removed. Nothing
like it was ever attempted before, so Winchester can boast that its
cathedral is the only one in the world that has been given a solid
foundation by a diver.

Just as the torpedoing of the _Lusitania_ by the Germans stirred the
whole world, so the sinking of the American flagship _Maine_ in Havana
harbour on February 18, 1898, stirred the people of the United States
and led to the war with Spain. A giant explosion in the middle of the
night carried the American battleship to the bottom with 266 officers
and men, and it was asserted that the Spaniards had deliberately
blown her up. The result was a war in which Spain lost Cuba and the
Philippines.

Long years afterwards, in 1910, Congress voted a sum of £60,000 and
the work of investigating the wrecked battleship was put in hand.
Tackling their task in a most masterly manner, the engineers decided to
enclose the whole wreck in one huge coffer-dam built of steel piles
driven down through the mud until they were embedded 13 feet in the
solid clay. As the wreck lay in 37 feet of water, with 20 feet of mud
below that, the piles would emerge 5 feet above the surface of the sea,
providing a wall too high for the water to wash over.

Knowing full well that they would find it difficult to create a plain
circle of piles round the ship to withstand the pressure of the sea,
the engineers decided to build what really amounted to a series of
gigantic barrels, standing on end in the sea with their sides touching.
These barrels, twenty-two in number, varied between 40 feet and 50
feet across. The staves of the barrels were formed by the steel piles
which were made to interlock as they were driven in side by side, and
where the barrels, or caissions, touched, further piles were driven to
enclose the space and strengthen the junction.

For months the hammer-blows of the pile drivers resounded over the
harbour, and at last the coffer-dam--a most marvellous piece of
work--was finished and filled with dredged clay. Within a year the
salvage operations were completed at a cost of £135,000. The experts
watched with keen eyes as the pumps lowered the water within the
coffer-dam and the wreck slowly emerged from the slime. There the
battleship lay, a twisted mass of metal, and, before patching up the
afterpart and taking it out on March 16, 1912, to bury in the broad
Atlantic, the specialists held their inquest, striving to discover
whether the explosion that sank her was caused from inside or outside.

Such a thing after a ship has been at the bottom for over twelve years
is almost impossible to determine. It was said that the explosion came
from outside, but the doubt will always exist that the Spanish American
War may have been due to a grave error on the part of America, and that
the _Maine_ instead of being blown up by the Spaniards, was destroyed
by the spontaneous combustion of the explosives in her magazines, just
as French, Japanese and British warships have been destroyed in the
same accidental manner.




INDEX


  Aberdeen, _Milwaukee_ wrecked near, 181.

  Accidents rare in salvage work, 8.

  Admiralty divers and _Laurentic_, 65–78.

  Admiralty list of wrecks, 112.

  Admiralty Salvage Section, formation of, 95.

  Admiralty Salvage Section, ships salved by, 111.

  Admiralty Salvage Section, work on Belgian Coast, 115.

  Adventure aboard American submarine, 149.

  Adventure of diver, 208.

  Air bags, ships salved by, 206.

  Air keeps back water, 85.

  Air-lock, 85, 87.

  Air-pressure blows man to surface of sea, 151.

  Air _versus_ water, 35, 36.

  Allies and shipbuilding programme, 113.

  _Alphonso XII._, treasure recovered, 57.

  American Line, 165.

  American salvage records, 156.

  American submarine, discovery of drifting, 144.

  American submarine F.4, tragedy of, 152.

  American submarine O.5 sinks, 151.

  American submarine S.5, ordeal of, 141.

  Amsterdam, 31.

  _Araby_, 174–179.

  Argyll, Duke of, 21.

  Armada wreck, discovery of, 17.

  Arming merchantmen in war, 97.

  Armistice, war wrecks salved after, 112.

  Armit salves a ship in halves, 181.

  Armit, Tom, 181, 205.

  Atrocity, _Belgian Prince_, 118.

  _Audacious_, H.M.S., 19.

  Award of £22,000 for salvage, 184.


  Bad weather foils treasure-hunters, 47.

  Ballast tanks in submarine, 132.

  Ballast, using sea as, 111.

  Battle with sand, 30.

  Battleship floating upside-down, 87, 90.

  Battleship raised by compressed air, 90.

  Battleship, salving a, 79–93.

  Battleship, shells salved from wreck, 84.

  Battleship sinks upside-down, 82.

  Baulks of timber, 90.

  Belgian coast, salvage work on, 115.

  _Belgian Prince_, tragedy of, 118, 119.

  Bell of _Lutine_, 26.

  Blasting for treasure, 31.

  Blasting through bulkheads, 169.

  Blazing sea, 161.

  Blazing ship shelled, 162, 163.

  Blow-pipes melt submarine’s plates, 138.

  Boilers as bollards, 191.

  Bollards made from boilers, 191.

  Bombay, 188.

  Boulogne harbour, clearing of, 175.

  Brave deed of salvage men, 199.

  Breathing compressed air, 35, 36.

  Breault, Henry, imprisoned for thirty hours in submarine, 151.

  Britain’s food supplies restricted, 96.

  _Britannia_, extent of damage to, 172.

  _Britannia_ torpedoed in Mediterranean, 173.

  British battleship torpedoed, 173.

  British diving record, 38, 68.

  British Government and war wrecks, 112.

  British Government insures all ships, 96.

  British Navy’s treasure-hunt, 65–78.

  British sailor escapes from sunken submarine, 149.

  British salvage companies and Admiralty, 94.

  British Salvage Section carries German submarine 40 miles, 158.

  British Salvage Section fights U-boat menace, 97.

  British Salvage Section, method of working, 97.

  British submarine disaster, 133.

  British warships and spontaneous combustion, 216.

  Brown, Lawrence, imprisoned for thirty hours in submarine, 151.

  _Brussels_, raising the, 159.

  Bude, torpedoed ship beached near, 197.

  Bulkheads, 107.

  Bulkheads cause trouble, 169.

  Bullivant’s cable, 191.

  Burial at sea, 130.

  Burning ship sunk, 162.

  Business men and treasure, 11.

  Butler, Charles, escapes from sunken submarine, 151.


  Cables for carrying submarine, 125.

  Cables, how placed under wreck, 125.

  Calmness of British seamen in danger, 133.

  Camera, how cinema man saved, 150.

  Cape Finisterre, 46.

  Captain Kidd, 11.

  Carpi, General, 93.

  Cathedral restored by diver, 213.

  Chapman, R. E., 168.

  Charts, concealed, 99.

  Charts full of flags, 99.

  Chinese pirates chase treasure-hunters, 62–64.

  Cinema man sinks with submarine, 150.

  _City of Paris_, wreck of, 182.

  Clock, a maddening, 152.

  Clothes of diver, 39.

  Clovelly harbour, 199.

  Clyde, 132.

  Clyde, cost of deepening, 195, 196.

  Code, diver’s, 40.

  Coffer-dam round _Maine_, 213.

  Coffer-dam, used on _St. Paul_, 170.

  Coffer-dam, use in salvage work, 166.

  Coincidence, the strange case of _Gladiator_ and _St. Paul_, 167.

  Collision between _War Knight_ and _O. B. Jennings_, 160–163.

  Collision mats, 205.

  Collision that cost £1,000,000, 163.

  Commander Kay, 111.

  Compressed air and sunken battleship, 85.

  Compressed air, breathing, 35, 36.

  Compressed air raises battleship, 90.

  Compressed air, tools worked by, 194.

  Compressed air, used on H.M.S. _Britannia_, 172.

  Concrete, ship patched with, 180.

  Concrete, used to salve ship, 175.

  Congress and loss of _Maine_, 214.

  Conning tower, the protruding hand, 157.

  Continental markets destroyed, 114.

  Convoy, accident to, 161.

  Cork packed into battleship to give buoyancy, 88.

  Cost of salvage operation on H.M.S. _Gladiator_, 167.

  Cradle of cables for U.44, 125.

  Craft, lifting, 126, 127.

  Crew drowned by Germans, 119.

  Crime, a German submarine, 120.

  Cunningham, Commander, 183.

  Currents hinder salvage operations, 30.

  Currents play pranks, 29.


  Damage to H.M.S. _Gladiator_, 165.

  Damant, Commander, 68.

  Davis, Commander G., and U.44, 123.

  Davis, Commander, raises minesweeper, 124.

  Davis, Commander, wins D.S.C., 129.

  Davis, R. H., 41.

  Deepening channels, method of, 195.

  Deepening Clyde, cost of, 195, 196.

  Depth beats divers, 47.

  Depth charge, 117.

  Depth, greatest, ever reached by diver, 155, 156, 157.

  Derricks, floating, 170.

  Detectives, deep-sea, 117.

  Diamond drills used on Clyde channel, 195.

  Director of Naval Salvage, his calmness, 98.

  Disaster of K.13, 132.

  Diver and sea pressure, 35.

  Diver attacked by octopus, 202.

  Diver buried alive, 208.

  Diver caught at 200 feet, 156.

  Diver crushed by pressure, 154.

  Diver, difficulty of movement at great depths, 155.

  Diver explores flooded Severn tunnel, 54.

  Diver Girvan, his fight on seabed, 200.

  Diver, how clothed, 38, 39.

  Diver Jones, his fight on seabed, 200.

  Diver Lambert, 50.

  Diver offers his hand to shark, 203.

  Diver Penk helps to salve specie, 61.

  Diver restores a cathedral, 213.

  Diver Ridyard salves treasure from a depth of 156 feet, 61.

  Diver, sea plays with, 72.

  Diver, why he cannot whistle, 73.

  Diver works in darkness, 214.

  Divers and inquisitive fish, 202, 203.

  Divers and mud, 204.

  Divers beaten by depth, 47.

  Diver’s boots, weight of, 39.

  Divers breathe compressed air, 35.

  Diver’s code, 40.

  Divers communicate with submarine prisoners, 137.

  Divers discover the lost K.13, 136.

  Divers, fat and slim, 34, 35.

  Diver’s feat in Severn tunnel, 50–55.

  Divers feed submarine prisoners, 137.

  Divers fight on seabed, 200.

  Divers gassed, 178–179.

  Divers lash pontoons to wreck, 89.

  Diver’s luck, 15.

  Diver’s palsy, its cause, 36.

  Diver’s physique, 34.

  Divers, risks of, 49.

  Divers share nearly £6,000, 78.

  Diver’s strange experience, 69.

  Divers survey wreck of _Leonardo da Vinci_, 82.

  Divers use hacksaws, 190.

  Divers use pneumatic chisels, 165.

  Divers wear masks, 170.

  Divers work at 190 feet, 157.

  Divers work in mud, 168.

  Divers work on Belgian coast, 116.

  Diving bell crushed by pressure, 154.

  Diving code, 40.

  Diving dress, 39.

  Diving dress, all metal, 42.

  Diving dresses, ancient, 41.

  Diving, rate of ascent, 37.

  Diving record, British, 38.

  Diving record, British, date of, 68.

  Diving, science of, 34.

  Diving strains, 34, 35.

  Diving to 304 feet, 155.

  Diving tragedy, 178.

  Donegal, 65.

  Doubloons discovered, 18.

  Dredger, salving a, 188.

  Dredging a 1½-mile channel, 89.

  Dress, diving, 39.

  Drill worked by air, 194.

  Drills, diamond, used on Clyde, 195.

  Drink, a lucky, 64.

  Duke of Argyll, 21.

  Duncan, Admiral, 22.

  Dutch claim _Lutine_, 24.

  Dynamite, cutting ship in two with, 181.


  Electric cable laid 1½ miles out to sea, 84.

  Electric magnet, 210.

  Electric pump, invention of, 103, 104.

  Electric pump, weight of, 104.

  Electric torch, wonder of, 169.

  Electricity helps to salve battleship, 84.

  Emergency patches, 206.

  Enderslie Rock, 195.

  Enemy buried at sea, 130.

  Engineer patches ship with concrete, 180.

  Engines raise a ship, 164, 165.

  Ensor, Henry, 94, 186–194.

  Entombed in submarine, 133.

  Entombed miners rescued, 42.

  Erostarbe, Angel, his diving record, 48.

  Escapes from sunken submarines, 139, 145, 146–152.

  Explosion off Waterford, 122.


  F.4, American submarine disaster, 152.

  F.4, discovery of, 153.

  F.4, plans for recovery, 153.

  Falmouth, _City of Paris_ towed to, 183.

  Faruffini, General, 93.

  Ferrati, General, 81.

  Fight on seabed between divers, 200.

  Finisterre, Cape, 46.

  Fire, disaster to oil tankers, 161.

  Fire in sunken submarine, 151.

  Fish and divers, 202, 203.

  Fish scent death, 204.

  Fishing for treasure, 24.

  Flags stuck in maps, 99.

  _Fleswick_, salving the, 187.

  Floating dock proposed for raising _Leonardo da Vinci_, 81.

  Flooding of Severn tunnel, 51.

  Floor of gold, 61.

  _Florencia’s_ treasure, 19.

  Fluess, 51–53

  _Flying Dutchman_, 167.

  Folkestone, 163.

  Food supplies restricted in Britain, 96.

  Fortune from a rumour, 15.

  Fortune saved by a drink, 64.

  Foundering ship salved, 197–199.

  Fox, Francis, his work on Winchester Cathedral, 213.

  French warships and spontaneous combustion, 216.

  Fryatt, Captain, 159.

  Funnels, folding, on British submarine, 131.

  Furness Withy, 183.


  Gale cheats salvors, 31.

  Gale snaps cables, 154.

  Gale stops salvage of U-boat, 126.

  Gales baffle salvors of _Laurentic_, 75.

  Gales stop salvage work, 108.

  Gales, strength of, 8.

  Gallantry of salvors, 199.

  Gardiner, Captain, 28.

  Gareloch, 132, 188.

  Garonne, 181.

  Gear lost, 7.

  _General Goethals_, 143.

  German mines off Waterford, 121.

  German ships seized, 114.

  German submarine campaign, 96.

  German submarine raised from 190 feet, 158.

  German submarine sinks oil tanker, 163.

  German submarines netted, 116.

  German submarines, risk of salving, 128.

  Germans block Ostend harbour, 116.

  Germans buried at sea, 130.

  Germans drown crew of _Belgian Prince_, 119.

  Germans fail to raise _Vindictive_, 115.

  Germans miss lifebelts, 120.

  Germans sink ships at sight, 96.

  Germans torpedo British battleship, 173.

  Germans torpedo merchantmen, 96.

  Gianelli, Major, work on _Leonardo da Vinci_, 83.

  Giant bollards made from boilers, 191.

  Giant wooden frame supports battleship, 91.

  Girvan, Diver, dramatic fight on seabed, 200.

  _Gladiator_, wreck of H.M.S., 165–167.

  _Goeben_, 180.

  Gold, floor of, 61.

  Goodhart, Commander F. H. M., D.S.O., 134.

  Goodhart, Commander, his heroic death, 135.

  Grain, action of sea on, 178.

  Grapnels, 124.

  Great War, salvage work in, 94–116.

  Great War, ships salved and their value, 111.

  Gun-turrets, detaching submerged, 87.

  Gwynne pumps, 104.


  Hacksaws, used by divers, 190.

  _Hamilla Mitchell_, wreck of, 58–64.

  Hammer worked by air, 194.

  Havana harbour, loss of _Maine_ in, 214.

  Herbert, Commander Godfrey, D.S.O., 133.

  Herbert, Commander, his escape from sunken K.13, 135.

  Honolulu, 152.

  Honolulu, tide at, 153.

  Hydroscope, 210.

  _Hypatia_, wreck of, 9.


  Imprisoned in submarine, 146–152.

  Incas of Peru, 11.

  Inchkeith, 172.

  Inquisitive fish, 202, 203.

  _Intrepid_, wreck, 208.

  Invention, an American salvage, 206.

  Invention of electric pump, 103.

  Invention of modern diving dress, 41.

  Isle of Mull, 19.

  Italian Naval Engineering Corps, 81.

  Italian salvage feat, 79.

  Italians dredge 1½-mile channel, 89.


  Jackson, T. G., his work on Winchester Cathedral, 213.

  Japan raises sunken Russian warships, 211.

  Jellicoe, Lieutenant-Colonel R. V., 175.

  Jones, Diver, his fight under the sea, 200.

  Junks, chased by, 62.


  K.13, loss of, 131–140.

  K.14, 134.

  Kay, Commander, 108.

  Kay, Commander, and K.13, 137.

  Kidd, Captain, 11.


  Lagoons, scenes at bottom of, 204.

  Lake Huron, treasure-hunting in, 154.

  Lambert, Alexander, 50.

  Lambert and Severn tunnel, 50–55.

  Lambert explores flooded Severn tunnel, 54.

  Lambert finds treasure of _Alphonso XII._, 57.

  Lamps, submarine, 157.

  Launchways, their use, 187.

  _Laurentic_, blasting operations, 74, 75.

  _Laurentic_ crushed by sea, 72.

  _Laurentic_, depth of wreck, 67.

  _Laurentic_, difficulties of salving treasure, 72–78.

  _Laurentic_ disaster, 65.

  _Laurentic_, length of time divers can work, 73, 74.

  _Laurentic_, lives lost, 67.

  _Laurentic_, value of treasure aboard, 66.

  Leak stopped by oakum, 205.

  Leaks obscured by oil, 86.

  _Leonardo da Vinci_, loss of, 79.

  _Leonardo da Vinci_, armament and cost, 80.

  _Leonardo da Vinci_, plans for salving, 81.

  _Leonardo da Vinci_ floats upside-down, 90.

  Leuconna Rock, 58.

  Leverhulme, Lord, 13.

  Lifebelts, concealed, 120.

  Lifting craft, linked, 207.

  Lifting methods, 125.

  Lifting the _Brussels_, 159.

  Lifting vessels, modern, 126.

  Lighthouses, 2, 3.

  Lightships, 2.

  _Lion_, H.M.S., after Jutland, 96.

  Liverpool Salvage Association, 94, 165.

  Liverpool, treasure landed at, 77.

  Lloyd’s and _Lutine_, 23.

  Lloyd’s great loss, 23.

  Locating leaks in battleship, 86.

  Lodge, Captain, offers to salve specie of _Hamilla Mitchell_, 58.

  London Salvage Association, 94.

  Lucky escape of salvors, 128, 129.

  Lucky treasure-hunt, 15.

  Lundy Island, 172.

  _Lusitania_, chances of salvage, 212.

  _Lutine_, amount of treasure recovered, 26.

  _Lutine_, blasting operations, 31.

  _Lutine_ buried, 29.

  _Lutine_, capture of, 22.

  _Lutine_ rediscovered, 29.

  _Lutine_, treasure shipped, 23.

  _Lutine_, wreck of, 23.

  _Lutine’s_ bell, 26.


  Macdonald invents electric pump, 103.

  Magnet, electric, 210.

  _Maine_, destruction of, 214–216.

  Malin Head, 66.

  Marine salvage in wartime, 94.

  Markets destroyed, 114.

  Marseilles, octopus attacks diver at, 202.

  Meat, handling decayed, 171.

  Merchantmen armed during war, 97.

  Merritt and Chapman, 167.

  Method of raising vessels from seabed, 125.

  Methods of British Salvage Section, 97.

  Mexiddo reef, 46.

  _Milwaukee_, wreck of, 181.

  Mine destroys U.44, 123.

  Mine-laying from submarine, 121.

  Mine-sweeping, 122.

  Minefield, adrift in, 162.

  Minefield at Waterford, 121.

  Miners entombed, 42, 43.

  Minesweeper, sinking of, 124.

  Models for salvage operations, 83.

  _Montagu_, wreck of, 171–172.

  _Montgomery_, wreck of, 181.

  Morse Code, 137.

  Mud and divers, 204.

  Mud grips battleship, 90.

  Mull, Isle of, 19.

  Mystery of _Florencia_, 19.


  Napoleon, 25.

  Naval divers and _Laurentic_, 65–78.

  Naval Salvage, director of, 95.

  Netherlands Government and Lloyd’s, 25.

  New York, tanker caught off, 163.

  Nitrogen, its effect on divers, 36.

  Nordstrom, Captain, 161.

  _Norton_, stranding of, 183.


  _O. B. Jennings_, 160–163.

  O.5, sinking of American submarine, 151.

  Oakum stops leak, 205.

  Oats cause tragedy, 178.

  _Oceana_, blasting operations, 50.

  _Oceana_, difficulties of salving treasure, 50.

  _Oceana_, wreck of, 49.

  Octopus attacks diver, 202.

  Oil hinders divers, 84.

  Oil obscures leaks in battleship, 86.

  Oil salved from tanker, 163.

  Oil tankers take fire, 161–163.

  _Onward_, scuttling of, 163.

  Ostend, 115.

  Ostend, how Germans bottled up harbour, 116.

  Overturned ship, methods of salvage, 164.

  Ownership of war wrecks, 112.


  Palsy, diver’s, 36.

  Patch, standard, 100.

  Patches, emergency, 206.

  Patching battleship, 85.

  Penk, Diver, 59.

  Periscope, 137.

  Peru, gold of, 11.

  Peruvian treasure, 11.

  _Philadelphia_, see _City of Paris_.

  Phosphate, island of, 14.

  Pino, Cavaliere, inventor of hydroscope, 210.

  Pirates, chased by, 62–64.

  Pit disaster near Falkirk, 42.

  Pizarro, 11.

  Pneumatic chisels used by divers, 165.

  Pomeroy, Captain H., 176.

  Pontoon raises 800 tons, 177.

  Pontoons, 116.

  Pontoons and _Araby_, 177.

  Pontoons and salvage operations, 89.

  Pontoons, assist to raise the _Gladiator_, 166.

  Pontoons, how used, 89.

  Pontoons used in salving F.4, 153.

  Port Arthur, raising Russian fleet at, 211.

  Portsmouth, 167.

  Pressure and divers, 35.

  Pressure crushes diver, 154.

  Pressure, how it affects diver, 155.

  Propeller shaft cut into bollards, 191.

  Pumps, electric, weight of, 104.

  Pumps keep ship afloat, 105.

  Pumps, sand, 29.

  Pumps, types of, 103.

  Pumps _versus_ torpedoes, 103.

  Pumps, wonderful reliability of, 105.


  Quay, threatened destruction of Folkestone, 163.

  Queenstown, 94.


  _Racer_, salvage vessel, 65.

  Racing yacht salved, 204.

  Railway engines raise a ship, 164, 165.

  Recompression chamber, its uses, 70.

  Record depth from which treasure has been recovered, 48.

  Record, diving, 38.

  Record, twelve-hour diving, 137.

  Record weight raised, 158, 159.

  Record, world’s diving, 155.

  Redding pit disaster, 42.

  Refloating H.M.S. _Britannia_, 172.

  Refloating the _Timbo_, 186, 187.

  Refrigerator, unpleasant task in a, 171.

  Rescue of crew of submarine S.5, 145.

  Rescue of survivors of K.13, 139.

  Ridyard, Diver, 59.

  Righting a battleship, 92.

  Risk of salvage work, 8.

  Risk of salving German submarines, 128.

  Rock-cutter, 195.

  Rock reveals a fortune, 13.

  Rocks blasted away to salve ship, 183.

  Ropes, breaking strains of, 192.

  Ropes, giant, 192.

  Ropes, steel, 191, 192.

  Rosyth, 159.

  Royal Exchange, 46.

  _Royal George_, salvage operations, 200.

  Rust handicaps divers, 190.


  St. Bees Head, 105.

  St. Helena, 25.

  _St. Paul_, collision with H.M.S. _Gladiator_, 165.

  _St. Paul_ converted into troopship, 167.

  _St. Paul_ overturns, 167.

  _St. Paul_, salvage operations on, 168.

  S.5, discovery of, 144.

  S.5, rescue of crew, 145.

  S.5, strange accident to the American submarine, 141.

  Salvage and Towage Company, 183.

  Salvage award of £22,000, 184.

  Salvage concerns, 94.

  Salvage idea, a strange, 212.

  Salvage invention, an American, 206.

  Salvage lighter nearly founders, 128.

  Salvage men, lucky escape of, 128, 129.

  Salvage of _Araby_, 174–179.

  Salvage of _Seuvic_, 182.

  Salvage of the _Norton_, 183.

  Salvage officer’s clever feat, 185, 186.

  Salvage on Belgian coast, 115.

  Salvage operations aided by pontoons, 89.

  Salvage operations on _St. Paul_, 168.

  Salvage operations on _Westmoreland_, 108–111.

  Salvage problem, 4.

  Salvage records, American, 156.

  Salvage Section as detectives, 117.

  Salvage Section, laying mines, 95.

  Salvage Section, method of working, 97.

  Salvage Section, nets English Channel, 96.

  Salvage Section, ships salved by, 111.

  Salvage stations round Britain, 97.

  Salvage steamer, cost of upkeep, 184.

  Salvage work, risk of, 8.

  Salvage work stopped by gales, 108.

  Salved by blasting operations, 183.

  Salved five times, 10.

  Salving a battleship, 79–93.

  Salving a battleship by compressed air, 85.

  Salving a racing yacht, 204.

  Salving a ship in halves, 177, 181.

  Salving battleship upside-down, 90.

  Salving £500,000 from _Laurentic_, 73.

  Salving H.M.S. _Britannia_, 172.

  Salving H.M.S. _Gladiator_, 165.

  Salving K.13, 131–140.

  Salving _Leonardo da Vinci_, cost of, 93.

  Salving oil from tanker, 163.

  Salving overturned ship, 164.

  Salving shells from sunken battleship, 84.

  Salving ship with concrete, 175.

  Salving the _Fleswick_, 187.

  Salving the _Maine_, 214–216.

  Salving the _Silurus_, 187–194.

  Salving the _Timbo_, 186, 187.

  Salving treasure, diver’s reward, 58.

  Salving treasure of _Alphonso XII._, 57.

  Salvors balance ship, 111.

  Salvors carry submarine 40 miles, 158.

  Salvors chased by pirates, 62–64.

  Salvors foiled by bad weather, 47.

  Salvors, gallant feat of, 199.

  Salvors of _Laurentic’s_ treasure baffled by gales, 75.

  Salvors, tricks of, 205.

  Sand, battle with, 30.

  Sand-pump, 18-inch, used on _Laurentic_ operations, 76.

  Sand-pumps, 29.

  Sand-pumps, when they choke, 76.

  Sandbanks, submerged, 29.

  Sandown Bay, 162.

  Science of diving, 34.

  Sea ablaze, 161.

  Sea crushes _Laurentic_, 72.

  Sea-growths, their beauty, 204.

  Sea plays with diver, 72.

  Sea pressure, effect on divers, 35.

  Sea water as ballast, 111.

  Secret German orders recovered by divers, 157.

  Secret papers in U.44, 129

  _Seuvic_, wreck of, 182.

  Severn tunnel, cause of flooding, 51, 55.

  Severn tunnel, diver’s feat in, 50–55.

  Severn tunnel explored by diver, 54.

  Severn tunnel, flooding of, 51.

  Shanghai, 58.

  Shark and diver, 203.

  Shells protected by oil, 84.

  Shells salved from _Leonardo da Vinci_, 84.

  Ship ashore, method of refloating, 185.

  Ship breaks in two, 177.

  Ship kept afloat by pumps, 105.

  Ship patched with concrete, 180.

  Ship, question of balance, 111.

  Ship salved by blasting away rocks, 183.

  Ship salved five times, 10.

  Ship surgery, 181.

  Ship torpedoed three times, 101.

  Shipbreakers buy wreck of _Gladiator_, 167.

  Shipbreakers buy wreck of _Montagu_, 172.

  Shipping, high cost in war, 113.

  Shipping slump, 113.

  Ships, how destroyed, 3.

  Ships, increase in tonnage, 114.

  Ships insured by British Government, 96.

  Ships salved by Admiralty Salvage Section, 111.

  Ships salved by air bags, 206.

  Ships salved in Great War, their value, 111.

  Ships seized from Germany, 114.

  Ships sunk at sight during war, 96.

  Ships, wonder of, 4.

  Shot-rope, 37.

  Shutter Rock, 171.

  Siebe, Gorman & Company help to save Winchester Cathedral, 213.

  Siebe, Gorman & Co. Ltd., 41.

  Siebe invents diving dress, 41.

  Sieve, giant, 30.

  Sifting seabed, 30.

  _Silurus_, cost of salvage operations, 194.

  _Silurus_, plans to salve, 189.

  _Silurus_, wreck of, 187–194.

  Silver bars recovered, 48.

  Sinking of K.13, 132.

  _Skyro_, wreck of, 45–47.

  Slings, U-boat carried 40 miles in, 158.

  Slump in shipping, 113.

  Smoke helmet, 42.

  Soldier patches ship with concrete, 180.

  Solent, 165.

  Spain loses Cuba, 214.

  Spanish-American War, cause of, 214.

  Spanish doubloons, 18.

  Spanish galleon, 15.

  Spanish galleon destroyed, 20.

  Spontaneous combustion and _Maine_ disaster, 216.

  Spy and burning troopship, 163.

  Stag Rocks, _Seuvic_ wrecked on, 182.

  Standard patch, 100.

  State as underwriters, 96.

  Steel cable, giant, 191.

  Steel cables, breaking strains of, 192.

  Steel cables snapped by gale, 154.

  Steel plates, cutting under sea, 169.

  Steel tombs, submarines as, 118.

  Storms defeat salvage, 5, 7.

  Storms snap steel cables, 7.

  Storms, strength of, 8.

  Stranded ships, towing off, 186, 187.

  Stranding of _Norton_, 183.

  Submarine, an American adventure, 149.

  Submarine campaign, 96.

  Submarine carried 40 miles, 158.

  Submarine carried over sandbar, 129.

  Submarine commander’s dilemma, 150.

  Submarine, dropping a, 129.

  Submarine F.4, disaster to, 152.

  Submarine flash lamp and K.13, 137.

  Submarine lamps, 157.

  Submarine menace and British Salvage Section, 97.

  Submarine, mine-laying, 121.

  Submarine O.5, sinks in 40 feet of water, 151.

  Submarine S.5, her strange accident, 141.

  Submarine scenery, 204.

  Submarine sinks oil tanker, 163.

  Submarine tragedies seen by divers, 118.

  Submarine with folding funnels, 131.

  Submarines as steel tombs, 118.

  Submarines, netting, 116.

  Submarines, wonderful escapes from sunken, 139, 145, 146–152.

  Submerged gun-turrets, detaching, 87.

  Survivors of _Belgian Prince_ atrocity, 120.

  Survivors of K.13, 139.


  Taranto, 79, 84.

  Taranto dry dock, depth of, 87.

  Telephone, submarine, 40.

  Telephone that floats, 142.

  Temperature of 6700 degrees under water, 169.

  Texel, 22.

  Thermit bomb, 163.

  Tide, how it helps lifting operations, 127.

  Tides and salvage, 5.

  Timber frame upholds battleship, 91.

  Timber jackets for pontoons, 153.

  Timber props to strengthen wreck, 110.

  Timber structure, remarkable, 90.

  Timber used in salvage work, 90.

  Timbers support 20,000 tons, 91.

  Timbers withstand 225 tons pressure per square inch, 91.

  _Timbo_, wreck of, 186.

  Tirpitz, 117.

  Tobermory Bay, 20.

  Tobermory treasure-hunt, 19.

  Tonnage, increase in, 114.

  Tools used by divers, 194.

  Torpedoed ships, how their positions were noted, 99.

  Torpedoes found in U.44, 130.

  Torpedoing at sight, 96.

  Torpedoing of _Westmoreland_, 106.

  Towing battleship upside-down, 90.

  Towing off stranded ships, 186, 187.

  Tragedies of sunken submarines, 118.

  Tragedy caused by oats, 178.

  Tragedy of oil tankers, 161.

  Trapped in sunken submarine, 131, 146, 152.

  Trapping air to salve a ship, 85.

  Treasure and business men, 11.

  Treasure, Captain Kidd’s, 11.

  Treasure-hunt at Tobermory, 19.

  Treasure-hunt of British Navy, 65–78.

  Treasure-hunting finance, 12.

  Treasure of _Alphonso XII._, 57.

  Treasure of _Florencia_, 19.

  Treasure of Incas, 11.

  Treasure of _Laurentic_, value found, 77.

  Treasure of _Lutine_, 23.

  Treasure recovered from _Lutine_, 26.

  Treasure recovered from _Oceana_, 50.

  Treasure-hunters beaten, 32.

  Treasure-hunters chased by pirates, 62–64.

  Tricks of salvors, 205.

  Tripods, use in raising ships upright, 164.

  Troopship, scuttling of a, 163.

  Troopships protected by nets, 96.

  Trunkway, 110.

  Tug of war between wreck and railway engines, 164, 165.

  Tugs tow battleship upside-down, 90.

  Tyne, _Milwaukee_ towed to, 182.


  U-boat carried 40 miles, 158.

  U-boat sinks oil tanker off New York, 163.

  U-boat, why Admiralty salved it, 124.

  U-boats and British Salvage Section, 97.

  U-boats, netting, 116.

  U.44 atrocity, 118.

  U.44 carried three-quarters of a mile, 127.

  U.44, depth of wreck, 124.

  U.44, destruction of, 123.

  U.44, its mission, 121.

  U.44, method of finding, 124.

  Umbrella patch, 206.

  Underwriters lose £900,000, 23.


  Vancouver, 32.

  _Vindictive_, full of cement, 115.

  _Vindictive_, German failure to raise, 115.

  _Vindictive_, mines aboard when sunk, 115.

  _Vindictive_, problems of raising, 115.

  _Vindictive_ raised, 116.

  Vlieland, 25.


  Wagenfuhr, Paul, 119.

  War interrupts food supplies in Britain, 96.

  _War Knight_, 160–163.

  War wrecks and British Government, 112.

  War-time salvage depots, 97.

  War-time shipbuilding, 114.

  Water as ballast, 111.

  Water _versus_ air, 35, 36.

  Waterford, 121.

  Weather, influence of, 5.

  Weather prevents salvage work, 108.

  _Westmoreland_, 105.

  _Westmoreland_, depth of wreck, 107.

  _Westmoreland_, extent of damage to, 106.

  _Westmoreland_, fight to save, 106, 107.

  _Westmoreland_, sinking of, 107.

  _Westmoreland_ torpedoed, 106.

  _Westmoreland_, value of, 105.

  Williamson, Mr., his invention for filming seabed, 211.

  Winchester Cathedral saved by diver, 213.

  Wireless mast shot away, 118.

  Wireless romance, 145.

  Work stopped by gales, 108.

  Wreck, balancing a, 111.

  Wreck, method of finding, 124.

  Wreck of _Alphonso XII._, 56.

  Wreck of _Araby_, 174.

  Wreck of _City of Paris_, 182.

  Wreck of _Florencia_, 19.

  Wreck of _Gladiator_, cost of salving, 167.

  Wreck of _Hamilla Mitchell_, 58.

  Wreck of H.M.S. _Britannia_, 172.

  Wreck of H.M.S. _Gladiator_, 165.

  Wreck of H.M.S. _Montagu_, 171.

  Wreck of _Hypatia_, 9.

  Wreck of _Intrepid_, 208.

  Wreck of _Laurentic_, 67.

  Wreck of _Leonardo da Vinci_ surveyed, 82.

  Wreck of _Lutine_, 23.

  Wreck of _Maine_, 214.

  Wreck of _Milwaukee_, 181.

  Wreck of _Montgomery_, 181.

  Wreck of _O. B. Jennings_, 163.

  Wreck of _Oceana_, 49.

  Wreck of _Onward_, 163.

  Wreck of _Seuvic_, 182.

  Wreck of _Silurus_, 187.

  Wreck of _Skyro_, 45.

  Wreck of _Timbo_, 186.

  Wreck of U.44, depth of, 124.

  Wreck of _War Knight_, 162.

  Wreck of _Westmoreland_, 107.

  Wreck patched with concrete, 180.

  Wreck uprighted by railway engines, 164, 165.

  Wreck, working cables under, 125.

  Wrecks, annual value of, 3.

  Wrecks, destruction of, 3.

  Wrecks, effect of sea on, 114.

  Wrecks indicated by flags in maps, 99.

  Wrecks, method of raising, 125.

  Wrecks salved after Armistice, 112.

  _Wrestler_, H.M.S., 77.


  Young, Commodore Sir F. W., 95, 98, 115, 156.


  Zeebrugge, 115.

  Zogria Island, 183.

  Zuyder Zee, 26.




_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_

THE ROMANCE OF EXCAVATION

A RECORD OF THE AMAZING DISCOVERIES IN EGYPT, ASSYRIA, TROY, CRETE AND
ELSEWHERE

             _With Twenty-nine Illustrations in half-tone._
            _Second Edition._  _Crown 8vo._  _6s. 6d. net._


SOME PRESS OPINIONS

_Daily Telegraph._--“A most useful and popularly written introduction
to one of the great subjects before the world to-day. It is a
stupendous and inspiring story.”

_Sunday Times._--“A most fascinating book. Mr. Masters tells the story
of these pioneer excavators in a remarkably vivid way. The numerous
photographs add considerably to the value of his book. Mr. Masters has
done his work very well indeed.”

_Daily News._--“A book that will equally delight the grown-ups and the
small fry.”

_New Statesman._--“An imaginative boy, into whose hands this book
chanced to fall, would in all probability start digging up the garden
within a week. Mr. Masters adds to the learning of a scholar the
enthusiasm of a schoolboy. The book may confidently be recommended to
readers of all ages.”

_Evening Standard._--“There is adventure and romance sufficient
to satisfy the most eager spirit in the pursuit of the science of
excavation.”

_Times Literary Supplement._--“Pleasant and readable.”

_Graphic._--“It enables the reader to capture the thrill of the romance
of digging up the world’s history....”

_Review of Reviews._--“Tales of treasure trove and adventure are always
attractive, and Mr. Masters has made good use of the innumerable
romantic adventures of archæologists.”

_Cassell’s Weekly._--“A most entrancing book.... We turn over the pages
with eagerness, and everywhere we find something that attracts us.”

_Illustrated London News._--“A useful and pleasant book.”

_Guardian._--“A quite delightful survey of the history of excavation.”

_Near East._--“It is a difficulty to overpraise this elegant little
picture-story in the space at our disposal. The little book is really
a champagne to the most jaded mind. The story is so simply told; the
author’s gentle enthusiasm is irresistible; his shop-window is full of
jewels; you should not pass it by.”

_Glasgow Herald._--“The task which Mr. Masters has set before him he
has splendidly accomplished. No school library should be without this
book....”

_Sphere._--“Popular and readable.”

_Gentlewoman._--“A book of pure delight.”

_Contemporary Review._--“A book that will interest all those on whom
the lure of discovery has taken hold.”

_Public Opinion._--“A handy book on this subject should find a large
market.”

_Scotsman._--“Told in a popular form that should render it
comprehensible to a wide audience.”

_Court Journal._--“A book that fathers can read and discuss with their
growing sons.”

_Education._--“Admirably fitted for prizes for intelligent students.”

_Egyptian Gazette._--“So much interest and value to the great public.”


             JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD LTD., VIGO ST., W. 1




Transcriber’s Notes


Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
unbalanced.

Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs
and outside quotations. In versions of this eBook that support
hyperlinks, the page references in the List of Illustrations lead to
the corresponding illustrations.

The index was not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page
references.





*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WONDERS OF SALVAGE ***


    

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will
be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
States without permission and without paying copyright
royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™
concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may
do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
license, especially commercial redistribution.


START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person
or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™
electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the
Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual
works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting
free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™
works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily
comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when
you share it without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no
representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
country other than the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear
prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work
on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the
phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed,
performed, viewed, copied or distributed:

    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
    other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
    whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
    of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
    at www.gutenberg.org. If you
    are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws
    of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
  
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is
derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™
trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works
posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
beginning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg™ License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format
other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official
version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain
Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the
full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
provided that:

    • You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
        the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method
        you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
        to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has
        agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
        Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
        within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
        legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
        payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
        Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
        Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
        Literary Archive Foundation.”
    
    • You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
        you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
        does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™
        License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
        copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
        all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™
        works.
    
    • You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
        any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
        electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
        receipt of the work.
    
    • You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
        distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.
    

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than
are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right
of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
without further opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in
accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or
additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any
Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™

Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future
generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.

Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.

The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website
and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread
public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state
visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.

Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be
freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of
volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org.

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.