Under the Waves: Diving in Deep Waters

“What a change there is in you, my dear sir!” said Joe, looking with admiration at the browned, stalwart youth before him; “why, you’ve grown moustaches!”

“I couldn’t help it, Joe,” replied Edgar; “they would come, and I had no time to shave on board.—But now, tell me about this wreck.”

When Edgar heard that the vessel belonged to Mr Hazlit his first impulse was to have nothing to do with it. He felt that any interference in regard to it would seem like a desire to thrust himself before the merchant’s notice—and that, too, in a needy manner, as if he sought employment at his hands; but on consideration he came to the conclusion that he might act as a wire-puller, give Baldwin the benefit of his knowledge, and allow him to reap the credit and the emoluments. But for a long time the honest diver would not listen to such a suggestion, and was only constrained to give in at last when Edgar threatened to leave him altogether.

“By the way, have you seen Miss Aileen since you came home?” asked Baldwin, while the two friends were seated in the cabin of the diver’s vessel poring, pencil in hand, over several sheets of paper on which were sundry mysterious designs.

“No; I was on the point of paying a visit to my good aunt Miss Pritty, with ulterior ends in view, when your letter reached me and brought me here. To say truth, your note arrived very opportunely, for I was engaged at the time in rather a hard struggle between inclination and duty—not feeling quite sure whether it was right or wise to throw myself in her way just now, for, as you may easily believe, I have not, during my comparatively short absence, made a fortune that is at all likely to satisfy the requirements of her father.”

“I suppose not,” returned the diver. “No doubt, at gold-diggin’s an’ diamond-fields an’ such-like one does hear of a man makin’ a find that enables him to set up his carriage an’ four, and ride, mayhap at a tremendous pace, straight on to ruin by means of it, but as a rule people don’t pick up sovereigns like stones either at home or abroad. It’s the experience of most men, that steady perseverance leads by the shortest road to competence, if not to wealth.—But that’s beside the question. I think you did right, Mister Eddy—excuse an old servant, sir, if it’s taking too much liberty to use the old familiar name,—you did right in coming here instead of going there.”

“So thought I, Baldy—you see that I too can take liberties,—else I should not have come. Your letter solved the difficulty, for, when I was at the very height of the struggle before mentioned—at equipoise so to speak,—and knew not whether to go to the right or to the left, that decided me. I regarded it as a leading of Providence.”

Baldwin turned a rather sudden look of surprise on his young companion.

“A leading of Providence, Mr Eddy! I never heard you use such an expression before.”

“True, but I have learned to use it since I went to sea,” replied our hero quietly.

“That’s strange,” rejoined the diver in a low voice, as if he feared to scare the young man from a subject that was very near his own heart, “very strange, for goin’ to sea has not often the effect of makin’ careless young fellows serious—though it sometimes has, no doubt. How was it, if I—”

“Yes, Baldy,” interrupted Edgar, with a pleasant smile, laying his hand on the diver’s huge shoulder, “I don’t mind making a confidant of you in this as in other matters. I’ll tell you,—the story is short enough. When I parted from Aileen, she made me a present of a New Testament from a pile that she happened to have by her to give to the poor people. To be more particular, I asked for one, and she consented to let me have it. You see I wanted a keepsake! Well, when at sea, I read the Testament regularly, night and morning, for Aileen’s sake, but God in His great love led me at last to read it for the sake of Him whose blessed life and death it records.”

“Then you’ve fairly hauled down the enemy’s colours and hoisted those of the Lord?” asked Baldwin.

“I have been led to do so,” replied the youth modestly but firmly.

“Bless the Lord!” said the diver in a low tone as he grasped Edgar’s hand, while he bowed his head for a moment.

Presently he looked up, and seemed about to resume the subject of conversation when Edgar interrupted him—

“Have you seen or heard anything of Aileen since I left?”

“Nothing, except that she’s been somewhat out of sorts, and her father has sent her up to London for a change.”

“Has he gone to London with her?”

“No, I believe not; he’s taken up a good deal wi’ the cargo o’ this ship, and comes down to see us now and then, but for the most part he remains at home attendin’ to business.”

“Have you spoken to him about raising the hull of the ship?”

“Not yet. He evidently thinks the thing impossible—besides, I wanted to hear your opinion on the matter before sayin’ anything about it.”

“Well, come, let us go into it at once,” said the youth, turning to the sheets of paper before him and taking up a pencil. “You see, Baldwin, this trip of mine as second engineer has been of good service to me in many ways, for, besides becoming practically acquainted with everything connected with marine engines, I have acquired considerable knowledge of things relating to ships in general, and am all the more able to afford you some help in this matter of raising the ship. I’ve been studying a book written by a member of the firm whose dresses you patronise, (Note. ‘The Conquest of the Sea’, by Henry Siebe.) which gives a thorough account in detail of everything connected with diving, and in it there is reference to the various modes that have hitherto been successful in the raising of sunken vessels.”

“I’ve heard of it, but not seen it,” said Baldwin. “Of course I know somewhat about raisin’ ships, havin’ once or twice lent a hand, but I’ve no head for engineerin’. What are the various modes you speak of? That’s not one of ’em, is it?”

He pointed, with a grave smile as he spoke, to the outline of a female head which Edgar had been absently tracing on the paper.

“Well, no,” replied the youth, scribbling out the head, “that’s not one of Siebe and Gorman’s appliances, and yet I venture to prophesy that that head will have a good deal to do with the raising of the Seagull! However, don’t let’s waste more time. Here you are. The first method,—that of putting empty casks in the hold so as to give the hull a floating tendency, and then mooring lighters over it and pushing chains under it,—we may dismiss at once, as being suitable only for small vessels; but the second method is worth considering, namely, that of fixing air-bags of india-rubber in the hold, attaching them to the sides, and then inflating them all at the same time by means of a powerful air-pump. We could get your divers to pass chains under her, and, when she began to rise could haul on these chains by means of lighters moored above, and so move the wreck inshore till she grounded. What say you to that?”

Baldwin shook his head. “She’s too big, I fear, for such treatment.”

“Good-sized vessels have been raised by these air-bags of late,” said Edgar. “Let me see: there were the brig Ridesdale, of 170 tons burthen, sunk off Calshot Castle, and Her Majesty’s gun-brig Partridge, 180 tons, and the brig Dauntless, 179 tons, and last, but not least, the Prince Consort, at Aberdeen, an iron paddle-steamer of 607 tons, and the dead weight lifted was 560 tons, including engines and boilers.”

Still Baldwin shook his head, remarking that the Seagull was full 900 tons.

“Well, then,” resumed the young engineer, “here is still another method. We might send down your men to make all the openings,—ports, windows, etcetera—water-tight, fix a shield over the hole she knocked in her bottom on the cliffs, and then, by means of several water-pumps reaching from above the surface to the hold, clear her of water. When sufficiently floated by such means a steam-tug could haul her into port. The iron steamship London was, not long ago, raised and saved at Dundee in that way. She rose four feet after the pumps had been worked only two hours, and while she was being towed into dock the pumps were still kept going. It was a great success—and so may it be in this case. Then, you know, we might construct a pontoon by making a raft to float on a multitude of empty barrels, pass chains under the Seagull and fix them to this pontoon at low water, so that when the tide rose she would rise perforce along with the pontoon and tide, and could be moved inshore till she grounded; then, waiting for low tide, we could taughten the chains again, and repeat the process till we got her ashore. Or, better still, we could hire Siebe and Gorman’s patent pontoon, which, if I mistake not, is much the same thing that I now suggest carried out to perfection.”

“I’m not sure that the pontoon you speak of has been launched yet. I’m afraid it’s only in model,” said Baldwin.

“More’s the pity,” rejoined Edgar, “but I can go to London and ascertain. In any case, I shall have to go to London to make inquiries, and secure the necessary apparatus.”

“Are you sure,” said Baldwin, with a look of great solemnity, “that your going to London has nothing whatever to do with apparatus of that sort?”

He placed a blunt forefinger, as he spoke on the obliterated sketch of the female head.

“Oh you suspicious old fellow!” replied Edgar; “come, you are presuming now.—We will change the subject, and go on deck.”

“Human natur’s the same everywhere,” observed Baldwin, with a quiet laugh as he rose. “Same with me exactly when I was after Susan. For one glance of her black eye I’d have gone straight off to China or Timbuctoo at half-an-hour’s notice. Well, well!—Now, Mister Eddy, don’t you think it would be as well for you to go down and have a look at the wreck? You’ll then be better able to judge as to what’s best to be done, an’ I’ve got a noo dress by the firm of Denayrouze, with a speakin’-apparatus, which’ll fit you. I got it for myself, and we’re much about a size—barrin’ the waist, in which I have the advantage of you as to girth. Their noo pump and lamp, too, will interest you. See, here is the pump.”

As he spoke, the diver pointed to a pump which commended itself at first sight by its extreme simplicity. Whether or not it was better than the more complex, but well-tried, pumps of other makers, our hero was well aware could only be proved by time and experience. Meanwhile he was favourably impressed with it.

The peculiarities of the pump referred to were, first, and most obvious, that it had no outer wooden case or box, and the parts were exceedingly few and simple. It was on the lever principle, the cylinders, instead of the pistons, being movable. The pistons were fixed to a bed-plate and pointed upwards, so that the pump was, as it were, turned upside down, a position which, among other advantages, allowed of the plungers being covered with water, through which the air was forced and partially cooled. Another and important peculiarity was an air-reservoir which received air from the pump direct, and then passed it on to the diver, so that even if the pumps should stop working there would still be a supply of air flowing down to the diver for several minutes. The lamp referred to was also a novelty, inasmuch as it was supplied with air by a separate tube from the reservoir in the same way as if it were a separate human diver. The Henkie and Davis lamp burns, on the other hand, entirely without air, by means of certain acids. That of Siebe and Gorman is an electric-lamp. Both are said to be effective and economical.

Putting on the new dress, our hero was soon ready to descend, with the lamp burning in his hand.

“There are three men down just now,” said Baldwin as he was about to screw on the mouth-piece, “two of ’em bein’ your old friends Maxwell and Rooney Machowl. They’ve been down about three hours, and won’t be up for an hour yet. See that you don’t foul them in your wanderings below. The other man, Jem Hogg—an’ he’s well named—is the laziest chap I ever had to do with. I do believe he sometimes goes to sleep under water!”

“Is that possible?” asked Edgar.

“Possible? Ay, I’ve caught ’em takin’ a snooze before now. Why, I’ve known a man smoke under water. There was one of our fellows once got a comrade to let him keep his pipe in his mouth while he screwed on the front-glass; you see he couldn’t have put it in his mouth after that was fixed; but he was well paid. For a time he smoked away well enough, and the draught of air carried off the smoke through the escape-valve, but an extra strong puff sent a spark out o’ the bowl, which went straight into his eye. He spat out the pipe, and nearly drove in the glasses in his useless efforts to get at his eye, and then he tugged at the lines like fury, and, when we got him on deck he danced about like wildfire, as if he’d been shod with indyrubber instead of bein’ weighted with lead. We thought he had gone mad, and held him fast till we got his helmet off. It cost him a month in hospital before that eye was cured.”

“That being the case, I won’t smoke while below,” said Edgar, laughing; “screw away.”

The glass was fastened, and our hero quickly disappeared under the sea.

Chapter Six.

A sunken Wreck inspected, sundry wonderful Doings under Water Recorded, and various Plans successfully carried out

The vessel which Edgar Berrington had left his native element to inspect was a large barque. It had gone to the bottom only a few months after having been launched. The cargo, being intended for the Cape of Good Hope colony, was of a miscellaneous character, and some of it was of course ruined by water, but much remained almost uninjured, or only a little damaged.

It was for the purpose of raising the latter portion of the cargo that Baldwin and his men had been engaged by Mr Hazlit. Hitherto the divers had been extremely successful. With the usual appliances of slings, chains, shears and windlasses, etcetera, they had already recovered a large quantity of goods, and were still busy in the hold when Edgar went down.

As we have said, the wreck lay in comparatively deep water—about ten fathoms. The ladder which descended from the side of the diver’s vessel was not two fathoms in length, so that after reaching the lowest round, Edgar had to continue his descent by slipping down the rope which hung from the ladder and was weighted at the bottom with a stone.

On reaching the ground he knelt, set down the lamp, and attached his guide-line to the stone. While thus engaged he looked with much interest at his little lamp, which burned as brightly and steadily down in the depths of ocean as if on land, while, from its chimney the air which gave it life rose upwards in a constant stream of bubbles. The water being dense and very dark its light did not penetrate far, but close to the bull’s-eye it was sufficiently strong to enable our hero to see what he was about. Having fixed the line, he was about to move in the direction of the wreck when he received one pull on his life-line. Replying to it with one pull—“all right”—he was again about to move, when a strange unearthly sound filled his ears, and he smiled to think that in his interest about the lamp and fastening his guide-line he had totally forgotten the speaking apparatus connected with his helmet.