However, it wasn’t the engines that were bothering Buzbee; they were doing all right in spite of the heat. It was the compressor itself. Specifically, he called my attention to the main bearings at each end of the compressor casing—they were smoking as never before.
“Cap’n,” complained Buzbee, “I was just about to go looking for you. If we don’t shut this machine down quick, she’ll shut herself down. I’ve never seen those bearings so hot before. I’ve been shooting grease steadily into ’em, but it’s no use. She’s running hotter’n blazes, and why that bearing metal hasn’t wiped out already, I don’t know. Better let me shut her down right now so she can cool off, or we won’t have any compressor left!”
I looked at the bearing housings. The iron had a peculiar gray tinge I hadn’t seen before. Buzbee was certainly right; they were far too hot to continue operation. It wasn’t any use to try feeling the bearings to test whether they were too hot or not; I should only get a seared hand from that. I would have to go by sight alone and by the odor of that sizzling grease as it ran from the bearings, smoking as if it were on the point of spontaneous combustion.
“O.K., Jim, you’re right. Shut her down. Only give me a few minutes to get up at that air valve manifold to close off the valves to this machine when you stop her, or the compressed air from inside the dock’ll blow back through this compressor and run it in reverse.”
I climbed hurriedly up to the valve manifold above and stood by to shut off both the four-inch valves there. As soon as I was set, I waved to Buzbee below me, who promptly unclutched the compressor and shut down both engines while I hurriedly, with both hands, screwed shut the air valves to prevent blowing back and losing the valuable compressed air we already had pumped into the dry dock.
Immediately, a strange silence fell over the dock, now the roar of those two huge engines was stilled, broken only by the comparatively trifling exhaust from the smaller Ingersoll-Rand compressor still running across the water in its barge outboard of the submerged port side of the dock.
I sighed regretfully. We had lost about 80 per cent of our air supply; it was doubtful if the Ingersoll-Rand by itself could even make good the leakage from all over the dock. I could now expect the afloat starboard side of the dry dock to start to sink slowly as the air leaked out from below. To minimize that, I set the air valves to throw all the air from our remaining compressor over to starboard to make good leakage there and hold the starboard side up as well as possible till the Sutorbilt compressor had cooled enough to hold grease in its bearings and make it safe to start it up again.
Hardly had I finished setting valves, when I felt a tremor in the dock beneath my feet. Startled, I looked up, to see that the wood scaffolding atop the submerged port side wall of the dry dock had lifted higher above the water!
The sunken port side of the dry dock was coming up, and at no slow speed either! Swiftly my eye ran along the hundred yard length of that scaffolding to port of me, to note to my dismay that it wasn’t coming up evenly fore and aft; that whatever the reasons, it had already risen farther at the stern than at the bow, and that that already bad situation was getting worse as she rose.
I gazed in agony. At this moment of all moments when I had just lost my big air compressor and with it all chance of controlling the movements of that dock, the port side with no air at all going into it any longer, had broken free of the mud at last and was on its way up, stern first instead of evenly, throwing the whole dry dock out of balance and heading for possible catastrophe!
By now the port side had risen three or four feet, easily visible to everyone anywhere on or near the dock. All around I heard men begin to cheer at the sight, but to me it was nothing to cheer over. In anguish, I sang out to Buzbee below me to starboard, just beginning to inspect the dead compressor.
“For God’s sake, Jim, start that compressor up again! Never mind if we ruin it now! START IT UP!”
Buzbee, masked by the starboard outboard side of dry dock near him from any view of what was going on to port, couldn’t understand my sudden reversal of his orders, but like the faithful helper I had always found him, asked no questions and dashed for the little starting engine to crank that up first and get things going, while I stood by the compressor air manifold valves to twirl them open the moment the big compressor started to roll over, and shoot all the compressed air I could get forward into the starboard bow of the dry dock to hold that up. We were going to need it there.
For already I could see that the starboard bow of the dry dock was trimming lower into the water as the port side rose, high by the stern. A few seconds more and the stern on the port side broke above the surface while the starboard bow directly ahead of me, previously three feet or more out of water, slowly sank lower and I could see the ocean gradually rising toward the deck.
Below me to starboard, Buzbee was frantically working to start up the compressor engines, but it was an involved and a slow job. I looked to port. The whole deck of the port side wall was now above water, still stern high, with the entire skeleton of that eleven foot high scaffolding standing on it completely exposed.
But now I could see also that on the depressed starboard bow the ocean was already lapping aft along the deck and water was starting to pour down the forward hatches into the bow compartments of the dry dock. For me, that spelled the end. Even if I got air now from the compressor, it was too late. Nothing could save the entire dock, now all afloat, from swiftly sinking again as those bow compartments flooded and the water ran swiftly aft to flood other compartments in succession.
There was no longer any hope of keeping the dock afloat. All I could do was to see no one was trapped inside when it went down. I left my useless station at the air manifold to run aft along the scaffolding shouting for all hands below to get up on deck. Whether Jim Buzbee ever got that air compressor started then, I don’t know yet. It made no difference any more.
Long before I got near the stern along that stretch of starboard side scaffolding, the whole dry dock had submerged again, both sides. Nothing of it was visible any more except a foot or two of the tops of the scaffoldings which a moment or two before had all been completely above water. All about, swimming in the turbulent sea, were the men who had been working before on deck the starboard side, and, I fervently hoped, those who had been working below decks. The broken water all about, badly disturbed by the sudden rising and the even more sudden sinking of the dry dock, was a mass of foam in which heads were bobbing about, striking out for the scaffoldings or the boats for support.
I had only one worry—had everybody got clear from below? Hurriedly I looked about me, but with mainly only unrecognizable heads dotting the foaming sea, there wasn’t any way of taking an immediate muster.
But one thing I knew—whether anyone else had been below when the trouble started, Armstrong, Larsen, and Jones certainly had been. They had all been far aft inside the very compartment at the stern now submerged beneath my feet, into which I could see a flood of water must be pouring through the invisible booby hatch leading down to it, marked at that instant by a swirling vortex of water going down and of air bubbling up. Had those three men got out before the dock submerged aft, the last part of it to vanish?
In agony I looked about. I saw nothing of any of them on the scaffolding, in the few boats or floats near by. They might indeed be among the swimmers I couldn’t recognize; that I couldn’t tell.
My eyes fell on Lloyd Williams on the scaffolding near me. He had been on deck of the dock near that booby hatch when the dock started to submerge. He might have seen whether those men had escaped or not.
“Lloyd!” I shouted. “Where’s Armstrong and his mates? Did they get clear?”
“Don’t know, Captain. I didn’t see ’em get out. All I think I saw was a hand waving out that booby hatch when she went down, but I can’t swear to it!”
So probably they hadn’t escaped; they were trapped below by the inrushing water. If we would save them, we must act swiftly. Close
by me at the stern now was my diving boat. In it, still fully dressed in a diving rig except for his diving helmet and his partly unbolted breastplate, sat Doc Kimble, apparently up from his last dive and being undressed when catastrophe struck. Near him in the boat were Captain Reed, with Al Watson and Lew Whitaker who had been undressing Kimble.
“Bill!” I shouted to Reed. “Clap Doc’s helmet back on him again and get him overboard! There’re three men trapped in the stern here!”
“No use, Cap’n,” shouted back Reed, “It’ll take five minutes to get Doc dressed again. They’ll all be drowned by then!”
Reed was right. That couldn’t be done swiftly enough to matter. But alongside Kimble was Watson, a fine swimmer and an expert diver in a face mask, which would take him only a moment to slip on and go overboard.
“Al!” I shrieked. “Get on your face mask and get overboard to help those men!”
Watson took a look at that veritable maelstrom of water and air over the booby hatch, then answered briefly,
“Can’t be done, Cap’n. Anybody going in there now’ll only be sucked through and killed himself!”
My heart turned to lead. There was no absolute certainty that those three men were trapped below, but they probably were. And if they were and we waited either for Doc to get dressed or the water to calm enough for an expert swimmer like Al to dare that whirlpool in a face mask, it would be too late. I wasn’t much of a swimmer myself, but those were my men trapped inside that submerged dry dock and I was responsible for them. They couldn’t be allowed to die without at least an effort, poor as it might be, being made to save them. I plunged overboard from the scaffolding into the boiling vortex marking the booby hatch.
It was nine feet down through the water to that booby hatch and the instant I submerged, I could no longer see anything—just a mass of swirling water, milky with air bubbles, impossible to see through even an inch. Fortunately, my plunge took me straight down where I wanted to go; possibly the inward rush of water helped suck me to the right spot.
At any rate, completely blinded, I still by feel spotted myself in front of the booby hatch, over toward the latch side. I turned right side up, felt the door was open a bit, not much, and grabbed its edge with one hand to hold myself down while I felt round the steel door with the other. My fumbling fingers came across something soft, an arm, jammed between the door and its frame. There was somebody still down there! One man at least!
I tried to swing the steel door open but still there was some pressure of water pouring through to hold it closed. Frenziedly I braced both my legs somehow against the unseen barnacle-encrusted booby hatch, clinging to that arm with one hand lest I lose it in the rush of water when the door opened, while with the other I heaved with all the strength I had against that steel door. It swung back.
With both hands then, I got a good grip on the shoulder of the arm I had and dragged a completely limp body out of the hatch, though still I could see nothing of it. Gripping that body tightly now, with one arm and both legs, I pawed my way up through the sea to the surface.
Immediately I came up, gasping for air, a dozen arms reached down to grip me and my burden. I was alongside a boat which apparently had got there while I was below. Willy-nilly, I was dragged up into that boat, still clinging to whoever I had in my arms. In the process, the whole right half of my khaki shirt was torn from my back by someone heaving on me. The next moment, I was inside the boat, half strangled, gasping for breath and looking down at Horace Armstrong unconscious at my feet.
If Armstrong had been caught below, the two others with him probably still were there.
“Give ’im first aid, quick!” I mumbled, and then went overboard again.
Once more I brought up alongside the booby hatch, to grip it with both legs while I felt about in the milky swirl inside the now opened door. My hands came across another body, just as limp as Armstrong’s, jammed in the upper part of the booby hatch against its curving steel back. With a strong tug, I dragged it clear, and shoved off for the surface again with whoever it was clutched tightly against my breast.
I saw it was Lloyd Williams who dragged me into the boat this time, while others helped. I dropped my lifeless burden on the floor boards, looked at it. It was Larsen. A little aft in the boat several men were already working on Armstrong. Only Jones could be left now. I jumped overboard a third time to get him.
For the third time I went down. The water around that booby hatch door was quieter now but as impenetrable to sight as ever. I felt through the door. My clawing fingers touched nothing. I jammed a whole arm and part of my body inside, clinging somehow with my legs to the framework of the booby hatch to keep from going through into what must now be that wholly flooded compartment, and thank God, my fingers closed on another body in the upper part of that booby hatch, apparently as lifeless as both the others. This must be Jones; there were only three men there.
With considerably more trouble than before, I managed to drag Jones’ limp figure out through the little door into the clear and start up with him through the sea.
For the third and last time my head popped through the surface, there finally to be dragged into the boat to stay. Exhausted, I sank down on a thwart, while others began first aid on Jones, when to their surprise he opened his eyes languidly and looked around. The other two, who had been brought up first, were completely out, perhaps dead, but Jones, who had been down longer than either, was semiconscious! The only way I could ever explain that was that being so very tall, his nose may have come into a little pocket of air in the top of that booby hatch above the door frame, allowing him to get at least a few whiffs of air while the others, completely engulfed in water, strangled.
But there was no time for speculation. Hurriedly all three men were put in separate boats where they could all conveniently be worked over at once, and first aid for drowning proceeded on all of them.
In a few minutes, Glen Galvin and my boat, which had raced ashore for the surgeon, was back with Lieutenant Salmeri (who had lately relieved Captain Plummer as our surgeon), together with several Army hospital corpsmen and their pulmotor equipment. Out in open boats over the now wholly sunken dry dock, they went to work.
Jones was speedily restored to full consciousness. Within an hour Larsen also had been brought to, was breathing regularly, and was out of danger. Only Horace Armstrong, the first man I had brought up, still was not revived, though Dr. Salmeri thought that he could detect a faint heartbeat in his stethoscope. They would keep on working on Armstrong.
With a heavy heart and my prayers following him, I watched Horace Armstrong, still limp, still steadily being worked on with a pulmotor, taken ashore in my boat (together with the now revived Larsen and Jones), there to have resuscitation methods continued in the sickbay.
For the first time, now that the three men were gone from out in the harbor, I took a look at myself. I was a mess. I had on only half a shirt, the left half; the right half of my shirt, together with the gold-striped shoulder mark that belonged there, was gone completely. But what surprised me was that the left leg of my khaki shorts was cut wide open, and my left leg inside from knee to groin was a mass of gashes, looking as if a razor had slashed deeply into it vertically at least a dozen times. And I hadn’t even noticed it before! Apparently at some point below while I was gripping that booby hatch between my legs to hold myself, the barnacles encrusting it had gone to work on me.
Lew Whitaker had in his diving boat a bottle of some special antiseptic he had brought from Los Angeles, used by the fishermen around Catalina Island to avoid infection from cuts on fish. We had found it helpful in Massawa. A good part of the liquid in that bottle went on my leg into all those gashes; then Doc Kimble (who actually was an M.D. but preferred diving for a change) bandaged up the whole inside of my leg and I was ready to go to work again.
It was around 5 P.M. Still out on the scaffoldings or in boats near by were all my men (except the three Dr. Salmeri had taken ashore) gazing mournfully
at what little of the scaffoldings still showed above water. So far as I could judge, nothing of our air main setup or of the scaffoldings supporting it had been injured during the wild gyrations of the dry dock in rising and sinking again.
My men were still all more or less in a state of shock over what had just occurred; when they got over it, what their reactions might be to continued work on that unfortunate dry dock would be difficult to estimate. But at the moment, all were too numbed to do much thinking, so before their wounds could stiffen, so to speak, and slow them up, I started all hands immediately on the re-raising of that dry dock.
The bearings on the Sutorbilt compressor had cooled somewhat; we packed them with fresh grease and started it up, sending all its air down to the sunken starboard side. That done, I busied all hands in getting out from shore and from the big Eytie dry dock another set of gasoline-driven 3-inch pumps to replace the ones now on the submerged dock beneath us, which would be waterlogged and useless even when they emerged once more from the sea.
At 10 P.M. that Monday night, lighted only by the stars and the glimmer of a few electric lights, the starboard side of the dry dock floated up again. All hands turned to with the new pumps to dry out for the second time all the upper compartments, including the after one where stood that now innocuous-looking barnacle-covered booby hatch in which our three shipmates had been trapped.
There was no cessation of work, even in the darkness. Once the starboard side upper compartments were pumped dry and that side again as high out of water as it originally had been before our accident, I swung most of the compressed air over to the port side.
We had one thing in our favor. Now at least it was night, and hot though it was, we were spared the radiant heat of the sun playing on our big compressors. If only I could get the port side up again while still I had that big Sutorbilt compressor running, I would be all right. Hour after hour, I kept pouring compressed air into the port side, praying for action before dawn, while yet we had the night to favor us.
Under the Red Sea Sun Page 47