Unredeemed

Off the coast of Connecticut seven squat little ships rode the grey waves of the Atlantic at dawn one sombre morning last week; a thousand men waited the order to "Blow her out" which would start the sunken submarine S-51 toward the surface from off her slimy bier in the ocean mud.

Ashore many sad folk waited anxiously for the long unredeemed corpses of the mariners. And exhausted officers on the salvaging craft hoped that their patience-trying laborings begun last September would finally be completed. Twenty-four drowned sailors remained quite unconcerned with all the lugubrious consternation.

The order came. Compressed air pumps sent buoyancy to six 40-ton steel pontoons made fast to the submarine 132 feet below. Meanwhile the wind whipped up heavy combers which rolled the ships gayly. In the greysome depths eels and fishes saw the huge barnacled steel whale shift about and sway in her bed like a restive sleeper, start behemothly for the surface. On the reeling decks above workers were astonished to see the nose of the sunken monster suddenly poke through the waves and into the sunlight once again. The crews cheered. In another moment the amidships pontoons appeared. It seemed that all that remained was to blow out the stern pontoons and tow the resurrected ship and her ghastly cargo back to a Christian harbor of refuge.

Bugles called hasty orders, the pumps blasted air furiously into the stern pontoons, the waiting ghoul-ships drew closer, the great narwhalian mausoleum swung ponderously in the seas, her stern dragging on the bottom, as the 24 neared consummate orthodox sepulture.

Still the waves piled over one another ribaldly, broke, boiled away. Then a loud report fetched all eyes aft. They saw a pontoon shoot clear of the combers and settle back into the ocean in a smother of foam. Quickly then another catapulted through the waves, floated off casually. Far below the surface a chain with links two and a half inches thick and tested to a strain of 110 tons had parted. The work of months at the risk of many lives, all realized, had been swept away in a single moment. The wind blew fresher, the seas rolled up raging.

Lean and nervous Captain King in a dirty blue uniform leaned over the rail, his bloodshot eyes staring into the water. Dejectedly he said, "We've done everything we can. Two months of it and we're tired!" He gave orders to capture the two capricious, runaway pontoons, to flood the ones floating,--it was an impossibility to tow the submarine to port with her stern resting on the bottom. Smashing seas imperiled the small boats and crashed together the four pontoons, rendering the re-submergence extremely hazardous. The first man to volunteer for the job of opening the valves was an engineer and before orders could be outlined to him in detail, he impatiently jumped over the rail into the swirling waters and clambered on one of the pontoons. As he reached to open the valve, a wrathful wave rushed over him. For a moment he and the pontoon were out of sight, and the next moment the pontoon reappeared unpopulated. There was a frenzy of excitement until the grinning head of the amphibious engineman was spotted atop another wave. He was captured and brought back to the boat. As he stepped aboard he said, "Well, I opened that valve."

Another volunteer was never asked for to open the second valve. The boatswain of the flagship did not await formal invitation, but jumped into the boiling sea, clad in gross blue underwear, armed with a monkey wrench. When he rose to the surface the men on the ships were terrified to see him caught between the two forty-ton pontoons, which were slashing and banging together in the powerful seas. A tremendous wave passed over the intrepid bo's'n and the two pontoons. When they arose again, the sturdy gob was discerned astraddle his pontoon busy with his monkey wrench.

Two other wild-eyed sailors slipped into the water and swam to the amidships pontoons, opened the valves, returned safely to the ship.

Steadily the disinterred casket sank to its disordered bed, and the 24 to their ravaged abode. At early evening heavy rain settled down upon the little fleet of seven squat ships. Officers discussed earnestly plans for another attempt. Sad folk ashore turned homeward. Death lay comfortably beneath the stupid surge.