There came a bubbling roar from the vent of A, well forward, and then the clang of a heavy "water-hammer" in the pipe as the tank filled. The boat lay now as he intended her to do, bedded with negative buoyancy and with her bows well down, so that her screws and rudder were clear of the oozy mud in which she lay. "Carry on--all hands--and look for leaks."
The caulkers did not linger over the task. They did not (and small blame to them, for they were not case-hardened to the situation) relish the idea of staying longer than was necessary at a hundred and thirty-six feet by gauge and with a pressure of sixty pounds to the square inch trying to force the round steel hull inwards on itself. In a quarter of an hour they reported "All leaks located and marked."
But their ordeal was not yet over. The gloomy-eyed First Lieutenant (a pessimist, as all First Lieutenants should be) had found a new leak right aft, and the Captain was called into consultation over it. For ten minutes more the two officers conversed and searched, then came leisurely forward again. "That's all right, I think," said the Captain cheerfully. "Anybody want to look round any more? I can stay down here while they do--there's no hurry, you know."
There was an enthusiastic chorus from a group of overseers and officials--"Not at all, not at _all_, we're _quite_ satisfied--quite...." The Commander, who throughout the dive had sat unmoving by the periscope, notebook in hand and his eyes half closed, allowed himself a faint smile and a lazy yawn.
"Blow on A--fifty pounds--Blow one and two externals."
The air hissed and whined along the pipes, and the eardrums of those aboard tingled to the rising pressure from overloaded relief valves. For five minutes the hissing and roaring continued, then at a shouted order the noise stopped. The First Lieutenant looked back from the motionless gauge to the Captain. "Shall we put more on A, sir? Fifty pounds won't have moved any out at this depth...."
"No--don't put any more on, I've got One and Two pretty near out and the fifty will blow A as she rises. Then I'm going to fill One and Two again and catch the trim before we break surface. She's stuck in the mud, that's all, and we'll have to pull her out. Stand by the motors, aft there!"