A Few Breaths Left. I came to a fork in the corridor. On the right was a clutter of pipes and debris, so I opted for the left and went about 40 feet before coming to a dead end.
I retreated and swam carefully around the pipes and other debris in the passageway to the right. Twenty feet along it my lamp began to dim. Without light, l' m as good as dead. Just no way I can find my way around. So now the race was against a dying battery as well as a diminishing air supply.
In the next passageway, I caught a glimpse of light through a crack in the hull—but it was not nearly wide enough for me to get through. I knew my diving companions would be heading back to the anchor line by now, so I decided to stop and take a chance of attracting their attention.
I found a piece of copper pipe and put one of my rubber gloves over its end. Then I pushed the glove through the opening and waved it. If someone noticed the glove, he could at least get extra tanks of air through the narrow gap. Sure enough, a diver appeared.
I stretched my arm through the opening, and with my knife scratched on the side of the hull: "Trapped ... Air ... Rope."
The diver headed for the surface as fast as he dared, to let the others know of nay predicament.
With only a few minutes of air left in my tank, I was panicking. I know Lars will be here ... if l can just hang on. To conserve air, I skipped every other beat in my breathing rhythm. For an instant, I considered moving on, using up the air in a last desperate effort to find my own way out. Then I heard Lars' s bubbles as he approached.
Next moment he was pushing in the first of two air tanks he had brought down. I strapped it on. Each tank would give me an additional 30 minutes to work my way out of this underwater labyrinth. I felt better already.
Desperate Choice. Lars had also brought down a light for me and a long safety line. Grabbing the lamp and one end of the line, I headed back into the wreck. Now, by pulling the line after me, I could return for more air. That is, if no more bulkheads closed in behind me.
As I worked back into the wreck, Lars fastened the other spare tank to the side of the narrow opening, and then began looking along the outside of the hull for a possible way to get me out.
Pacing myself to keep from getting out of breath, I swam cautiously through a confusion of narrow corridors and cluttered spaces. I kept bumping into pipes, jabbing myself with protruding objects and taking wrong turns. Fear was squeezing the breath out of me.
Soon I came to a spot that resembled the inside of a gun turret.There was a narrow opening to it that might just accommodate my 200-pound frame if I removed my tank and pulled it through after me. I had to chance it.
But as I squeezed through the opening, the tank fell from my grasp. The regulator was jerked from my mouth, nearly pulling my front teeth out. I had a fast choice to make—either search for the tank I had dropped or try to follow the safety line 70 feet back to the other tank Lars had left for me. I doubted that I could make the swim on the air remaining in my lungs. But could I locate the dropped tank?
Perhaps I should just give up, open my mouth and fill my lungs with water. It will be over in a few seconds, and then I can rest.
This was crazy!
Something grabbed my right shoulder. I nearly jumped out of my wet suit. It was Lars. He had managed to find a way down around the gun turret, via another opening in the wreck.
I grabbed Lars' s mouthpiece and gasped in a few breaths of air. I was almost out of my jam Lars and I could buddy-breathe from his tank and work our way clear of the wreck, following the safety line he had pulled behind him.
We wriggled out through the gun turret without too much trouble. But I had been near the bottom for 70 minutes; I' d have to spend over an hour decompressing. We followed the anchor line to the ten-foot level. There we found two sets of double tanks waiting for us, lowered by our alert shipmates.
When eventually we eased to the surface everyone on board greeted us with sighs of relief. It seemed that a dark curtain had lifted as I gazed at the beautiful seascape glittering in bright sunshine.
Back on the Barnacle Bill, I pulled off my gear and thanked Lars and my other resourceful companions. Then I went down into the cabin to rest. Lars appeared in the doorway, a slight grin on his face."What would you have done if I hadn' t shown up?" he kidded me.
I considered. "When I got back to the boat, " I said, "I' d have fired you. Now let me sleep."
伴着一声巨响，那面被海水长久腐蚀的舱壁坍塌了，潜水员的退路被封死了。此刻，他在黑暗中拼命地在这座水下迷宫里摸索着前进。他可以精确地计算出他还有多长的寿命——氧气罐里储存的氧气只够他呼吸25分钟了。