Stratton stretched out his hands in every direction to work out the shape of the construction and discovered that the struts formed a rough circle. He moved over the drum and through this circle to find himself inside a container, which he followed up into a narrow dead end. He was rapidly heading into oxygen deficit and Hamlin’s words telling him to look for a tap echoed in his head. He found a small pipe that led to what was clearly a large metal gas bottle but without a valve at the connection. He quickly followed it in the other direction to find what could be described as a tap and tried to turn it but it wouldn’t budge.
Something grabbed Stratton’s leg and Christine climbed up beside him. Her hands felt up his arms and to his hands and together they fought to turn the valve. Their lungs were bursting, both of them with only seconds left before they would involuntarily gulp in water. The tap suddenly moved and they could hear the hiss of escaping gas.
Stratton spun the tap open as quickly as he could and pushed his face into the highest part of the bell, pressing his lips to the metal ceiling in search of the gas. A pocket of air quickly grew and he gulped in a breath, at the same time pulling Christine up alongside him. She took in a lungful of air while choking violently. Now their faces were pressed together in the ever-increasing air pocket.
The water level gradually dropped and the bell, which had initially been leaning at an angle, moved upright as it became buoyant. Stratton felt around in the darkness in order to find out more about Hamlin’s rudimentary construction and its operating system. ‘You OK?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ Christine said finally after clearing her throat. ‘I didn’t think we were going to make it that time.’
‘You get used to that.’
‘Do you have a sense of humour apart from at times like this?’
‘I’m best when I’m scared shitless.’
The bell started to ascend but it did not travel far before coming to a creaky halt as the cable below went taut.
Stratton felt around the bell’s interior from top to bottom. ‘I’ve got to believe Hamlin put some kind of light in here. He had good attention to detail.’
Christine helped him search. ‘I’ve found a wire . . . it splits and there are clips on the ends.’
‘Now look for a battery.’ Stratton felt around the base of the bell where Hamlin would have put anything heavy to help keep the vessel from inverting. ‘I have it,’ he said.
She grabbed his arm, found his hand and put the clips in it. He attached one to a terminal and as soon as he touched the other a small halogen light flickered on at the top of the bell. The tiny space was flooded with light.
Stratton secured the clip and looked at Christine who was staring at him. He smiled. ‘Welcome aboard the Nautilus.’ He pointed to an inscription scrawled on the bulkhead.
They proceeded to examine the bell and its contents. The outer shell was little more than metal plates fixed to struts of angle iron, some welded, other parts bolted together with rubber in between that acted as a seal. Struts also formed a bench that Stratton sat on to get a clearer perspective on his surroundings. Christine sat opposite him.
The cross-struts gave the framework its strength and all in all Stratton was impressed. ‘You have to hand it to the old man,’ he said.
Two large gas bottles were lashed either side of the small chamber. ‘These are our breather mixes - argon and oxygen,’ Stratton explained, feeling the cylinders’ cold metal skins.There was a smaller bottle lashed beside one of them with a valve on the end which he turned on briefly to check that it had gas. ‘This is pure oxygen. We’ll need that to increase the oxygen percentage as we ascend.’
A metal container was secured under one of the brackets and Stratton untied it to see what it was. It contained liquid and he removed a cap on the side, smelled it and put it to his lips. ‘Water,’ he said, offering Christine some. ‘Just a sip.’
She took it from him and relished a mouthful of the refreshing liquid. ‘I don’t know how much sea water I’ve drunk,’ she said, taking another small sip.
Stratton removed a plastic bundle from one of the struts and tore it open. ‘Blankets,’ he said, handing them to her. She took them eagerly and immediately wrapped one around herself.
A white plastic board was fixed to the bulkhead. It had two columns of figures written on it in indelible ink. ‘This looks like an ascent table,’ he said. ‘Just five stop numbers and a time beside each . . . Give me your watch.’
Christine screwed the cap back onto the water container and checked the timepiece on her wrist. ‘It’s broken,’ she said, examining the broken glass.
‘Hamlin wasn’t wearing one. Check that box.’
She leaned down and opened a metal box tied to one of the braces between her feet. ‘Pliers, screwdriver . . . and a watch,’ she said, holding it out to him.
Stratton inspected it. It was a waterproof digital model and appeared to be working.‘You’re not claustrophobic, I hope.’
‘I’ve got too much else scaring the crap out of me . . . What’s next?’
‘We figure out how to head up.’
He looked down at the milky water surrounding their feet. ‘This milk doesn’t help any . . . I’m going to turn the gas off for a moment while we figure this out.’ He reached up for the tap and closed it. The hissing ceased.
‘Why’s the water white?’
‘A Gulf of Mexico phenomenon,’ Stratton said, squatting down and reaching into the water to feel around the drum. ‘Some kind of mineral washed down from the coast . . . The key to going up is obviously this cable drum . . . There’s something clamped to the cable stopping it from unrolling . . . Hand me those pliers.’
Christine gave him the tool and he reached down to find the clamp and figure out how to release it. He felt a clip of some kind which he took a grip on before pausing. ‘I can’t feel how this clamp works.’ He decided to pull on the clip, which felt as if it was moving out of a hole in the block secured around the cable. The clip came away and the block opened and fell off the cable. The drum immediately started to turn.
‘We’re going up,’ Stratton said, looking perplexed.
‘That’s good, right?’ Christine asked, wondering why he appeared to be so concerned.
The drum turned easily, paying out the cable as they rose. Stratton checked the ascent table.‘There’s no depth here.’
‘How do we know when to stop?’
‘There has to be a depth gauge.’
Christine quickly inspected the contents of the box. ‘Nothing.’
‘There must be something,’ Stratton said, checking around the nooks and crannies of the small space with increased desperation. ‘It’s one of the essential factors in decompression.’
‘What else could you use if you didn’t have a depth gauge?’ she asked, unsure exactly what she was looking for.
‘I don’t know.There must be something. Hamlin had to know the decompression stop depths.’
The white water around their feet disappeared and was replaced by clear water. The drum was suddenly visible as they rose out of the milk, rotating quickly as it paid out the cable.
‘We’ve got to stop it!’ Stratton said, lowering himself to apply pressure to the drum with his foot in an effort to put the brakes on. It had no effect and he stood on it with both feet. Christine jumped down alongside him and together they tried to stop the drum from turning. But the cable continued to pay out.
‘This is not good,’ Stratton said, looking around. ‘We’re missing something. The answer is staring us in the face.’ No sooner had the words left his mouth when there was a heavy clunk and the drum stopped turning, bringing the bell’s ascent to a halt.