The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1943-09-05

"orld,s highest paid legal Jim
my Valentine. This the true
story of his many adventures
unlocking safes around the
earth and under the sea.
CHAPTER v
on the bottom the light reflected
rom the sand made a cheer
ful twilight in which we could
walk around without lights. The
long hull stretched farther than T
could see without twisting nv
mead, and the wreckage was slip
perry. My job was to tend tho
llnes for Hank who was workino
With max, Tom who was using
a saw. and couple of others who
were pulling and shifting the lum-
Der. Another diver stood with
submarine light close to their
races. They all looked like fam
tast1c sea monsters in their bloated
rubber suits.
After an hour we were pulled
up gradually and put into the de-
compression chamber. In this
sealed room, filled with air at the
pressure which we had met under
water. we traded stories until we
had gradually expelled the nitro
gen from our tissues.
Hank was our authority. An
old-timer of at least Is, he had
been at the business so long that
he had worked under every imag-
Unable condition. He had deserted
an American freighter in Havana
to Join a small. i'll organized
shabbily financed treasure hunt
for one of the 40 Spanish galleons
that carried $50 00O,Oo in dou-
blooms 10 the bottom of Matanzas
Bay.
Hanks leaky. filthy. little boat
found the wreck. For weeks the
crew searched it. clambering
around the decks half buried in
coral. Their supplies and water
began to run low, weevils were
IN the meal, and the rats were so
bold that a man had to sleep in
his boots to keep them from tax
ing a nip at his toes. When the
divers finally worked into what
had been the strong room. they
found it battered into a mass of
loosened planks. Someone had
been there before them, for there
was nothing left except a few
green coins caught under over
| tapping boards.
Hank was always lecturing us
on keeping fit There were
too many examples around us of
the damage that the sea could in
flict on divers. Old Man Aarons.
the Waterman on the dock, wasn't
really old. not turned 60, but he
had been twisted with rheuma-
tism and deaf since he was 25.
Others became blind on tuber-
cular. If we got nitrogen bubbles
in our hearts, it was all over in
few minutes; if we got them in
our brain or spinal cord. we were
seized the divers palsy.
Pressure was our great enemy.
! If our air line fouls and that
wall of air collapses which keeps
the pressure inside our suits
greater than the water pressure,
it doesn't take many minutes for
the sea to crush us to jelly.
Currents are another hazard.
One day I had been down my
allotted time. crawling around on
my hands and knees and hanging
my shoulders over piles of lumber,
trying to use the crowbar.
When the signal came that I
had been down long enough. 1
started up the shot line. A few
feet from the bottom, a current
grabbed me with such force that
it dragged me so to go feet south
Of the mother ship. Getting my
back to the pull, held onto the
shot rope but the current yanked
me with such violence that / lost
my grip. There I was, hanging
at an angle of about 20 degrees
and every second being pushed
farther and farther away. In an
other second I would be dragged
out to sea and no one would ever
know what had become of me.
Pulling frantically at the life
line, I signaled to be drawn up.
Slowly l began to rise through
the clutching water that tried to
drag me back. About so feet
higher there was suddenly no cur
rent at all AS if I had been re-
leased by giant spring I swung
in the other direction, then back
and forth like a human pendulum
until the momentum wore out.
When / reached the deck, Bob,
who was tending the life line, had
eyes as big as moons.
"You sure did give me a fright,
Charley" he told me when I came
out of the iron doctor. "Your
bubbles were streaking back and
forth as if you were caught in a