Pharos, the great lighthouse from antiquity, but Chaillé-Long had seen him there and diverted him to their present purpose. Now for the first time with some semblance of light, Jones was able to see it: a bulbous cylinder containing compressed air, above that a complex attachment of pipes and hoses to regulate the supply of air to the diver, and attached to that a face mask with a glass plate and beneath it the mouthpiece. Jones remembered the course in submarine mine-laying and demolition that he had been obliged to take as a recruit at the Royal Engineers depot at Chatham. His greatest fear had been confined spaces, followed closely by being underwater, and he had been petrified that the instructor would select him to demonstrate the bulky hard-hat diving gear in the murky depths of the River Medway. Earlier, in the barracks, the corporal in charge had regaled them with lurid tales of divers being sucked up into their helmets when their tenders on the surface had forgotten to keep the pump going. As it was, the luckless recruit who was selected on the river that day had come up unconscious and blue, temporarily overcome by carbon dioxide.
Jones squatted in the scuppers of the boat and peered more closely. The gear they had on the Medway had been helmet-diving equipment, in use for more than half a century; Guerin’s contraption was very different. Hepointed at the regulating valve. “Does the diver introduce air manually by opening and shutting the valve with each breath, or is it automatic?”
The Frenchman thrust his head through the neck hole in the suit and shot him a sharp glance. “You know something of diving technology,
mon ami
?”
Jones started to speak, and then checked himself. Only Chaillé-Long knew anything of his army background, and it was best it stayed that way. “From watching salvage divers on the docks at Portsmouth, when I was a boy growing up there,” he replied. That much was true; he had seen divers raising guns from the wreck of the
Mary Rose
, Henry VIII’s sunken warship, which had been deemed a hazard to the ever-larger naval ships that plied the Solent. “But of course they were only using Mr. Siebe’s hard-hat equipment.”
“Then,
mon ami
, you will have seen how
impossible
it is,” Guerin exclaimed, straining as he tried to poke his fingers though the hand holes, his arms outstretched and his fingers working vigorously against the rubber. Finally his left hand broke through, and he used it quickly to pull through the other hand. “
Premièrement
, it is too heavy for the diver even to stand upright out of the water, firstly because the helmet must be strong enough to withstand the external pressure at depth, and therefore be a great weight of bronze, and secondly because the diver must wear yet more weight underwater to keep the helmet down because, despite its weight out of the water, it becomes almost buoyant underwater when filled with air.” His face reddened and his veins bulged where the rubber seal constricted his neck. “
Deuxièmement,
” he continued more hoarsely, “the diver must remain upright on the bottom to prevent the helmet from flooding and himself from drowning, and thus limiting his usefulness for jobs requiring any, how can I put it, finesse.
Troisièmement
, he is tethered to the surface by the air hose, so he has even less freedom of movement underwater, and he is entirely dependent for his survival on the man pumping the air down to him.”
“And fourthly,” Jones said, remembering the recruit on the Medway, “he risks blackout from carbon dioxide poisoning if he fails to manually open the valve and expel the exhaled air from his helmet.”
“Precisely.
Précisément
. You have it.” Guerin got up, climbed out of the hold, and lurched and fell backward. He was caught just in time by Chaillé-Long, who steered him to a plank that served as a bench. The Frenchman thrust his fingers into the neck seal to pull it open, gasping as he relieved
Jones squatted in the scuppers of the boat and peered more closely. The gear they had on the Medway had been helmet-diving equipment, in use for more than half a century; Guerin’s contraption was very different. Hepointed at the regulating valve. “Does the diver introduce air manually by opening and shutting the valve with each breath, or is it automatic?”
The Frenchman thrust his head through the neck hole in the suit and shot him a sharp glance. “You know something of diving technology,
mon ami
?”
Jones started to speak, and then checked himself. Only Chaillé-Long knew anything of his army background, and it was best it stayed that way. “From watching salvage divers on the docks at Portsmouth, when I was a boy growing up there,” he replied. That much was true; he had seen divers raising guns from the wreck of the
Mary Rose
, Henry VIII’s sunken warship, which had been deemed a hazard to the ever-larger naval ships that plied the Solent. “But of course they were only using Mr. Siebe’s hard-hat equipment.”
“Then,
mon ami
, you will have seen how
impossible
it is,” Guerin exclaimed, straining as he tried to poke his fingers though the hand holes, his arms outstretched and his fingers working vigorously against the rubber. Finally his left hand broke through, and he used it quickly to pull through the other hand. “
Premièrement
, it is too heavy for the diver even to stand upright out of the water, firstly because the helmet must be strong enough to withstand the external pressure at depth, and therefore be a great weight of bronze, and secondly because the diver must wear yet more weight underwater to keep the helmet down because, despite its weight out of the water, it becomes almost buoyant underwater when filled with air.” His face reddened and his veins bulged where the rubber seal constricted his neck. “
Deuxièmement,
” he continued more hoarsely, “the diver must remain upright on the bottom to prevent the helmet from flooding and himself from drowning, and thus limiting his usefulness for jobs requiring any, how can I put it, finesse.
Troisièmement
, he is tethered to the surface by the air hose, so he has even less freedom of movement underwater, and he is entirely dependent for his survival on the man pumping the air down to him.”
“And fourthly,” Jones said, remembering the recruit on the Medway, “he risks blackout from carbon dioxide poisoning if he fails to manually open the valve and expel the exhaled air from his helmet.”
“Precisely.
Précisément
. You have it.” Guerin got up, climbed out of the hold, and lurched and fell backward. He was caught just in time by Chaillé-Long, who steered him to a plank that served as a bench. The Frenchman thrust his fingers into the neck seal to pull it open, gasping as he relieved
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