human
But I look out for sand-banks, said he,
gpt
he explained for my benefit,
human
Talking about planks coming up, said Timmans, who was seated under the picture of a prize-fighter,
gpt
I was down on the North German Lloyd steamer _Main_, the one that was burned and sunk, fixing a suction-pipe to pump grain out of her, when a big wooden hatch got loose and came up under me. I was working between decks, and the hatch swung me right up against the overhead beams and held me there, squeezing the life-line and hose so tight I couldn't signal. It's lucky the hose was wire wound, or that would have been the last of me. But I got my air all right, and after a while I worked free.
human
Wire wound and all, observed Atkinson,
gpt
I've had my hose squeezed so the air was shut off. I was on a wreck off one of the Hoboken docks once, when an eight-inch suction-pipe caught the hose coming down through a hatch, and the next second I felt my air stop, though I could hear the pump beating. I jerked 'slack away' on the life-line, and that loosed the hose and saved me, but I got a blast of compressed air as the jam eased that jumped me up a yard.
human
Suppose your life-line had been jammed, too, I asked,
gpt
There's a difference of opinion about how long a man can live on the air that's in his helmet. Some say three or four minutes. I don't believe it. I think two minutes would do the business.
human
There was George Seaman--
gpt
Yes, said Atkinson, taking up the story, as was a senior's right,
human
Then Seaman he felt for the hose, and made ready to cut. His idea was, you see, to slash the hose at one stroke, then jerk on the life-line to be hauled up quick, and keep the hole shut with his thumb while he came up. I can picture him now with his knife on the hose, sort of praying a minute, like a man might with a knife at his throat. That's what it amounted to. Well, he wrote the story of what he did right there on the hose, and wrote it plain. They've got the piece at the office, and they'll show it to you if you ask 'em. Seaman made his cut with about two men's strength; I'll bet not one of you boys could do near as well as he did at cutting a hose through with one stroke. His slash came clear through all but a shaving of rubber, and he tried to cut that with a second stroke; but the knife struck a new place about an inch away, and he slashed her half through there. Then he tried nine times more, and made nine separate cuts at the hose; and there they are to-day, about half an inch apart, each one a little shallower than the one before, and the last two or three only scratches on the outside. That was just as he died, and you can figure out how long it prob'bly took him to make those eleven knife strokes. I suppose there ought to be thirteen, but eleven's what there is. You'll count 'em.