Danger of Poisonous Gases
“The real dangers lay unseen below and around. Behind the after-bulkhead stood a wall of water at a pressure of thirty-one pounds to the square inch, against which the strength of the steel, supported by the air pressure in the control room, was a sufficient barrier. But though the bulkhead might have been in little danger of collapse, it could not prevent water from leaking through. Those leaks were the deadly peril. If the oozing salt water had reached the fully charged electric batteries of the vessel poisonous chlorine gas would have been given off and the control room turned into a mortuary. The batteries never were reached, but the risk, even the probability that they would be, was always present to the subconscious minds of officers and men. Perhaps it was this, as much as the air pressure, which caused that disbelief in rescue which remained with them up to the moment of actual safety.
“But though the salt water did not turn the batteries into ministers of death, it did its best to suffocate the unhappy men who crowded K-13’s control room. It reached and short-circuited the switch, causing some of the cables to fuse. Fumes of stinking smoke from the burning insulation befouled the air, and the fire was put out with the greatest difficulty. The switch could not be touched and the current cut off, so no method of extinction remained except to beat out the fire with lumps of wood wrapped in cloth. In this way it was extinguished but the stink remained.