Sutherland, standing behind him, sang out, “Stand by for diving!” The telephone orderly repeated the order over the interphone to all parts of the ship and March jumped as the klaxon horns blared out their raucous warnings. For a moment their sound reverberated in the small steel room, and then Sutherland barked new orders. “Open main ballast Kingstons!” March saw the men move the levers as he repeated the order, and a few lights turned to green on the “Christmas Tree.” “Stop main engines!” The order was repeated over the phone to the engine room. March felt the trembling of the ship stop as the Diesels were shut off and the electric motors switched on again, taking their current from the huge banks of storage batteries under the deck of the ship. At the same time other lights turned to green on the board. “Open main ballast vents!” called Sutherland. One after another the necessary orders were called by the diving officer, they were carried out with precision and reported back at once. Finally, the last red lights on the board winked out as the main air induction valves were closed. Then Sutherland ordered, as the last test, that air be released from the high-pressure tank into the interior of the ship. March watched him look at the dial indicating air pressure within the ship. The hand moved up a little, then held steady. This showed that there was no leakage of air from the boat. Sutherland turned to the Skipper. “Pressure in the boat—green light, sir.” “Take her down!” said the Captain with a nod. When the diving officer repeated the order the klaxons blared again their final warning before the diving officer called out one order after another. March had been able to keep close track of everything up to this point, but suddenly, just at the crucial moment, there was too much going on. He heard an order that sounded like “Down bow planes!” and felt the ship tip forward slightly. But at the same time he heard the roar of water as it rushed into the ballast tanks between the inner and outer steel hulls of the ship, the rush of air forced out of the vents by the inrushing water, and the whine of the electric motors. Sutherland gave an order about the trim tanks which March did not catch, then heard the Skipper say, “Steady at forty feet.” As the order was repeated, March found the dial which indicated the ship’s depth and saw the hand approach the forty mark. There the ship leveled out again. The sound of rushing water and bubbling air had ceased and the only sound was the steady hum of the motors. “We’re down!” Stan muttered, almost to himself. March had almost forgotten his companion’s existence, but now he turned to him. “That’s right!” he said. “I was so intent on what was happening I almost forgot about that. There’s nothing special about it, is there? I mean—being here in this room where you can’t see outside—it doesn’t make much difference whether you’re on top of the water or underneath it.”