THE FISHMEN 



upside-down. The fool-proof automatic valve takes care 

 of everything. 



Cousteau went to infinite trouble and experienced 

 numerous periods of discomfort, risking his life on several 

 occasions, to perfect the Aqualung and ensure the com- 

 fort and safety of its wearer. 



On one occasion sailors from the Suffren rowed him out 

 for a test of his equipment. This was in the earlier stages 

 of its development and he had been given to understand 

 that the depth-limit of the apparatus he was testing was 

 forty-five feet. Cousteau went down to that depth, and 

 then became interested in some fish, which seemed quite 

 friendly. He saw a huge blue bream and followed it 

 down beyond the safety limit, so engrossed in the fish 

 that he forgot his own position. Suddenly, oxygen 

 poisoning developed and his spine was bent back like a 

 tensed bow. Just before he became unconscious he tore 

 off the ten-pound weight he was carrying, and rose to 

 the surface, where the sailors saw him floating and pulled 

 him, still unconscious, into the boat. 



He recovered after a painful few weeks of muscular 

 trouble, and had scarcely regained his normal health 

 when the war came. Later, transferred to Naval Intelli- 

 gence at Marseilles, he was able to resume his experi- 

 ments. He was soon working on the Fernez system, trying 

 to improve on it. It was a simple type of apparatus, 

 using a surface pump with an air line down to the diver. 

 One day Cousteau was forty feet under water when the 

 air tube broke. Dumas was even farther down — seventy- 

 five feet below the surface. Cousteau saw his friend's air 

 pipe rupture and knew that he was suffering a pressure 

 treble that of the surface. The two men reached safety, 

 but it was a near thing. 



As time passed they went down to sixty, eighty and a 

 hundred feet, and began to wonder what the boundary 

 limit of their dives would be. 



During the summer of 1943, using Cousteau's inven- 



177 



