Tragedy of Sand Cave
Chapter 10:
Dig - Dump - Pray

Much has been said and written for and against the so-called radio tests employed during the final stages of the battle of Sand Cave. Experts can be found who declare the tests meant nothing. Others are just as firm in their opinions that the murmurs heard over the delicate apparatus proved that COLLINS' heart still beat. But one fact cannot be disputed, the radio tests aided wonderfully in maintaining the morale of the rescue army at a high pitch. H. C. LANE who had charge of the Delco lighting outfit, suggested the tests. He is a radio enthusiast and figured that a powerful detector and amplifier could be attached to the wires leading to the globe resting on COLLINS' breast. Then, with the current turned off, LANE calculated that the faint rise and fall of the explorer's diaphram would be recorded in the head phones. [Photo: Henry FORD Never Imagined One of His Tractors Would Aid in Battle to Save COLLINS]. Repeated tests were made after the venturesome rescuers worked their way to the "squeeze" and disconnected a globe hanging there, thus making sure that the globe on COLLINS' body was the only one from which impulses could be detected. Some of these tests were successful, others were not. On Saturday, February 7, no murmurs were heard and it was figured that the circuit had either been broken or the globe was loose in the socket. But when COLLINS was found, the globe proved to be in good condition. It was also tight in the socket. So the contentions of those who place no faith in the "radio tests" have some foundation. Yet it was surprising how reports, that either really came or were supposed to come from the electrical men, were eagerly seized upon by shaft workers. These men came to regard the bulletins as personal messages from COLLINS and the acceleration in shaft work, following the announcements was most encouraging. So regardless of the scientific merit, the "radio tests" played an important part in the rescue work.

After the shaft-digging equipment had been installed and work was progressing in earnest, the fight settled down somewhat to a prosaic basis. It was now a giant engineering project, differing from the average run of jobs in that the objective was the saving of a human life. While in reality the work progressed faster than a shaft of this nature was ever dug by human agency, to the watchers on the hillside it seemed painfully slow. Eager correspondents, after being told that but a few feet had been excavated in thrice the number of hours, would turn away dejectedly, imagining perhaps that the true figures were being suppressed. The opposite was the case. It was CARMICHAEL'S policy from the very first to give the world through the press all the truth of the battle in the valley. And it was during one of these innumerable interviews that the director of operations coined the slogan of Sand Cave "Dig, Dump and Pray." [Photo They Waited in Vain - Collins Family]. It was the slogan of a working man. Nothing poetic about it. Nothing poetic about the toil at the bottom of that shaft. And so these four words epitomize the gruelling work of the sappers. They dug a lot and dumped a lot and prayed as they worked, these sturdy gnomes of the underground struggle. When the purple mantle of night draped over the hills of old Barren County and the yellow incandescents gleamed far down in the yawning shaft, one could hear the sob of a stricken people, louder than the sobs of the sorrowing family. Grim thankless work! No prospects of pay beyond the thanks of the world. Many were men with families, who ill could spare their time and pay envelopes. Some were just youngsters budding into full manhood at colleges. Others were true soldiers of fortune, mayhap those for whom the long fingers of the law were searching. It was a new Foreign legion, a fine brave band, these men of Clan CARMICHAEL, forgetting self, forsaking the family risking all that one man - whom they never knew as friend but to whom they were bound as brothers - might live. Dawn of Sunday, February 8, 1925, found all roads leading to Sand Cavern jammed with vehicles of every description. The vanguard of a mighty caravan passed through Cave City at daybreak. By noon ten thousand sight-seers jammed the fields and wooded hillsides surrounding the cave. At three o'clock the peak was reached when conservative estimates fix the total present at fifteen thousand. Some idea of the vastness of the multitude may be obtained by the length of the lines of parked motor cars adjoining Bee DOYLE's farmhouse. Two lines, on both sides of the road, fender touching fender, extended a distance of four miles in each direction. Three thousand other cars were parked in the fields. Every man, woman and child in that vast assemblage departed greatly disappointed. Many came fully expecting to be able to pass into a cave and gaze upon a fellow-being in his death agony. Such is the character of so great a per cent of human nature, a throw back, probably, from the mobs who shouted in glee when Roman gladiators battled to the death in Nero's arena. [Photo: Vanderbilt Students Toiling on the Dump Cars.] Others were drawn by the human desire to be able to say in the years to come "I saw it all." But regardless of motive they came by the thousands and a very small percentage really saw the only worth-while thing from the standpoint of the idle spectator, the church service held on the wooded hillside above COLLINS' prison. "Lead kindly light amid the encircling gloom, Lead thou me on. The night is dark and I am far from home, Lead thou me on." This was the prayer of Floyd COLLINS. These were the words of a hymn breathed toward the blue dome of Heaven that Sunday afternoon by the worshippers gathered on the brow of the clifts, overhanging the entombed man. It was one of the most impressive church services ever held. The cloistered woods formed the aisles of the natural tabernacle and its floor was the rocky roof of Sand Cave. If COLLINS, in his living tomb, could have heard the fervent prayers and hymns of his childhood, he would have realized as never before that the heart of humanity beat a might diapason of application to God. The sermon was a brief and impressive message, picturing vividly the struggle on whose outcome a nation waited with intensive interest. Nothing of the flowery sort. Nothing of a gushing oratory. Simply a direct appeal for united prayer, a liaison between God and man, and the forceful explanation that only through divine help can mortals achieve the impossible.

We find in the Bible," explained the minister, "that all things are possible through prayer. If God wills, the mountains may be moved and the seas dried up. If it be His will, Floyd COLLINS will be brought back to his loved ones alive. And if we appeal to Him on bended knee and with reverent hearts He will hear us." The sermon ended. Then came the prayer. Men bared their heads and bowed their knees who battle life on the frontier of the hill country. These knelt with bankers and others whose paths have been made smooth by kindly fate. Many wept unashamed and one could sense that here were thousands united by a common bond. Far above the skylark trilled its song of gladness, wheeling through the hazy air on wings pulsating with the sheer joy of freedom. Down there a man, master of earth, lay dying, held fast in the cruel jaws of a rocky trap. Perhaps the skylark was God's messenger. The bird climbed higher until at last it disappeared. Man's plea to God was on its way.

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