Report of the United States Weather Bureau
Virginia Station
May 2nd
As the pressure dropped all ports were telegraphed, and ordered flags to be flown to stop ships from sailing. Similar messages sent to all airfields. Ships at sea told to head to safe harbor. Word reached us from several, stating their intent to ride out the storm on, or over the ocean, it being safer than fighting their way into port during the worst of the storm. Several ships, list attached, failed to respond. It is supposed that the poor weather interfered with the signal.
At three in the afternoon, winds reached 50 miles and hour at times, and the front moved in. At our station the rainfall totalled twelve inches in an hour and a half. In places there was flooding. At least one ship was reported wrecked, and life saving crews were dispatched to rescue the crew during the storm. The cleanup is expected to be extensive.
March 4th,
Being a writer means I am never without pen and paper, even in the worst of times. So it is that I find myself in an open boat without any food, but in possession of a notebook. For some reason however I find that I am more comforted by the notebook then I would be by food. The captain tells us that as we were hunting pirates we left the normal trade routes far behind, and it is unlikely that anyone will find us in this wasteland of water, known as the Atlantic Ocean. At least with a notebook I can leave something behind, while food is consumed and leaves nothing.
I find myself in a boat with Captain Bilke, the ship cook, and two of the common crew men. I am certain that I saw several other life boats lower from the airship before it sank as the air escaped, but we lost them in the storm. The captain says they had drills as to what to do in case of every disaster, and so he is certain his crew is safe, that he is more concerned as to what happened to the other reporters as they did not have that rigorous training. He took the chance to once more to speak on how little he thought reporters had the right to wander about on a fighting vessel. I was little able to argue with him, as recent events had proven it, and he had saved my life as the airship went down. I had stood as a fool on the gun deck in the chaos until he shouted at me to climb into the boat that he was overlooking the launching of. As that was the final boat to touch the sea, had he not shouted at me, I likely would have gone down with the ship. For some reason a sinking airship had more certainty for me than a small ship did on a stormy ocean. Still, following Captain Bilke proved the safer choice, and so I shall continue, no matter what should come. The more time I spend with him, the more I am able to see how it is that he is friends with my father. They both do not compromise, which is admirable, so long as they are in their element. As the captain was originally a man of the ocean, he seems at peace, even with most of his crew unaccounted for, in a boat small enough to the swamped by a large wave.
The sea has calmed enough for me to put pencil to paper now. Boredom has set in, and some of the crew have borrowed a sheet from my notebook to keep tally as they bet on how many fish they see in the space of an hour. It seems strange, with our lives all in danger, but there is nothing to do.Captain Bilke is not allowing us to row, saying that we need to save our strength, and due to the storm we do not know where land is. The most that Captain Bilke can tell us is that we are headed west. West he seems to think is a good direction, on the condition that we are where he thinks we are, which he cannot be certain of. I do find myself wondering how long it will be before my pay stops from the paper, and whether or not Molly will be able to find some way to support the children. Whether I live or die in this boat, I fear there will be hard times in my family.
March 5th,
It is funny how little water one thinks one drinks, until it is not around. I now find that I cannot speak for the lack of it, and the captain assures us all in a rasping voice that the sea water, even to wet our lips, will be something that we will regret. We now pray for rain with every breath, not that we have a container to catch it in, but just for the temporary relief of being able to catch fresh water in our mouths. I asked Captain Bilke what the chance of such a rain storm was, but he was not willing to say, stating that since it was spring the weather was too unpredictable.
We have not seen anyone else on the ocean but us, and some fish. My companions continue to bet on the number of fish seen in an hour. The bets sound outlandish to my ears, since they are mostly of money that the men may never see, especially if we do not spot a ship soon. Three days in an open boat without food and water is enough to tax even the captain, who I never thought would ever show any weakness at all.
Clipping from the Chicago Eagle
Nothing Heard of Airship
Readers of this paper might recall that this paper, as many of the other papers in town had a reporter on the airship Defender. That being the case, it can be imagined that we wait impatiently for any news that might be heard from this city’s newest airship. All that we are being told at the moment however, is that communications have been lost. This leaves us, as well as the rest of the city, the question of what is being done about it. Are we to allow the government to let the airship disappear into the mists of time, with no report of where it rests? That the Defender met with disaster there is little doubt. Reports of the storms that have rocked the Atlantic have been reaching our ears for the last couple of days. There must be an immediate search for the the lost airship, or any survivors, and as a city we must insist upon it. Would we as a city not do the same if it was a New York ship lost on the Great Lakes? Think then how different the speed would be in rescue ships being launched. It is time for the Second City of the United States to insist that our citizens and interests are to be just as protected as those of New York.
March 6th,
I am now of the opinion that nature is taunting us. After giving us a storm that caused our ship to be destroyed, now instead we have received a shower of light rain that lasted for only a half hour. It is just enough to save our lives, without granting us any prospect of lasting survival. There was almost a fight today, when one of the sailors produced a couple of crackers that he had shoved in his pockets and refused to share them out, saying that he had hidden them until he could endure the hunger no longer, and that they were therefore his. I thought that the other sailor and the cook were to murder him for these scant rations, and I am ashamed to say that at the time I considered them justified and thought of joining them. Captain Bilke interfered however. Even in our reduced state, Captain Bilke has the strength of personality to make a man sit up and listen to him. The crackers were shared out among all of us in the end, the sailor having been made to understand that they were not worth his life. Eating my share only made the thirst more intense however, and undid the work of the short rain in giving me relief. I was forced to drink the small amount of water I had caught in my hat to wash down the remaining crackers, something that I am certain will haunt me if there is no rain in the coming days.
The more that we float on the ocean the more that I realize how large it is, and the more certain I am that we will not be found. I do not know how far we drifted from our intended course during the storm, nor do I know how far we have drifted in this open boat. I am fairly certain that if they are searching for us along our planned path will will never be found. More and more our chances are pinned on finding land alone, and none of us find ourselves in an optimistic frame of mind.
Dear Molly,
You must take courage. I was at sea for most of my life, until age forced me into this dull retirement. I have seen many men survive worse storms than the one that the Defender faced. There is any number of reasons why she might not be able to respond to the signals which they are sending to her. If I were you, I would not speak to any reporters, and keep your head up when you are forced to go out. These reporters are like vultures, and I would hate to see our family’s fears plastered about on the cheap journal pages.
I have thought about what you said the last time you visited, that you feared that the Chicago Eagle would cease to pay you Emmett’s wages if they did not hear from him soon. If they do show so little heart as that, I must insist that you come and stay with me. I will not see my grandchildren in the poor house. I receive a small pension, but I am certain that we will be able to manage if such a thing should come to pass. I pray that it does not. I am certain that my son, dutiful as he is to you, will write you as soon as he is able, and tell you of his wellbeing. Until then you have a duty to the children to remain strong and take care of both yourself and them.
Hoping that this trial is soon left behind us,
Christopher King
Chicago, Illinois
May 8th,
We are rescued. Indeed yesterday we were secure, but I had no time to put pen to paper then. At the time I was not entirely certain if I would be allowed to keep this journal on my person. Having set out to capture pirates, I now find that I owe them my life.
Yesterday morning still found myself and my companions floating in the open boat, and we were beginning to speak of death out loud, though I imagine it had hung over us all before that. One of the sailors was telling us of his mother and what he thought she would do without him, when we saw an airship come over the horizon. How slow the airship seems when you are in a situation such as ours. We could not even be certain that they would see us, one little boat out on the ocean. Very few airship have lookouts, unless they are of a military nature. As the airship grew closer to us we could see that she was certainly not a military ship, she was too battered for that. No military would have allowed a ship so patched and ragged into the sky. Not only that but she was of a very old model, one of the earliest of her kind I have ever seen still in use.
There was no end of relief in our small boat when we saw them dropping a rope ladder down from the observation windows, and slow down, as they approached our boat. By unspoken agreement the cook went up the ladder first. He was the one who had suffered the most from being in the open boat for so long, and there was some concern he might not even make it up the ladder without assistance. Once he began to climb, Captain Bilke tied the rope ladder to our little boat so that we would be towed along until we could all climb to the airship. Though we all longed to rush up the ladder, Captain Bilke would not allow us to, saying that we were not certain what they had tied to ladder to at the top, and that he would not like to damage our chances of rescue through hast. Captain Bilke also insisted that he ought to go last, to untie the rope ladder, and to see that the men of his charge were safe before he was. I was the fourth man up the ladder, feeling that it was only right that the sailors should be safe before I was. After all, they had done the work of trying to save the Defender, while I had sat around helplessly and watched them. Captain Bilke certainly was in agreement with this assessment of my place in the line, for he said nothing about it and merely told each of us when he thought it safe for us to begin our climb.
I knew fully well how high it was that airships went, but it was not until I began my climb that I realized how far it was up, and just how horrifying it was. I am not normally afraid of heights, but I found fear in abundance now. After a time I found it better to look up rather than down, focusing on my goal, and safety. Focusing on the ship above me allowed me to notice details that I had not noticed from the boat. For one thing the airship was of a gondola design, a phrase that had been taken very literally in this case. From below the airship looked as though it had the full keel of a boat. It seemed it was the ship of a person who did not trust the air so much as most airship owners did, and desired a safety net, just in case there was a crash just like the one that I had experienced not so long ago.
I climbed onto the ship expecting to find myself on the deck of some millionaires pleasure yacht. I could think of few other private citizens who would be able to afford a airship of their own, and who would take the trouble to customize it in the way that this ship had been. Instead I found that I was on a gun deck as spectacular as I had been assured the Defender had. All around me stood a group of men who seemed to dress however they wished, accord to the fancy of each. Some of them looked like confidence men, flashy but fashionable. Others in the group looked like the common factory workers I passed every day on my way to the newspaper office. Those who had climbed up before me were standing amongst these men, looking very uncertain as to what the future would hold. I went to join them, deciding that having faced the last few days together, we ought to face this together as well.
I will say for Captain Bilke that he climbed aboard and looked about himself and remained completely calm. He simply walked over to stand in front of the rest of the crew, myself included. There was a terrible awkward silence, as none of us were certain what to say in the face of this highly armed motley group, and they did not seem inclined to say much to us. The question did ocurre to me whether or not we were in fact rescued, or if the danger had simply changed.
Then a woman and a boy came forward. The boy could not be older than the boy who blacked my boots for me when I was in the city, but he was wearing a gun on his belt, and had another across his back. He had a battered cap on his head, an open vest, and no coat at all. In other words he looked the perfect bandit, an unnerving thing in someone so young. As for the woman, she was wearing the sort of skirt that is very much in fashion at the moment, but that was the only regular thing about her. She was wearing a uniform coat, a knife on each hip, and an ascot at her throat. Her hair was held up by a comb, inlaid with mother of pearl. I was not actually certain whether her intention was to dress as a man or a woman.
“Are they all aboard?” asked the woman, turning to address one of the men at the front of the group.
“Yes, Captain,” said the man, though nothing else in his manner conveyed the respect normally due to a captain. That observation however was nothing in comparison with the shock of the realization that this ship seemed to have a female captain. With that she turned and walked away, but the boy remained. If she was the captain, it seemed he was a sort of second in command, though he identified himself to us as the ship’s gunner.
We were brought water, and food, but told to drink slowly, and eat slowly, as we might make ourselves sick otherwise. Captain Bilke took a few light sips of water, while the rest of us struggled to consume what we wanted so badly slowly. He seemed more occupied with looking about himself and taking in our new location.
“What ship is this?” he asked finally.
“The Aeolus, Neriena Wordsmith as captain,” said the boy.
“A pirate ship, and a pirate captain,” muttered Captain Bilke, though not so quietly that the boy could not hear him.
“Just so, pirate hunter,” said the boy, smiling at him, but with a bit of an edge in his voice. “Our telegraph has received some of the signals of those searching for you. We know who you are as well.”
“A wonder you rescued us,” said Captain Bilke, looking the boy straight in the eye in exchange.
“There were those who were against it,” the boy said bluntly. “Get some rest. Oh, and if I catch you damaging the ship in any fashion, I will throw yourself and your men here overboard personally.”
I had meant to write of this yesterday, after I had been shown to a cabin to rest in, but the moment I saw the bed, I felt a wave of tiredness wash over me. After everything that had happened, and days in a cramped open boat, what I found I really wished was sleep. Instead I woke up early this morning to put this all down on paper, while it is still fresh in my mind.
Cluttered Journal 