Yesterday will be remembered as one of the strangest of my life. We are now air born, though I have no idea what our orders are because only the captain knows. I was horribly air sick the day before , I am told it is a common thing to happen, but I felt much better yesterday and was able to go and eat breakfast in the mess with everyone else. After breakfast I loitered in the mess so that I could look out of the gallery windows and see the landscape passing below us. It was a breathtaking experience though I don't remember a time I have felt so small. I was so mesmerized by the scene that I didn't even realize at first that the captain had come to stand right beside me. It was the first time I had seen him since our first meeting since he spends almost all of his time on the bridge and I had been laid up in my room.
“I was just admiring the scenery,” I commented. “I find it remarkable, though of course I'm sure you're used to it by now.”
“Not at all,” he responded, still as serious as when I had seen him the first time. “I continue to admire it every day, though I doubt I can look at it with as much harmlessness as you seem to. I am always reminded that all it would take is the slightest error on my part and every one of us would fall from this great hight. It is a heavy weight.” Suddenly the view looked much more sinister and I stepped back from the window. I had no desire to be reminded that my feet weren't on solid ground at the moment. My moment of comfort was shattered and I felt ill again, not from motion this time but from fear.
“How can you deal with the responsibility?” I asked. I must admit that I think that I would kill myself if I thought I was making choices for so many lives. He might seem serious but he also seemed calm and I found that I had a new respect for him.
“You grow used to it, to the point where your shoulders no longer feel their burden. If I am not mistaken your father carried a weight much the same on the water as I do in the air.” I was completely shocked to hear him speak of my father, I knew I had not mentioned him and I didn't think that my documents talked about him either.
“Do you know my father?” was the only reason I could think of that he would know him to be a captain. It was incomprehensible that my father should know a man in the air force though after looking with such contempt at the sky.
“I did know him, he was my captain, many, many years ago,” said the captain, he smiled for the first time I have ever seen. It was like a flash of light suddenly crossed his face. “I was on the ocean as a boy, before the dirigibles took flight and captured my young imagination. Your father was a good man, he spoke of you often, I thought it must be you when I heard your name, it isn't a common one.” In the face of the captains enthusiasm I could say nothing, he chatted on about the old days, his face back to serious but not as careworn now, until a member of the crew came to get him with a message from his first officer and he had to return to the bridge. I know that he was truly speaking of my father because of the incidents he talked about, I remember hearing of them in my childhood, but it was still almost as if he were talking of a different man. The man he talked about was firm but kind, stern but gentle, I always seemed to see only the firm and stern, and I am sure that the old man never talked of me to anyone. We never did see eye to eye.
Having been fully ruffled by the captain I spent the rest of the day having a crew member show me around the ship and explain to me how each part of it worked. It did accentuate what the captain had said about one error sending us all crashing. After I was done with my tour I sat to write my correspondence and an article about our aerial might for the paper, by the time it was finished it was late and I went straight to bed which is why I have only written about all of this today. I am not likely to forget it any time soon however.
To be continued...
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