I have been told that the sound of guns isn't just coming from us, the planes have guns as well and I have been ordered to go help at my station rather then write. It is true that me doing this job seems meaningless if we all end up in a field in a fireball. I will return to writing when I have the chance.
I am no longer writing for the newspaper, the journal from here on out will be for myself, the newspaper can go to hell and I intend to tell them that if we survive. The newspaper is the least of our worries at the moment, we are no longer in the dirigible. While I was on it I never felt safe but now that I am in this small inflatable raft in the ocean I feel even less safe. It doesn't help that we are in enemy waters and stand to be captured at any moment, if we are found at all. I am anxious but the slightest shift might tip the boat and that would be unfair to the others, so instead I will write to pass my time.
I helped with the gunning as much as I could and I was told that I did my job well and efficiency. Therefore me being there can't have been a factor in the hole of our defense that allowed the plane to shoot a hole in us. We didn't notice it right away, not with all of the other planes around, but it was large enough that we lost a lot of air and started to sink. I couldn't call what we did a fall, it was too slow for that, and all that the captain could do was try and steer us away from the enemy. It is a credit to the captain's ability that we landed in the ocean but with our steel frame we weren't going to manage to stay above the water once all of the hydrogen was gone so we all took to the lifeboats that our dirigible had as standard issue. If we were closer to our own troops we would have been fine because we could have made it to a friendly port and gotten refilled. Had they caught the leak sooner they could have just patched it and it would have been fine. It was the heat of battle though and no one can be blamed for the slip.
I say that no one can be blamed but I think that the captain blames himself. A thousand things happening every minute and he thinks that he can keep track of every one of them. I make my living off of words and I can't start to describe his face as we watched the dirigible sink. There was such loss and sadness that I haven't been able to talk to him since. My words would be empty and meaningless, and they would be disrespectful to man with such a face, he has become a shrine of misery and I can't sully that with my attempts at comfort.
I can't imagine that I look very cheerful myself, all things considered. All of the things I wrote for the paper went down with the mail room in the dirigible, they were the last things on my list of things to save when I was given a chance. I was far more busy with things like warm clothing and food. My typewriter has also gone down to the bottom of the ocean, though it hardly seems important. Like I have already written, I will quit the newspaper if we survive all of this. They are not paying me enough to go though a shipwreck. Just as I was starting to get comfortable in my new home this is what happened.
To be continued...
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