“I don't need that many details,” the captain said, but I ignored him.
“When I showed up at the airfield, I went to the hanger I had been directed to during my briefing.” I stopped there for a second to catch my breath and mentally skip the next part of my diary. “The hangers are really just giant warehouses, but the tops fold away to let the dirigibles out,” was probably something already in their intelligence but I still didn't want to risk it. I did not want the weight of our air port being bombed on my shoulders. “There was a man waiting for me when I arrived at the dirigible, just a regular hand but at least I wasn't left to try to figure out where I was supposed to go.”
“Do you remember much about how the dirigible was set up in the hanger?” the captain asked.
“No, sir, I was far too nervous to notice any details,” I said quickly. I had no intention of telling the captain anything that he flat out showed an interest in. “I mean I've spent my entire life behind a desk and then they send me off into a war. Would you have been looking at the scenery sir?”
“Well, never mind that. Actually, I think this interview is over.” The captain stood and called to the guard outside of the door. That guard called another and I was escorted back to the cell they had had me in before. I still wasn't sure if I had won or lost the interview, but at least I was confident that I hadn't given anything away. I supposed that the captain had gotten tired of my empty talk.
Now I wasn't as comfortable in my cell as I had been before. I guessed the captain was now talking to another member of the crew. I kept running over the interrogation in my mind, trying to think of anything I might have said wrong or in a way that could suggest anything at all. I couldn't think of anything but it didn't stop me from worrying. I was two days in that hole, on a small diet of ship food, before someone came into my cell and actually spoke to me.
“The captain sent me to interview you,” the man said, pulling a stool into my cell and having a seat. I stared at him blankly for a minute, trying to let my eyes adjust to the lantern light after two days of darkness. I tried to tell myself that nothing was different, that I should pursue the same tactic, but I had a deep paranoid fear that being in this cell alone for two days had somehow broken me.
“Where do you want me to start, sir?” I asked. Even if I was trying to be an obstruction I was going to be a polite obstruction, it would make it more likely that I would survive what followed.
“The captain has already recorded everything that you told him. You can start where you left out,” the man said. “I'm this ship's purser.” He pulled out a notebook and got ready to write down what I had to say.
“Well I had just said that there was a man waiting for me when I got there. He took me to where the captain was on the bridge. He was surrounded by all sorts of men who were giving orders and reading instruments that in my two weeks on that ship I never did find out what they were for.” At this point I realized that I had switched interview tactics and I decided I wanted to be consistent. Reciting from my journal had worked well when dealing with the captain after all, and what was good enough for the captain would be good enough for the purser. “I must admit that the captain scares me, he's tall and his facial expression never changes, so I can never tell what he's thinking. The man who had showed me up to the bridge announced me and the captain turned to look at me.” I paused for a second to let the purser catch up, I could see him scribbling furiously. I almost wished that I still had my typewriter so I could lend it to him. It would make all of this go much faster. My typewriter had been lost with the dirigible though.
“Go ahead,” the purser finally said, looking up from his papers.
“The first thing that the captain said was 'I don't like journalists much, but the air force informed me I don't have a choice, so we're stuck with one another. I want to make it clear that you will not be allowed on this part of the dirigible unless you are invited. You are to make yourself useful, I will not have idle hands on my ship. You will also keep out from under the feet of any of the crew, and not snoop where you are not wanted. This man will show you to your bunk.' And so he dismissed me, you can see where my first impression wasn't the best.”
To be continued...
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