[A letter on cheap writing-paper, two small sheets, folded once. San Francisco postmark dated 4 February 1913, addressed in a careful clerk's hand to "Mrs. M. McCausland, the Ward, Port Hume, New York." No return on the envelope. Kept folded in the flour tin in Maeve McCausland's pantry, beneath her husband's watch-book.]
San Francisco, the second day of February, 1913.
Dear Mrs. McCausland,
I have never written a letter of this sort and I am sorry I am the man writing it.
My name is John Timmons. I was the cabin steward in the captain's quarters of the Iphigenia. I knew your husband Mr. McCausland only by sight and by the way he was spoken of by the men, which was well. I am writing because I think you should know what I told the County Coroner's clerk on the fourth day of January last, which was not read at the inquest. I was paid to leave Port Hume and I have taken the money and I have come to San Francisco where I am writing this. I am not proud of it. I have a sister in Sacramento who will have me, in time. Until then I am in the back room of a kind lady's house here, and what I have left I will keep, and what I tell you here I want said somewhere it cannot be paid to be unsaid.
The Captain was drinking. He was drinking before he left port and he was drinking when I last took him a glass at ten in the evening on the sixth of November. He had a bottle of his own in the cabin. I do not know what was in it when we left and I do not know what was in it at ten.
He said to me, when I set the brandy down, words to this effect: I should have taken the north like the Irishman said. I didn't. That's my bed. The Irishman was Mr. McCausland; I have come to know it since. Mr. McCausland came to the cabin twenty minutes after I left. I heard him say You need to lie down, sir. I heard the Captain say no. I heard Mr. McCausland say something more and the Captain say This is my ship, Ewan, and I will not. Then the door shut.
I am not a brave man, Mrs. McCausland. I told the clerk because I had been advised I could tell him in writing if my conscience required it. My conscience did require it. I told him.
The Company has paid me four hundred dollars in two parts to leave the city for what was called a place agreed between us. I do not regret taking it. I would have starved else; the Company knew that, and so did I. But the money is not the same thing as what I said to the clerk. The money buys my address. It does not buy what I saw.
What I saw was a captain who would not be relieved. What I heard was a first mate who tried. The reef and the boiler are an explanation that has been agreed upon. The truth, as I have it, is the captain in his chair and the bottle on the table and your husband at the door telling him to lie down.
I am sorry for your loss, ma'am. I am sorry for the boy. I have not the right to write you and yet I have.
Respectfully, John Timmons (formerly steward, S.S. Iphigenia)
[at the foot, in a different and shakier hand, pencil, in Maeve's writing:]
I have read this letter twice. I will not burn it. I will not show it to Mr. Dannemeyer. I do not know yet what it is for. Mrs. M. has the courage for the world. I have only the courage for the tin. — M. McC., 9 March 1913.
[in a different pencil, later, undated:]
Tom is reading him in the kitchen. I have left the letter with the book.