[A small canvas-bound notebook, 4 by 6 inches. Water damage throughout; pages swollen and stiffened. Writing in indelible pencil, largely legible despite immersion. Script is an idiosyncratic mixture of standard maritime abbreviation and personal Pitman-derived shorthand. The hand matches E. McCausland's signature on the Iphigenia deck log (iph-01). Standard abbreviations expanded in brackets; Pitman outlines transliterated where decipherable; lacunae marked with [—]. Recovered from the south shore east of Pt. Arliss, Ontario, by a person unknown, and returned to Mrs. Maeve McCausland, Port Hume, May 1913. Kept in a flour tin in the pantry at the Ward until the present transcription, made by T. McCausland from the original, 1924.]
E.J. McCausland — Private Watch Book — S.S. Iphigenia — Voyage 114
5 November 1912
0600. Dep[arted] P.H. 207 pass[engers], crew 41, cargo p[er] c[lerk's] list. Wind SE 12kt, glass 29.8 steady. Season late for this lake. Should have laid her up a fortnight since.
0800. Smell at watch change. Said nothing.
1400. Buffalo — uneventful. Glass holding. Smell again. Said nothing again.
6 November 1912
0600. Cleveland, return run P.H. direct. Glass 29.2 and falling fast. Wind NW freshening. Been watching this sky since before light. This is going to be a bad one.
0900. Glass 28.8. Wind NW 28kt, backing. Advised Capt. to keep watch on the glass. He said yes. His eyes were not right. I have known his eyes twenty years.
1200. Glass 28.4. Wind NW 35kt and building. Told him: lay N[orth] now, run ahead of it to the Canadian lee, re-approach P.H. at first light tomorrow. He said no. No discussion. He went back to his cabin.
1400. Glass 28.0. Capt. not on bridge 2 hrs. Mr. Osler asking me for orders. Told him hold course and pray. First time in 25 years I have told a man to pray and meant it as navigation.
1600. Glass 27.7. Went to his cabin. Bottle on the table, half gone. Asked him again: north heading, ride it out, passengers alive in the morning. He said the ship was his and he knew this lake. I said: Raleigh. He said: Ewan, I have it. He did not have it. I should have stayed.
1800. Seas abeam. Boats carried away stbd. Three men over, recovered — God knows how. Glass 27.4. Went to his cabin again. He would not open the door.
2000. Capt. on bridge. Unsteady on his feet. Called for a glass. [—] I told him plainly: give me the wheel or I will relieve you of command and take the consequences. He looked at me a long time. He said if I touched the wheel he would have me in irons and logged for mutiny before we saw harbor. He is the captain. I am the mate. There is nothing after that. God forgive me there is nothing after that.
2200. He rang for the boy again. I was outside his cabin. I heard him say: I should have taken the north like the Irishman said. He did not know I was there. I do not know why he called me the Irishman. Thirty years and I am still the Irishman. [—]
7 November 1912
0100. Glass 27.0. Boilers laboring — I can hear them straining from the bridge and that is not a sound a man forgets. Capt. in his cabin. Last drink an hour ago by the boy's account.
0140. Went to him last time. I told him: we are going to die on this lake tonight if you do not give me the wheel. He looked at me and he said — I will write this because I told him I would write it, and because I do not understand it and perhaps someone will — he said: Ewan. I cannot. Just that. Not: I will not. I cannot. I have thought about the difference since and I am still thinking.
I said: what do you mean you cannot. He said: I have not been fit to command this ship for two years. I knew it. I let them put me here because it was the family ship and I could not say no to Edmund and I could not say it to myself either. He said: write it down. For what it is worth to anyone. Write it down.
I came back to the bridge.
0420. Grounded. South reef I think, position uncertain. Seas over the boat deck. Got Osler into no. 2 with what passengers we could manage. No. 1 carried away in lowering. Capt. on bridge, would not come. I went below for the ship's papers.
0455. List to stbd, 18 degrees and worsening. Last I saw him he was at the wheel. He had stopped drinking by then. He was quite steady. He was too late to be steady.
The engine room is gone.
0500. This book goes in my coat and God willing comes home to Maeve. Tell Thomas his father was a first mate and knew what that means.
E.J.M.
[Transcriber's note — T. McCausland, 1924:]\ I read this in the kitchen at the Ward in January of this year, my mother in the next room. She has never asked me what is in it. I have not told her. Some of it I have given to the Clarion in such form as I could. The rest I am giving here, in my father's words, which are better than mine. — T.McC.