CAROLINE LETICIA FRAZER B 2 AUG STOP
ROBERT SINCLAIR FRAZER B 3 AUG STOP
BABES AND MOTHER WELL STOP
LETTER TO FOLLOW STOP

Thursday, 3 August 1871
Very tired, also sore. At least they weren't born in a foreign submersible.

(Later)
Catching up on sleep; fed babies a few times. Violet keeping track in notebook, per my instructions.

Numerous well-wishers. Must ask Mrs Horton how she heard the news so quickly. More beef tea.

Mrs Goodier came, pronounced babies and myself well. I paid her entire fee, not her fault she couldn't get to me on board the Rhinoceros.

(Yet later)
I feel as though I am slowly coming back to myself. It is a bit like coming home and finding that someone has mysteriously rearranged all the furniture.

Thursday, 3 August 1871 continued
Despite numerous members of our Company being injured or otherwise incapacitated, plans continue. And as usual, some activities proceed without plans.

Sir Cosmo is busy with some sort of hearing at the Admiralty, I believe it is to do with the Dutch claims about the "Untersee" boat.

Mr Frazer is at his office writing reports with Inspector MacGreggor.

Miss Chi Lady Cowperthwaite is on a crusade against Niall Malloy. It seems the man has been making threats against our partisans in an effort to persuade Mr O'Flaherty to engage in prizefighting for Malloy's profit. Niall Malloy knows enough about Mr O'Flaherty and his friends to know that he would go to great lengths to defend us. What he doesn't seem to realise is that we would go to even greater lengths to defend ourselves. I suppose it does credit to our efforts to appear ordinary and innocuous. If Mr Malloy had any notion of our capacity to smite our enemies, we would think twice before bringing our wrath upon himself.

Lady Cowperthwaite's byzantine plan for thwarting Malloy involves leaking rumours (mostly true) about him to his friends and his foes alike. This will undermine his credibility and ultimately deprive him of power. I hope for his sake that this works, for if he continues to be troublesome to us, Lady Cowperthwaite will not hesitate to take more drastic action.

I suppose I should record some of last night's events, at least the small portion that I myself witnessed…

We began our expedition to rescue Davy Hawkins and to retrieve the missing artifacts by boarding HMS Rhinoceros.

Along the River, Lt Wooster pointed out a yacht owned by a visiting German Admiral. Lt Wooster had gone for a visit and met the enigmatic Mme Lillian de Vere. As we passed, the observant Mr Caine mentioned that the yacht was riding higher in the water than it had been earlier in the day. The significance of this was not clear at the time.

The Plumstead Marshes were aswarm with Mysterious Factions and mosquitos. Our Partisans approached a barge resting there using two of the Rhinoceros' longboats, rowed by Rhinoceros' crew. In no time, our party had invaded the barge, leaving each longboat guarded by two sailors and at least one League member. I myself remained in one of the longboats, prepared to pick off targets with my pistol, but the melee was too thick. I daren't fire for fear of hitting a friend.

Unfortunately, Lt Wooster did not exercise the same caution. He used a peculiar rapid-firing pistol, which proved difficult to control, and he hit Mrs Salmalin in the shoulder. Mr Salmalin managed to bring her free of the fighting, and the two of them took refuge on a bit of floating debris on the other side of the barge.

I was contemplating the stones in my pocket when a disturbance--bubbles in the water beside us--drew my attention. I took aim with my pistol, but held my fire--Mr O'Flaherty had been surprising the enemy from under the water, and I thought this might be him.

My longboat began to rock, and a metallic shape arose beside it. A hatch opened, it continued to rise, and the motion became so violent that I was pitched out of the boat, and I fell directly through the hatch.

It's a wonder I wasn't killed, falling down the accessway, past the rungs of a ladder. No doubt I was saved by the person I fell upon.

I had not even begun to recover from that jolt when I looked up to see Edward fly through the hatch behind me, followed very closely by a man in a gloriously decorated blue uniform. This man was carrying an awkward object—the stolen artifact.

As he passed through the hatch, it closed, and the locking wheel spun. Several facts came to my notice at once:

--I found myself in a submersible vessel, much larger and better appointed than Edward's. We were descending.
--Three men and one woman, in addition to Edward and myself, occupied this vessel.
--All three of the men wore uniforms.
--One of the men was still flattened to the floor by my fall, and spluttering in German.
--The woman was Madame de Vere, and she was waving her hands and chanting.
--The damp of my clothing was not due to any water from the marsh, but rather to the onset of Labour.

I was framing a firm request to be returned to the Rhinoceros when Edward went berserk. He was under an unshakeable misapprehension that someone from the submersible had intentionally grabbed me and dragged me into the hatch.

Imagine the havoc created by a furious Edward in such a confined space. He attacked the Admiral (for such he proved to be), which caused the Admiral to drop the artifact. Everyone was shouting. Eventually it was established that Edward's and my presence on the submersible was entirely accidental, and that the Admiral would certainly prefer we weren't there.

I could almost get a word in edgewise when the submersible came to a crunching halt, followed by a dreadful noise outside. Benton, upon hearing me cry out as I fell into the hatchway, had dived into the water and entangled the barge's anchor chain with the submersible's propellor screw. Sir Spencer had then added a carefully placed explosive to one of the rudder fins. The submersible could not leave.

Despite the difficulties we were causing, the Admiral chivalrously ordered his men deploy a folding bunk for me as the first labour pains hit in earnest.

Madame de Vere, meanwhile, had halted in mid-gesture and was suffused with a yellow light. I could not guess what was transpiring with her, and at that moment I cared little.

By the time the submersible rose and the hatch had been opened by my compatriots, the battle with the ninjitsus was mostly concluded.

Many of my friends had been wounded, the barge had been demolished, and the ninjitsus had immolated themselves. Davy Hawkins had been found, but he had not been friendly. He had been wearing the crown artifact and the jeweled glove, he had spoken in a strange language and with an unearthly deep voice, his eyes glowed, and he had been exercising strange powers against ninjitsus and League partisans alike.

He had escaped all, and had flown away, I am told, on a boat shaped like a great metal swan with glowing eyes, which blew fire out of its beak. If I hadn't seen the scorch marks, I would think my friends were making this up.

I was transported back to the Rhinoceros aboard a steam launch taken from the barge, along with Benton, Mrs Cuthbert, and the most grievously wounded. George was stunned and nearly drowned; Emily was badly cut and insensible; Mr O'Flaherty sported a badly hurt arm, bruises, and an indeterminate injury from the jeweled Glove of Abydos.

Brave Mrs Cuthbert poured all her strength into helping all of us. Even so weary from keeping our friends alive, she was incredibly kind and reassuring to me in my travails.

Benton stayed by my side as well. As shocking as it sounds, it was of great help to have him by me. He bore it all with great fortitude and gentleness. Today his left hand and forearm show the bruises made by my grip, and he never complained.

Once the babes were born, he weighed them in the scale used for cannon balls--much to the sailors' amusement.

In the aftermath of our battle, Sir Cosmo, Lady Cowperthwaite, Lt Wooster and Mr Caine stayed behind to negotiate with the Admiral as to the fate of his submersible. Sir Spencer and Edward also stayed and conducted a thorough search of the barge wreckage and the surrounding water, in hopes of finding evidence and salvageable equipment.

Despite her injuries, Mrs Salmalin insisted on staying as well, since Mr Salmalin was needed to guard them all, and she preferred to keep near him.

Additional unexpected participants in the fight should be noted:

1) Vicomte de Mulineaus and his secretary M Shafrat:
The Vicomte claims that he has long been fighting these ninjistsus, whom he calls "La Ligue des Ombres," the League of Shadows. The Vicomte is certain that his personal enemy Comte Montelimar is a leader of these shadows. I have doubts, but it bears investigation.

2) Henri, Marquis du Dragagulan:
He had been following the Vicomte at Sir Anthony's request, to observe his actions and to protect his person.

Both the Vicomte and the Marquis rendered aid in the fight, particularly protecting Emily when she had been cut down.

3) Admiral von Klink and his submersible, and Madame de Vere:
His presence in England is mainly due to his pursuit of thieves who had stolen a very large artifact--the swan boat--from Heinrich von Shekel, a well known antiquarian and the Admiral's cousin. The thieves had murdered their victim, and the Admiral is set on bringing them to justice.

Madame de Vere had joined forces with the Admiral, as she claims friendship with the deceased cousin. She had been on her way to visit him when she received word of his death.

The Admiral has consented to have his submersible towed to Sir Cosmo's shipyard, where repairs can be effected with some degree of secrecy.

Despite the very irregular manner of our meeting, I must own that the Admiral seems quite gentlemanly, and not especially hostile to British interests. He is a shipbuilder of considerable merit. The submersible is his own. One of his errands in England was to seek out the holder of a patent on a propulsion screw--one W. Moriarty. He was surprised to find that W. Moriarty was a ten-year-old girl, but once deciding it was not a prank of Sir Cosmo's devising, he indicated earnest interest in licensing the design for use on his personal vessel.

It should come as no surprise that our League takes little rest from our various works, despite the vigorous actions of last evening. Even those of us who are recovering from injury or exhaustion have not been idle.

Mrs Salmalin is recovering well. Mrs Cuthbert, Wilhelmina, and Sir Cosmo removed the bullet from her shoulder this morning. Mrs Cuthbert has slept much of the day, to recover from the exertions of caring for so many gravely wounded.

These two ladies came to me earlier this afternoon to request the use of the piece of rope I kept from the ninjitsu's dirigible. They used it for a scrying ritual, wherein they viewed a sort of reversed chronology of the rope, and therefore of the dirigible. This is what they reported:

--They saw the dirigible moored above Rusty Nail Malloy's pub for two days, including some conversation between Malloy and his primary henchman. To wit: the henchman expressed doubts about the temporary alliance with the ninjitsus. Both discussed plans for "getting" Atlas O'Flaherty, and also doing something nasty to someone named Mr Gates in order to put pressure on someone named "Jimmy."

--They saw the dirigible kept in a large cavern on the coast of France. Many Ninjitsus were training to operate it. They saw a man whom they had also seen in connexion with Dr O'Brien and the ninjitsus we met at the mine in Bury. He would appear to be a major leader of this organisation.

The mystics have also undertaken to find Davy Hawkins, and their scrying has directed them to Surrey. They have sent this news (and a map) to Inspector MacGreggor

Where all this will lead, I can scarcely hazard a guess. I just hope that none of the others will do anything rash while I am confined here recovering from "les doleurs". A forlorn hope, perhaps.

I think it must be time to feed the babies again.

Proceed to A rather hair-raising time

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