Hi! How are you? We hope you are well.

Here we are, still flowing on the ocean tide on our way to America. It was lovely to hear about your baby, it was great and unexpected news!.

I say "unexpected" because we were supposed not to have any news about it until we arrived to New York. But... guess what happened! Do you remember Mrs. Thorndyke, our landlady in Bedford, when we were students?. Yes, I'm sure you do! (Just think about that huge chatterbox who used to be so keen on cheap imitation jewelry). Well, we were taking a walking along the stern when we suddenly ran into her. She is still the same!. It was her who told us about your baby, after the usual endless gossip report, of course. (I wonder how she got to know it).

By the way! What is it, a boy or a girl?. We could not finally find out because she had to interrupt her monologue when she got to this point. Something had happened at the bow of the ship and passengers where asked to gather on different decks according to their cabin numbers; so we had to leave. We met her again a while later, but she seemed to be too busy gasping and splashing about to stop and pay any attention to us. (We'll have to wait and hear it from your own lips, some day in the future).

I'm really sorry about it, but I have some bad news to tell you. You might have probably heard, or read something in the papers about an unfortunate cruiser shipwreck these late weeks. You'll be sad to hear that Mrs. Thorndyke was certainly not one of the survivors. She was not much of a standing out swimmer in fact, and all that ironmongery she used to wear did not help her to arise...

That takes us to the subject of this letter, which is both to congratulate you for having your baby and to apologize because, the way things are going, I'm afraid we won't be able to be present at the christening. I'm sure you will understand and excuse us.

Incidentally, if you happen to have any rescue ship, or similar at hand, would you please be so kind to send it over?. We would thank you so much!. You don't know how boring it can be after three weeks on a life raft.

Nothing seems to be critical, though, in our present situation. We have some spare food rations left and a couple of gallons of water to manage; so there is no need to rush. But we are rapidly running out of tea.

Well, I have to sign off now. Please don't forget to drop us a line as soon as you receive this bottle, and let us know you did.

Yours sincerely:

Earnest & Monica