on a squally sea, too intent on dealing with the waves to break into Morse or – still sometimes – International Code, about where they came from or where they were bound. Once in a while, a keeper might have a little joke to himself, decorating the start of a new month with a scroll or a curlicue. He might craftily record that the Inspector of Lights has confirmed his long-service leave, on the basis that there’s no nay-saying what’s written there. But that’s as far as liberties are taken. The log is the gospel truth. Janus isn’t a Lloyds station: it’s not one the ships depend on for forecasts, so once Tom closes the pages on the book, it is unlikely that any eyes will glance at it again, perhaps ever. But he feels a particular peace when he writes. The wind is still measured using the system from the age of sail: ‘
calm (0–2, sufficient wind for working ships)
’ to ‘
hurricane (12 –no sail can stand, even running)
’. He relishes the language. When he thinks back to the chaos, the years of manipulating facts, or the impossibility of knowing, let alone describing, what the bloody hell was going on while explosions shattered the ground all around him, he enjoys the luxury of stating a simple truth.
It was therefore the logbook that first played on Tom’s mind that day the boat arrived. It was second nature to him to report any little thing that might have significance, bound not only by the rules of his employment, but by Commonwealth law. His information might be only one tiny piece of a puzzle, a piece he alone could contribute, and it was vital that he do so. A distress flare, a wisp of smoke on the horizon, a bit of metal washed up that might turn out to be wreckage – all were recorded in his steady, efficient hand, the letters sloping gently and evenly forward.
He sat at the desk below the lantern room, his fountain pen waiting faithfully to report the day. A man was dead. People should be notified; enquiries made. He drew more ink into the pen, even though it was almost full. He checked back over a few details on previous pages, then went to the very first entry he had ever recorded, that grey Wednesday he had arrived on Janus six years before. The days had followed like the rise and fall of the tides since then, and through all of them – when he was dog-tired from urgent repairs, or on watch all night during a storm, or wondering what the hell he was doing there, even the desperate days of Isabel’s miscarriages – there was never one when putting ink to the page made him so uneasy. But she had begged him to wait a day.
His thoughts revisited the afternoon just two weeks earlier when he had returned from fishing, to be greeted by Isabel’s cries. ‘Tom! Tom, quick!’ Running into the cottage, he had found her lying on the kitchen floor.
‘Tom! Something’s wrong.’ She was groaning between words. ‘It’s coming! The baby’s coming.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m not sure!’ she spat. ‘I don’t know what’s going on! I just – Oh, sweet Jesus, Tom, it hurts!’
‘Let me help you up,’ he urged, kneeling down beside her.
‘No! Don’t move me.’ She was panting, battling the pain for each breath, moaning the phrases. ‘It hurts too much. Oh God make this stop!’ she cried, as blood seeped through her dress and onto the floor.
This was different from before – Isabel was nearly seven months along, and Tom’s previous experience was of little help. ‘Tell me what to do, Izz. What do you want me to do?’
She was fumbling about her clothes, trying to get her bloomers off.
Tom lifted her hips and pulled them down and over her ankles as she started to moan more loudly, twisting this way and that, her cries ringing out over the island.
The labour was as quick as it was early, and Tom watched helpless as a baby – it was unmistakeably a baby,
his
baby – emerged from Isabel’s body. It was bloody and small: a mocking, scale-model of the infant they
calm (0–2, sufficient wind for working ships)
’ to ‘
hurricane (12 –no sail can stand, even running)
’. He relishes the language. When he thinks back to the chaos, the years of manipulating facts, or the impossibility of knowing, let alone describing, what the bloody hell was going on while explosions shattered the ground all around him, he enjoys the luxury of stating a simple truth.
It was therefore the logbook that first played on Tom’s mind that day the boat arrived. It was second nature to him to report any little thing that might have significance, bound not only by the rules of his employment, but by Commonwealth law. His information might be only one tiny piece of a puzzle, a piece he alone could contribute, and it was vital that he do so. A distress flare, a wisp of smoke on the horizon, a bit of metal washed up that might turn out to be wreckage – all were recorded in his steady, efficient hand, the letters sloping gently and evenly forward.
He sat at the desk below the lantern room, his fountain pen waiting faithfully to report the day. A man was dead. People should be notified; enquiries made. He drew more ink into the pen, even though it was almost full. He checked back over a few details on previous pages, then went to the very first entry he had ever recorded, that grey Wednesday he had arrived on Janus six years before. The days had followed like the rise and fall of the tides since then, and through all of them – when he was dog-tired from urgent repairs, or on watch all night during a storm, or wondering what the hell he was doing there, even the desperate days of Isabel’s miscarriages – there was never one when putting ink to the page made him so uneasy. But she had begged him to wait a day.
His thoughts revisited the afternoon just two weeks earlier when he had returned from fishing, to be greeted by Isabel’s cries. ‘Tom! Tom, quick!’ Running into the cottage, he had found her lying on the kitchen floor.
‘Tom! Something’s wrong.’ She was groaning between words. ‘It’s coming! The baby’s coming.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m not sure!’ she spat. ‘I don’t know what’s going on! I just – Oh, sweet Jesus, Tom, it hurts!’
‘Let me help you up,’ he urged, kneeling down beside her.
‘No! Don’t move me.’ She was panting, battling the pain for each breath, moaning the phrases. ‘It hurts too much. Oh God make this stop!’ she cried, as blood seeped through her dress and onto the floor.
This was different from before – Isabel was nearly seven months along, and Tom’s previous experience was of little help. ‘Tell me what to do, Izz. What do you want me to do?’
She was fumbling about her clothes, trying to get her bloomers off.
Tom lifted her hips and pulled them down and over her ankles as she started to moan more loudly, twisting this way and that, her cries ringing out over the island.
The labour was as quick as it was early, and Tom watched helpless as a baby – it was unmistakeably a baby,
his
baby – emerged from Isabel’s body. It was bloody and small: a mocking, scale-model of the infant they
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