Ad astra per aspera script on skin

The galley on the Cormorant is smaller than you'd believe, and I've been standing in it since four, peeling potatoes for forty men while the swell throws the pans about on their hooks. The cook before me was a Shetlander called Tam Gilchrist, who kept a tin of spare nails in his apron and a scrap of paper pinned above the range. You'll think this a daft thing to tell you, but the paper said Ad astra per aspera in his small, slanting hand, and when the boat rolled so badly I couldn't keep a kettle on, I'd read it and feel faintly ashamed to complain.

Tam went over the side off Rockall in March, nobody's fault, just a rope that wouldn't hold. The skipper gave his tin to the lad from Grimsby, and the paper stayed where it was because nobody could bring themselves to take it down. I asked the mate what it meant. He said something about stars and rough roads, then looked embarrassed and went back to his coffee.

So this morning I found a biro and wrote it out again on the back of a cardboard meal tray, joining the letters the way Tam did, long strokes running into each other like wake behind a boat. It's crooked. I've pinned it by the hatch where the light is.

Last week I asked the lad whether he thought Tam had made it to the stars. He said he doubted it. I told him the roads were the point. Anyway, the bread's proving and I'm to bake before the watch changes, so I'll post this when we dock at Lerwick.

Love, Jo