Black and grey line-work thigh tattoo

The crane came back to the rail again this morning, the grey one with its long legs folded up under it like a clerk's umbrella. Mr Pell says it is the same bird that followed us out past the Lizard, and I have decided to believe him, because he has never once lied to me about the weather. It stands on the cathead watching the bow wave, and when the cook throws the scraps it ignores them. It wants the fish that come up in our wake, and it waits for them the way you used to wait at the gate for your father's cart.

We are nineteen days out of Bristol with a hold full of salt cod and no sign of Madeira yet. The men have started calling the bird Mrs Hale, after the purser's wife, because it walks about the deck with the same disapproving dignity. Tom has been sketching it on the back of the manifest. He says the reeds in his drawing are wrong because there are no reeds at sea, and I told him the crane has never been informed.

Something happened last night that I cannot make sense of. The watch swore the bird was gone at dusk, and then at four bells it was standing on the wheelhouse step, facing aft, as if it had been looking for something behind us. Captain Ward did not come out to see it. He only said that birds know where the land is before men do, then went back to his cabin and did not appear until breakfast.

I have wrapped a piece of the cod in tin foil for you. Do not let Father eat it all. Write when we make port, and tell me whether the crane is still out on the marsh at home, or whether it has gone with the tide.

Yours always, Eliza