Crossed arrows with red feathers on forearms

The cook's knife slipped again this morning and for ten minutes the galley floor looked like a butcher's yard. Mr Pargeter says it's the swell, but I know it's my hands, which are still too keen to be somewhere else. I keep your last feathers in the biscuit tin under the spice rack, the goose grey ones with madder-red tips that you barred with a brush that was never clean. Whenever the tins need counting I take one out and turn it over in my fingers until the rolling settles.

We raised the Lizard on Tuesday, and the men went quiet the way they do when land is near enough to smell. Ada Pyke, the stewardess, asked about the crossed arrows I've inked on my forearm, and I told her they were a promise between two boys who had never once hit the same target. She laughed and said the Navy was full of promises like that, then went back to her bread. I didn't tell her about the red splash beside them, which is for the night Father's nail went through my palm and you bound it with your own shirt.

Here is what I should have said on the dock. When we reach Bristol I want you waiting at the Bear with a fresh set of heads and a pot of that madder. I'll carry the tin ashore, and we'll fletch the lot at Mother's table the way we used to, with the kettle shouting and the cat asleep in the shavings.

Tell Mother the galley is warm and the biscuits are dry. Tell her I haven't let the knife near my hand since Tuesday. Yours, Sam.