Dove carrying keys on the ribs

We are nine days out of Punta Arenas and the wind has finally backed round to the north, so the old girl is making proper headway at last. I am writing this by the lamp in the carpenter's shop, where the smell of pine shavings is the nearest thing to our kitchen I can find.

I have something for you, though I am not sure how to get it home. In a shop behind the fish market at Valparaiso, an old locksmith sold me two skeleton keys for a shilling and a bottle of rum. One has a bow shaped like a heart, the other a star, and he swore they had opened a convent gate that had been shut since the Spanish left. Ruth in the galley found a length of brass chain in the purser's locker and I linked them together for you. It hangs over my bunk now, and whenever the ship lurches the keys knock together like someone at a door.

Then there is the dove. It came out of the fog off Cape Froward on the third morning, a grey thing no bigger than a fist, and dropped onto the rail as if it had been sent for. Tom wanted it for the pot. I would not let him. It ate crumbs from my palm and sat on the chain while I worked, and when I finished it lifted the links in its beak and tested the weight of them, bold as a postman. It has not left the rigging since, except to steal the cook's biscuits.

The captain says a bird that takes to a ship will take to the land it is near, so the dove will be bound for England with us. I have decided it will deliver the keys. Leave the back gate off the latch and the kitchen window open. If it lands on the chimney stack, let it stay. It has come a long way to find the right door, and I would like to think it knows the way better than I do.

Yours, till the tide turns, Will