Neo-traditional colour tattoo of a moustached officer in a green campaign hat and aviator sunglasses, with the words Mother of God below, on a calf.

Officer portrait with Mother of God banner

Neo-trad · Calf · Colour · Photo

A cartoon-style portrait of a moustached man in a green campaign hat with a metal badge, aviator sunglasses and a grey uniform collar, framed by a curved banner reading MOTHER OF GOD. The linework is bold and dark, with soft shading on the face, hat and uniform. Vivid greens, golds and skin tones dominate the design, which is set against a plain background on a hairy lower leg.

Neo-trad Calf Portrait Badge Sunglasses Moustache Lettering Banner Quote

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Sergeant Dunmore Haig had ridden the cliff road for nineteen years and never once been surprised by the sea, which was why the boy's shout from the rocks below Scarrow Point made him swear. "Mother of God," he said, to nobody, and tugged his green campaign hat down against the wind before he went over the stile.

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The boy was called Tom Pellow, a lamp-trimmer's son, and he had a crab tangled in his line and a story about a light that had gone out. The keeper of Scarrow light had died in February, and nobody had lit the lamp since. Haig had polished the badge on his collar for the inquest, and he wore his aviators against the glare off the water. He listened without interrupting.

They climbed the tower together. The lamp room smelled of paraffin and cold brass. The mantle was whole and the wick was dry, yet when Haig struck the match the flame rose blue and then sank, as if something below were breathing out. He stood a long time with his hand on the rail. Then he folded the sunglasses into his breast pocket and told the boy to fetch the oil can from the store.

With the lamp lit, the beam swept out over the water, and far off a trawler turned for home. Haig wrote in the log: lamp lit, eleven o'clock, by the constable, under the old keeper's name. Below, the boy was already halfway down the steps with the crab in his bucket, and Haig heard himself say the words once more to the empty room, quieter now, the way a man says a prayer he never expected to need.