Ornate stag and hamsa hand design

We have been four weeks out of Tilbury and the sea has not once been the colour I expected. Today it is the grey of old pewter, and the gulls that followed us past Ushant have finally given up. Mr Ashby the purser says that means we are in the trade winds proper, though I think he says it to keep the men cheerful. I keep the ledger for the tea and tin, which means I must write down every crate that goes over the side in a squall, and I am not yet sure I forgive the Company for that.

The stag came aboard at Gibraltar, in the hands of a Maltese trader who swore it had belonged to a surveyor's widow in Valletta. It is carved from pearwood, with antlers like the spread of a winter oak. On its brow someone has cut a small open hand, the sort the trader called the hand of Fatima, with an eye set in the palm to turn away what looks too long. I paid two shillings and a bent pen for it. I told myself it was for the chart room, but I keep it on the shelf above my bunk, and when the ship rolls I watch the eye keep its steady, patient look while everything else slides.

Mr Ashby says the eye is a foolish thing to trust on a voyage, since the sea has never once asked permission. Perhaps he is right. Still, I have started turning the stag so its antlers face the door, so that whatever comes down the companionway sees them first. Write to me at the Bombay agency and tell me the orchard has been pruned. I should like something ordinary to hold on to.

Yours in haste, and in salt, Alice