Small arrows, moon and heart on hand

The lamp at Scarrow Point has been dark since Tuesday, so the boats are coming in blind. Mr Pell has taken to lighting the old tin lantern on the sea wall and ringing his handbell whenever a sail shows. I have been given the signal board, which is nothing but a painted slate and a box of chalk, and I have drawn on it the only things I know well enough to draw without thinking: a chevron for slow down, a crescent for the tide turning, an arrow for the gap past the Teeth. You will laugh, but I inked the same marks onto my fingers so I would not lose them in the dark. Mother took one look and said I had the knuckles of a costermonger's child.

Half the village has been up on the steps since noon, asking after husbands and sons. The Harrow boy came back at two this morning, rowing with one oar and a bandaged brow, and nobody could say whether he had been foolish or simply brave. He said he kept his eye on the chevrons the whole way in, one after another across the black water, the way you follow a dog's tail through a wood.

The last boat was the Corinna, and she was not due until the morning. I stood on the wall with the chalk in my hand and watched the moon come up thin and white over the headland, exactly where the arrow on the slate pointed. Then a single red light swung round the rocks. I drew the heart last, small, at the bottom of the board, the way Father always signed his letters. The Corinna came in with the tide, and Father stepped onto the stones before the rope was even fast.

Come home for Sunday. I will show you the slate. It is still full of arrows.