It was now February. With no involvement in the esoteric business of cargos or sailing the ship – plotting her course with longline and astrolabe – time passed remarkably slowly, leaving me too much at the mercy of my imagination resulting in an unpleasantly vivid dream on our first night at sea on the way to Barbados.
I had arrived back at the house with Penny beside me, overjoyed to be taking her to Susannah whom I somehow knew had already given birth to our son. I stood on the jetty and looked down to find Penny was no longer beside me, nor indeed was the pinnace tied-up there. I walked up to the silent house, making my way along the porch to our chamber, which was deserted and littered with debris blown in through the open casements. All the other rooms were the same. Even the stables
