Five Parts Dead by Tim Pegler Read Free Book Online

wooden chest but no survivors. I cautioned everyone to take care they weren’t swept from the rocks.
    D ECEMBER 22
Commenced with moderate breeze at SW. Overcast till 2am. From 2 till 8 a breeze at SSE.
    At 3.10pm Miss Wilton discovered a survivor inside Sealer’s Arch; a young man more dead than alive. No other souls located. Mr and Mrs Sutton, Miss Wilton and I conveyed the youth by stretcher to the spare room in my cottage. Miss Wilton offered to stay with him while I was on duty. From noon until 8 overcast with light flying showers, SSW breeze…
    D ECEMBER 24
Commenced with moderate breeze at SSE. Overcast & cloudy till 8am. At 10.45 a vessel sighted, bearing WNW, too far away to signal.
    Survivor woke today but remains too weak to speak. Miss Wilton continues to nurse him around the clock. Sky clear. Sea calm. Spent the day cleaning the lantern and window glass.
    D ECEMBER 25
Commenced with fresh breeze at SE, continuing throughout these twenty-four hours. Blue sky! Sailor still very weak. He has told Miss Wilton his name is Samuel Stevenson. He was crewing the Loch Awe , a barque bound for Port Adelaide with two women and thirty-two men on board. He won’t accept they are all lost.
    Being Christmas, I assigned extra oil to the underkeepers and encouraged them to take a day off while I tended to the light. I urged Miss Wilton to administer extra hay for the horses too! At noon we gathered for a short service and to sing some hymns…
    J ANUARY 4
Commenced with moderate breeze at SW. Cloudy with passing showers until 2am. Till 9, breeze at SSE and overcast.
    Our guest is gradually regaining some of the colour leached from him by the sea. Mr Sam, as he prefers to be called, has been with us two weeks now. He is still weak and his hands and forearms are badly bruised. Despite this, he today endeavoured to assist Miss Wilton repair fencing around the stables. It is good for her to have someone her own age to speak with. They are becoming close.
    Yesterday we located the remains of a woman and boy child, tied to a wooden door. I asked Mr Sam whether there was no lifeboat on the Loch Awe . He replied that there was but would say no more.
    Mr Sutton dug graves for the pair in woodland above the jetty at Nolan’s Return, near the original campsite. I conducted the funeral service and Mr Sam read from the Scriptures.
    I close the logbook, my imagination on spin cycle. If there was a lifeboat, why were the mother and child strapped to a door? Who was in the lifeboat if not the women and children? And why wouldn’t Sam tell Captain Llewellyn anything about the wreck?
    My thoughts stall at the sound of wheels on gravel in the distance. I struggle upright and peer out a window. Mel, Pip and Hiroshi are tumbling from a tour bus, laughing. Hiroshi speaks briefly to the driver and then the bus farts away from the cottages, excreting black exhaust smoke into the sky. I grab my crutches and head back to the cottages, keen for company.
    Hiroshi nods me a polite hello as I emerge from the scrub.
    Mel looks me up and down before wrapping me in an unexpected hug. ‘How’s the foot? You up for a jog yet?’ She’s joking but only just. Mel runs five kilometres or more on most days, even when she’s on holiday, and she revels in beating me.
    â€˜Up for a jog? Shit, yeah. But I did a half-marathon while you were out so let’s wait until tomorrow.’
    Pip says nothing. I reckon I’ve got some ground to make up there.
    After lunch, Mel and Hiroshi go down to the Cape to watch the fur seals on the rocks. I find Pip reading The Book Thief on the verandah and drop to sit on the sun-warmed paving stones beside her. She doesn’t look up. This is going to be harder than I thought.
    I consider asking if she stole the novel, just to break the ice. No, that’s way too risky...and just not funny. I roll different apologies around my mind, grasping for something smooth or witty. I’ve