Three Ships

Chapter Two

By the time the horse and cart had negotiated the tight, steep turns up the path to the top of St Joseph's Rock; small waves were breaking over the causeway. Laura looked at the sky ahead, a crisp formation of arcus cloud rolled in like the advancing tide, heading for the coast.

"Papa, I'm home," she called, her arms filled with the first of two small crates. There was no answer, but that didn't alarm her. His badly-sprained foot wouldn't stop him hauling himself up the one hundred and eight steps to the top of the tower to use his telescope and check his barometer, to take notes on the storm to come.

Laura set the load on the kitchen table of their cottage and called from the bottom of the stairwell that led up to the light.

"Papa?"

"You're back, dear girl!" a voice echoed down the void. "Just one more measurement and I'll be right down to give you a hand."

Laura grinned and shook her head.

By the time he had managed to get downstairs, she would have brought in all of their provisions and unharnessed Acorn the horse. Not that she minded. Laura took an interest in her father's weather recordings – those measures of the scale and scope of the weather influenced the livelihood of everyone in the district.

And indeed she was correct. By the time her father joined her, Laura had begun the heavy weather routine her father had taught her as a child – persuade Milly the goat into her pen, chase the chickens back into their coop inside the stone-walled courtyard, and then take a walk around the perimeter of the lighthouse and its cottage to close the storm shutters.

The sound of a timber door slamming against the stone wall alerted her to her father's arrival downstairs.

She hurried around the lee of the building to find him outside and struggling to manage his crutches and the heavy cloak across his left arm.

Peter Winter, despite ruddy and weathered features that were testament to a life dedicated to the sea, was still a handsome man in his early fifties. He shared his daughter's bright green eyes and ready smile.

"I don't know who is supposed to be looking after who here," he said, offering her the cloak.

Laura accepted it and was grateful for its warmth.

Walking side-by-side, they abandoned the protection of the lighthouse walls to venture closer to the southern end of St Joseph's Rock. Spray reached them even at that height as waves whipped up by the coming storm crashed and broke apart on the massive black boulders below.

Laura was about to make comment when she found her father staring straight out to sea. She folded her arm into her father's and looked out to sea also. The storm clouds edged closer and heavy rain fell like a black curtain across the grey sea about a mile away from the shore.

"There's a boat out there," she said.

"Aye," he muttered more to himself than her, "but there were two a couple of hours ago."

"Together?" she asked, but her voice was carried away unheard in the rising wind.

Laura's father turned and hobbled back towards the lighthouse, moving swiftly on his crutches. Laura glanced back at the sea. Silhouetted by a flash of lightning, a ketch battled the increasing swell.

She followed swiftly towards the lighthouse, noticing the sharp splinters of afternoon sunlight still falling inland, a reminder of the changeable weather on the Devon coast.No sooner had the door slammed behind her than her father called.

"You'll have to give me a hand, love," he called down from the top of the stairs which he had ascended backwards on hand and seat with his bandaged foot straight out in front.