Then they began to consider the possibility that it was a bird as yet unrecorded, a species like that recently discovered breeding in a small colony on the Salvage Islands. It would be impossible to have such a record accepted on only a fleeting view, and they peered over the rail at the oily water, tense and silent. The air and the water were filled with birds but no one could make out the red-footed petrel.

“There it is!” Rob said triumphantly. “Just there. Under the crowd of gulls. Look at that head and that underwing! Pass me the camera. We’ll need photographs. If I had a gun, I’d shoot the bloody thing.”

Then, obliging, showing off almost, it circled above them, so they could see the brilliant red feet and the light shining through the shafts of the wing feathers. It was possible to detail the wing, to draw the pattern of each feather. They drank in the image of the bird, sketching it, memorising the joy of the moment. George felt drawn to it. It was the climax of sixty years of birdwatching. No other experience would match it. He could not take his eyes off the bird.

He heard Jane Pym ask hesitantly if she should go to fetch Greg, and for a moment he felt guilty because he had given the boy no thought.

“I’ll go,” Duncan James said. “ This is very interesting, but I’m afraid it’s rather above me.”

George wondered that anyone could be so unmoved by the beauty of the bird, by the excitement of discovery, and heard the man move clumsily away.

The bird flew back to feed on the chum, and the boat continued to circle it. As the Jessie Ellen moved slowly through the water, they saw the petrel in different lights from different angles. Rob took photograph after photograph.

“It’s quite different from anything else I’ve ever seen,” George said. “Really, I don’t think there can be any mistake.”

At last they were able to relax. They felt they knew the bird and would always remember it. It was almost as if they owned it. Rob put down the camera, lay back on the deck, and stretched.

“Where’s Greg?” he asked. “ If he doesn’t get here soon, he’ll miss it.” Without moving from his place in the sun, he turned his head and shouted. “Duncan! Where’s Greg?”

The older man walked back along the deck towards them. He seemed helpless, rather ashamed, like a child who has failed to perform a simple task.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t find him. You’ll have to help.”

“What do you mean, you can’t find him?” Rob was beyond himself after the new bird, superior, derisive.

“He’s not on deck where he went to sleep,” Duncan said, “and he’s not in his bunk. I don’t know where else to look.”