There was menace in the staccato speech. I knew now that as I’d placed my foot on the sand and stepped over the rowlock, that fowling piece had been trained on me, somewhere in the dune. How different our reception might have been. Life and death, strung from nothing more than the good fortune of having picked up Campbell.

‘Mister Munro,’ I ventured, ‘do you have Kelly and Thomas stay here?’

He looked perplexed.

‘Aye, I do.’

‘But you say they took their wives, by force?’

‘Dinnae ken for sure. Probably.’

‘Why would you condone that?’ I don’t know what made me ask it; my father kicked me under the table. But I pressed on. ‘Why would you allow such men here?’

He sighed heavily, as if faced with a halfwit.

‘Islands, right?’ He made a grouping motion with his hands. ‘All stuck together, exactly like a family is. Can’t separate em. This one’s here, that one’s there and nobody’s moving. Best you can do is make sure everyone gets along.’ He appeared to consider something for a moment. ‘People here, they’ve killed men. Some deserved it, some didn’t. Some’s done horrors to the bairns. Now am I supposed to send em off? Have em removed? Work out which ones did the right killing? No. You get on, you keep going.’

My father had been silent throughout the conversation, his face following the voices. Now he spoke.

‘Mister Munro, would you be agreeable to us taking a walk?’

Munro’s eyes darted to his wife. ‘Why would you be wanting to do that?’

‘Doctor Gideon here is a man of science. He has driven us to distraction collecting his sea creatures on this voyage. It might do him some good to turn his efforts to terra firma.’ He smiled benignly, and so did the doctor. Crafty old fox, my father.

‘Well.’ Munro shot another look at his wife. ‘Why not?’ It felt like the whole room had exhaled. Now he peered at the ceiling, fashioned from tacked-up hessian. ‘But you might want to wait a wee while.’

We could hear the steady drumming of rain on the roof above us. Drips had begun to make their way through and down onto the tussock floor.

My father had been cradling his teacup in his hands. He placed it down to scratch at the scab that had formed under his eye. We listened to the tyereelore chattering and laughing, and my father’s mood lifted in their presence. Their shyness had evaporated now and they were delighted by the company, as much as my father was by them. In the doctor and the master, I could detect no great change of mood.