The boy felt too warm and full to answer. He put his hands under his head, propping up its sudden, heavy weight. His cheeks were roasting on the palms of his hands.

And then he was in a bed, a high bed with a soft, thick feather mattress into which he was snugly sunk. The door into the kitchen was half-open, and he could hear the murmur of voices there, the scrape of chairs on the flags of the kitchen floor. The rosary began with the son’s voice, saying, “Our F-Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy k-kingdom come, thy w-will be done...”

And as the boy lost consciousness, Father Conroy awoke.

*

He lay stiffly on the hard bunk, searching for some clue to where he was. The light was very dim. As he pulled himself up, he felt the edge of the bunk shuddering beneath his hand. Around him, in the lower berths, people lay, each a mound of brown blanket, very still. There was no sound from them, and for a moment he felt he was the only one alive. Then the throb of engines pushed its way up out of the silence, and he thought, God, yes, I’m on the mail boat, going home.

He looked for his portmanteau, but it was not there; he had had it coming into the customs shed. Had he brought it on board? He sat, trying to think – there was scarcely air to breathe, and he felt his vest stuck to his back. His breviary was in it, and his leather Mass kit, which he had had since his ordination day. God, he couldn’t lose them! He’d be lost without them! What should he do? Go up and find someone to report to!

Quickly he got out and stumbled past the half-lit rows of bodies. The companionway was empty. He hurried upward, drawn by the light that had begun to dilute the globes of faded yellow that hung around each electric bulb. Cold air blew in his face as he stepped over the threshold and turned into the shelter of the afterdeck. The sun’s light fell on him through the clear air; he imagined its distant warmth on his face. To the southwest, the mountains of Wicklow were on the horizon. He knew their shapes, their dark, misty blue, deepened here and there in places which the sun could not yet reach. The warmth was on his shoulders now, sinking into every pore of his body. He was weak from it; he could not move, not even to raise his eyes from the mountains, drawing steadily nearer, with the gulls circling against them like tiny seeds of white.