Mina Murray's journal, 6th of August. Another three days and no news. This suspense is getting dreadful. If I only knew where to write to or where to go to, I should feel easier. But no one has heard a word of Jonathan since that last letter. I must only pray to God for patience. Lucy is more excitable than ever, but is otherwise well. Last night was very threatening and the fishermen say that we are in for a storm. I must try to watch it and learn the weather signs. Today is a grey day.
and the sun, as I write, is hidden in thick clouds high over Kettle Ness. Everything is grey, except the green grass, which seems like emerald amongst it. Grey, earthy rock? Grey clouds, tinged with the sunburst at the far edge, hang over the grey sea, into which the sand points stretch like grey fingers. The sea is tumbling in over the shallows and the sandy flats with a roar, muffled in the sea mists drifting inland. The horizon is lost in a grey mist. All is vastness.
The clouds are piled up like giant rocks and there is a brule over the sea that sounds like some presage of doom. Dark figures are on the beach here and there, sometimes half shrouded in the mist. and seem men like trees walking. The fishing boats are racing for home and rise and dip in the ground swell as they sweep into the harbour, bending to the scuppers.
Here comes old Mr Swales. He is making straight for me, and I can see, by the way he lifts his hat, that he wants to talk. I have been quite touched by the change in the poor old man. When he sat down beside me, he said in a very gentle way, I want to say something to you, miss. I could see he was not at ease, so I took his poor old wrinkled hand in mine and asked him to speak fully.
So he said, leaving his hand in mine, I'm afraid, my dearie, that I must have shocked you by all the wicked things I've been saying about the dead and such like for weeks past. But I didn't mean them. And I want you to remember that when I'm gone. And we old folks that be daffled and with one foot a bath that croak all don't altogether like to think of it. And we don't want to feel scared of it.
And that's why I've took to making light of it, so that I'd cheer up my own heart a bit. But Lord love you miss, I ain't afraid of dying, not a bit. Only I don't want to die if I can help it. My time must be night hand now, for I be old, and a hundred years is too much for any man to expect, and I'm so night that the old man is already wetting his scythe.
You see, I can't get out of the habit of chaffering about it all at once. The chaffs will wag as they be used to. Someday soon the angel of death will sound his trumpet for me. But don't you do all in great, my dearie. For he saw that I was crying. If he should come this very night, I'd not refuse to answer his call. For life be, after all.
Only waiting for something else than what we're doing. A death be all that we can rarely depend on. But I'm content, for it's coming to me, my dearie, and coming quick. It may be coming while we be looking and wondering. Maybe it's in that wind out over the sea that's bringing with it loss and wreck and sore distress and sad hearts. Look. Look! He cried suddenly. There's something in that wind and in the host beyond that sounds and looks and tastes and smells like death.
It's in the air. I feel it coming. Lord, make me answer cheerful when my call comes. He held up his arms devoutly and raised his hat. His mouth moved as though he were praying. After a few minutes' silence, he got up, shook hands with me and blessed me and said goodbye and hobbled off. It all touched me.
and upset me very much. I was glad when the Coast Guard came along, with his spyglass under his arm. He stopped to talk with me, as he always does, but all the time kept looking at a strange ship. I can't make her out, he said. She's rushing, by the look of her. But she's knocking about in the queerest way. She doesn't know her mind a bit. She seems to see the storm coming.
I can't decide whether to run up north in the open, or to put in here. But there again. She is steered mighty strangely, for she doesn't mind the hand on the wheel, changes about with every puff of wind. We'll hear more of her before this time tomorrow. Graham Rowett as Mr. Swales, and Nathan Blades as the Coast Guard. Dialogue editing by Stephen Indrasano. Sound design by Tal Manier.
Produced by Ella Watts and Pacific S. Obadiah. With executive producers Stephen Andressano, Tal Manir, and Hannah Wright. A Bloody FM production.