About this story
With the fisherman Robertson and his daughter Jane, you build signal fires against the gale, watch the vessel miss the safe cove, and hear her break up on the rocks. No grown survivor reaches the shore — only Robertson's dog, dragging a wrapped infant from the surf marked with the initials J. de F., and a morning tide that answers nothing else.
How it opens
A November gale shook your retired sailor's cottage above the Irish Sea.
That report was no shutter, Mr Forster; something fired a gun beyond the cliff.
Years ashore had not dulled your recognition of a vessel's distress signal.
Your old wound will not thank you for climbing in this weather.
Choose
Take a hooded lantern, line, and dry tinder from the passage.
Send Mrs Beazely to wake Robertson while you watch from higher ground.