October 2nd
Already it is getting cold. No Indian summers, no lenience this time. Outside I can hear the chill wind in the tall trees at the foot of garden. The freight trains rumble by and my home seems to shake a little more each time. There used to be foxes I could watch from my window, but I can’t see them tonight and, thinking now, cannot recall the last time I could. I never really noticed the end. They just aren’t here anymore. The gatepost at the end of my drive has become unhinged and creaks and flaps like a broken wing in the slightest breeze. I should fix it. I could fix a lot right now. I think I am unhinged. Do I flap though?

The walls seem thin. I can hear the murmurings and athletic grunts of my neighbours through the wall. I think they are all men, although I’ve never taken the trouble to ask or get to know any of the people I’ve met in the dingy hall during my increasingly rare forays into the larger world.

October 4th
Colder again. I touched my nose as I awoke this morning and it was cold and wet. A sure sign. This means I am healthy and happy. I forgot to write in my last entry, I have a new pair of pyjamas Joan brought around. Very sweet of her. They are so warm. She says they are new, but of course she was lying. I do not believe she even washed them. I didn’t either and it was not until I put them on that I realised my error. I have cleaned them thoroughly since, but even now I do still have to scratch violently to quell the uprising in my nether regions. And so. I have these thick and woolly pyjamas, surprisingly gentle to the touch. I have an undersheeet, a thick eiderdown duvet, a top sheet and a heavy, itchy blanket on top. I should not be cold in the mornings. But I am cold. Not just my nose either.

I fear I have launched into this diary without giving the reader much opportunity to know what is going on. Why I fear so much that I have chosen to record my days so that perhaps I can pick out the details later. Details that may seem innocent and immaterial now, but which may grow to have profound import in the days to come. It started with a boat journey a long time ago.

I’ve never known how to handle money, or even what to do with it when some has come to my pocket. I don’t know how to spend it. I don’t really enjoy doing anything other than sitting on Theakston’s point and watching the tall ships drift by. I rarely see the tall ships any more, only container ships and Merchant Naval Vessels lumbering past. Occasionally I’ll see a schooner – 3 weeks ago today, I saw the Churchill and my heart soared. One of the last great ships to come out of Govan before most of the yards were closed forever. I have a sliding copper telescope, which brought it alive. It was particularly rough that day and I could clearly see the strain on the faces of the crew as they fought to tack against a heavy North Eastern with the rain and spray whipping in and lashing their faces until they could barely see.

I can sit up there in any conditions. In some ways I prefer it when the weather is bad. I can have the cliff to myself and imagine I am still out there on the heaving sea. When it is calm, all I see are those contemptible speedboats and the cliff walk is full of children and dogs. People I spoke to just after the accident expressed their surprise that I still had a passion for boats, given what had happened. I don’t blame boats though, don’t blame anybody. I just wish it hadn’t happened. Just the other day, 20 years on, I bent down to pick up a letter and the edge of the table went clean through my chin. Didn’t feel a thing.

These days I exist on my pension alone. I have no savings to speak of, but unlike a lot of the elderly people I hear about I do not complain. The pension gives me all I need. I do not want for more. Things could be a lot worse.

After the war, I stayed in the navy, mostly working as a gunner, occasionally engineer, although for the most part, we just fixed things up and played a lot of cards. After what we’d all been through, there was no appetite anywhere for fighting, so we put-putted around and generally had a good time. Well deserved too I’d say. Stationed mostly in Hong Kong, for 2 years we prowled the South China seas, 7 of us in a converted minesweeper on a seemingly eternal loop past the Philippines, Borneo and Malaysia then through the Andaman Sea to Rangoon. And that’s where the trouble began.

A man in a bar introduced one of our fellows to opium. He introduced the rest of us later that night and we all became firm friends. With nothing much to do and nobody much interested in what we were doing, we simply loaded our pipes and bobbed around in fug, occasionally responding to a radio call to check this, or pick that up, until Tommy got a little wild one day and threw the thing over the side. We cheered at the time, but later in our bunks, I think we all realized a line had been crossed.

In that part of the world, the skies are notoriously difficult to read; a tiny squall can become a typhoon in a matter of hours and with no radio to warn us of danger and our brains ruined by opium and Thai Whisky it was only a matter of time. One rheumy morning, just after 6 am, the engine blew. We put out the fire quite quickly, but could not restore any power. After a while we went back out on to the deck and resumed our game of Bridge, bobbing along through the crystalline water.

October 7th
Although, I can't feel pain externally, internally is another matter, and as I sit here and write, I feel a constant dull ache from my right ear, all down the side of my annihilated jawbone. I took painkillers for years, but gave up in the end and just accept it as a constant, irksome companion. A little like Joan from the community association, in fact. I chuckled when I first thought of that. She is kind and helpful, but she doesn't half fuss and bother.

Anyway, after the engine died, and our efforts at resuscitation went unrewarded, we began to experiment with other propulsion ideas. At first through whimsical inclination, but then through desperation as our stock of whisky, opium and food dwindled. We did manage to fashion an outboard motor, of sorts, during an inspired afternoon session, but it quickly overheated and the shaft and blades disappeared beneath the surface. There was really nothing left after that. We had oars, but this was a fifty ton vessel, and we could barely even reach the water with the oars provided, let alone to move the thing. No, we were adrift.

We were pulled westwards a long way from the coast and rarely saw any other boats. Since most other vessels in these parts were operated by pirates, there was little point in seeking them out anyway, and not much to be gained by firing off the flares we had. The only reliable help would be another Royal Navy ship, but then our fate would be instant court martial and imprisonment. We drifted.

One day the wind picked up and twirled the ship round like a child's toy. There was a dreadful groan from somewhere under us as the keel was ripped from the hull. We saw it on the port side briefly bobbing before if disappeared under a foaming wave. I grabbed my whisky and took a slug as we tilted violently forward. I fell into the winch cables and felt my mouth and throat fill with blood and glass, mixing rapidly with the sea water that now filled the deck. Head spinning, I felt the frenzy of the wind as the rain drove through my flapping cheek. I got to my feet in time to see Davey and the skipper swept over by a breaker that claimed the gantry for its own.

Torn asunder she went down quickly. I grabbed a lifejacket and cursed, leaping over the side. By the time I had resurfaced and come to my senses, the ship was gone. I tried calling to my boys, but my voice was so weak it could not compete against the wailing of the wind and the futility, combined with the excruciating pain I felt, caused me first to abandon the attempt, and then to black out entirely, for my next memory was calm and sunshine. I floated for 3 further days, occasionally having to kick out at over-inquisitive Mako sharks, before a Malaysian whaler hauled me in, more dead than alive.

And that's how I feel to this day.

THE END