Soundings · The Cartographer's Daughter · Pulse Beat
In the evening she took the Nandini out alone, as she had on the first day. The harbour lights were coming on behind her. The sea lay flat and pewter-coloured, with a long swell from the south, and…
In the evening she took the Nandini out alone, as she had on the first day.
The harbour lights were coming on behind her. The sea lay flat and pewter-coloured, with a long swell from the south, and the echo sounder ticked, steady and quiet, tracing its thin black line across the paper roll. Five fathoms. Eight. Twelve. The Maravanthe coast slid by to starboard, dark and low, and over it the first stars.
She cut the engine, and let the boat drift, and listened. Water on the hull. A bird, far off. The creak of the mast. She thought of her father at the drawing table with his lamp, bent over some tiny uncertain figure, and of her mother with a sextant in the sun.
On the chart table, under a brass weight, lay a new sheet, blank except for a coastline and a scatter of pencilled numbers, a coast nobody had yet drawn. She picked up the pencil, held the lead line over the side until it touched bottom, read the mark, and wrote down the first sounding, small and exact: 14.2. Then she started the engine, and went on, drawing the sea as it was.