The ferry left eleven minutes late. Its skipper wrote no reason in the log, and the delay became a favorite example of his stubbornness after his death. His daughter, Neve, found the entry while sorting the office papers.
A passenger's letter thanked him for waiting while a family brought their mother down the slippery steps. The woman used a walking frame, and hurrying her would have been dangerous. The log recorded the effect of the decision without its reason.
Neve attached a copy of the letter to the relevant page. She did not claim it explained every delay in her father's career. It explained this one, on this wet afternoon, when the timetable and a passenger's needs did not quite fit together.
At the landing, she watched the current crew help someone aboard. The departure board changed by a few minutes. She understood why a record of time could be accurate and still leave out the thing she most wanted to know about the person responsible for it.