The Glass Ferry

The ferry left Port Ellen at 11:40 with six passengers, one crew member and a dog, and when it docked at dawn there were five passengers.

The dog was fine. That was the first thing everyone said, afterwards, as if it mattered. The dog was asleep on a coat in the corner of the lounge, and it did not wake until the engines stopped.

The crew member was a deckhand called Marie who had worked the crossing for nine years and had never, she said afterwards, lost so much as a glove.