Look, he said, over there!
He pointed exitedly through the dark toward the garden fire in the distance, where a big lump of wood, a builder's plank, out of use, was being burnt.
Through the thick night with hardly any other light, the fire sent its message to the world by flashing up a name written on the plank's metal skirt. J SMITH, it flashed, with no dot after the J.
Look, he said, and gestured again. We are burning ol' Jacob Smith!
She said nothing, thought nothing. She was completely relaxed, leaning onto him, even closing her eyes. She was on holiday, and she wasn't gonna think of her father tonight. Not tonight.
When they got home a few days later, they found the telegram.
2010