Combe Island harbour is the island’s sole possible landing place by sea, a carefully controlled threshold into a retreat prized for privacy and security. In Rupert Maycroft’s familiar view, it is also a small, composed harbour of lights, ropes, bollards, and quiet inner water, set against the restless sea. That calm changes abruptly when Dan Padgett’s canvas bag goes overboard from the launch, carrying Nathan Oliver’s blood sample and other possessions into the water.

Setting and Access

The harbour’s physical role is inseparable from Combe Island’s seclusion. The island offers rest and solitude to people carrying demanding responsibilities, and, increasingly, a secure place where visitors can be undisturbed. A helicopter pad provides an alternative arrival route, but the harbour is the only possible landing place by sea. Casual visitors are not allowed; mobile phones are forbidden, and the island’s low profile is maintained through introductions from a Trustee or someone who has visited before.

The island accommodates a maximum of five visitors at a time, in the main house or one of its stone cottages. In the account of its founding purpose, the arrangements are presented as a means of giving visitors a restorative period away from professional pressures. The harbour is therefore more than a picturesque edge to the island: as its maritime entrance, it belongs to a system that limits who can arrive and helps preserve the privacy for which the retreat is valued.

Maycroft’s View of the Harbour

For Maycroft, the walk down to the harbour is usually a pleasure. He crosses the forecourt and follows a narrow, pebble-strewn path to the steps descending the cliff to the quay. From above, the harbour appears almost like a coloured illustration: two short towers with lights flank the narrow entrance, while Jago Tamlyn’s neat cottage stands nearby with large terracotta pots intended for summer geraniums. Coiled ropes and spotless bollards mark the working quay; inside the entrance lies tranquil water, beyond it the restless sea and the distant counter-flow of the riptide.

The scene carries a personal rhythm as well as a distinct arrangement of landmarks. Maycroft sometimes leaves his desk to watch for the launch, taking pleasure in the familiar anticipation of its appearance. He associates that expectation with generations of islanders waiting for a long-awaited ship. On the day the bag is lost, however, his descent is slow, and he knows that someone is watching his approach. The harbour remains visually familiar, but the ordinary pleasure of the walk has given way to unease.

The Loss at the Quayside

At the quay, Oliver stands rigid with fury while Jago attends to the unloading. Padgett, pale and pressed against the cabin wall, is at the centre of the confrontation. Jago explains that the lost bag contained Mrs. Burbridge’s library books, shoes and handbags belonging to Martha Padgett that Dan had been taking to the Oxfam shop, and Nathan Oliver’s blood sample. Oliver’s sarcastic ranking of the losses turns the incident into a public rebuke: he contrasts the inconvenience to the library and an unknown charity-shop customer with the prospect of having to give blood again, which he dismisses as less important.

Padgett explains that he carried the packet with the other items in a canvas bag over his shoulder. While he leaned over the rail to look at the water, the bag slipped off. Maycroft asks whether the launch could have been stopped or a billhook used to retrieve it. Jago says the shoes were heavy and sank quickly; he heard Padgett shout, but by then it was too late. The harbour’s water, peaceful in Maycroft’s usual view, has in this moment made the loss irretrievable.

Narrative Significance

The episode joins the harbour’s two functions: it is both a controlled point of entry and a working place where the launch brings people and goods into island life. Its usual quiet order—the clean bollards, coiled ropes, and predictable arrival of the launch—makes the loss conspicuous. A single dropped bag disturbs that routine and gathers together possessions with different consequences, from library books and charity-shop donations to Oliver’s blood sample.

The scene also marks a shift in Maycroft’s experience of a place he ordinarily approaches with uplift. His familiar route and view persist, but the harbour becomes a stage for anger, embarrassment, and blame. The launch has arrived; what it carried has not all reached shore, and the heavy shoes have pulled the bag beyond recovery.