“Poor gosling. It hurts to be lost. And worse to be home with no kind of homecoming. You’re my good-luck bird, Jok. I’ll be lucky if I can do as well as you when this is all done, just a bit out of breath, a bit bruised and scratched, a bit wiser and sadder for it all.”
“Mariners have often told me that they consider sea gulls to be good luck and always feed them by throwing garbage overboard. I didn’t have any garbage at that early stage of my trip and couldn’t afford to spare any of my precious food for feeding birds so I had to risk misfortune and let the gulls go hungry.”