PROLOGUE

Late at night, a small dog races north towards the Great Barrier Reef on board an old wooden sailboat. It's a rough passage - his first on the open sea - yet Lucky isn't afraid. He sits calmly on the sofa in the main cabin, his circular brown eyes following my movements at the wheel. I'm less calm, but trying not to show it. We're 40 nautical miles off the coast of Queensland threading a course among coral reefs; the wind is gusting over 30 knots, and the night is so dark the boat feels as though it's falling endlessly into black space.

Then a boisterous cross-sea develops, breaking over the decks and buffeting us from side to side. Wrestling with the wheel, I spot Lucky being catapulted from the sofa to the cabin floor. He's up in an instant, stumpy legs powering him back onto the seat. When our eyes meet, he tilts his head and gives one of his famous snorts: 'Kwok!' (Meaning, 'Go easy!')

He's bounced from his perch several more times before I notice him tugging at one of the sofa cushions. He nudges it here and there, falls, drags himself up again, persisting until he's positioned the cushion so that he can wedge himself between it and the back of the sofa. Then he rolls onto his back, gives a couple of 'Kaarks!' (meaning: 'Yeesss!'), and goes to sleep.

I already know Lucky is no ordinary little mutt. Yet I can't quite accept what I've seen, and glance over at the friend sailing with me. 'Jesus,' he says, shaking his head. 'What sort of dog is that?'

As we watch Lucky snoring upside-down on his reorganised sofa, I'm distracted (not for the first time) by a sense that he may not be a dog at all, but some kind of explorer from an alternative life pool who likes to hang out with humans. We race on towards Lady Musgrave Island, a coral atoll and reef-fringed lagoon offshore from Gladstone at the southern tip of Queensland's Great Barrier Reef.

The next time I glance at the sofa, Lucky isn't on it. My eyes go straight to the sliding door leading to the decK - the door I'd solemnly promised my absent partner, Leisa, would always be kept shut at sea. It's half-open. Weak with dread, I stumble out onto the plunging deck. No Lucky. Clinging to the safety rails, I inch around the cabin structure. Wind howls among the stays; cold water rushes over my ankles. Then I see him. He's drenched, and so tiny against the immense, buffeting blackness I can't believe he's still on his feet. He stands, wobbling, right at the edge of the deck.

I almost shout his name, then remember how he sometimes regards being called as the signal for a game of chasey. So I get down and crawl towards his blind side. I realise he's piddling in the same instant that I grab him around the ribs with such force he yelps and tries to bite me. But I hang on, laughing and screaming over the wind to my anxious mate at the wheel, 'I got him, Des! We don't have to kill ourselves! I got him!'

Would he have made it back inside unaided? Impossible to say. What I do know, with sudden clarity, is that less than a year after entering our lives the 'short-arsed terrier' has burrowed into my affections in a way I wouldn't have thought possible until this relief-charged moment. We reach Lady Musgrave just after sunrise, drop anchor and flop exhausted on Trady's comfy beds. I'm almost asleep when there's a disturbance near my feet.

'Pwok,' says Lucky. ('Move over.') He burrows under the doona and executes a series of circles that end with his back fitted snugly against my chest. 'Kaark!' he says, and I couldn't agree more.

 

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