Mrs Bell looked rather startled, then nodded reluctantly. ‘All right, I’ll give you the money, though it’ll be a miracle if they’re still able to come to the village after that storm. But you’ll have to round up the stock first, else them pigs will be fields away or floatin’ in the cut dead as bacon. Come to think, if they get as far as the Broad and try to swim across it they’ll cut their own throats; ’tis a well-known fact that pigs cut their throats when they try to swim, and how’ll you feel then? So you be a good lad, Jonty, and start bringin’ the beasts home as soon as you’ve ate your grub.’

Jonty began to protest, but Tess broke in.

‘We’ll do whatever we can and talk about going to the pictures later,’ she said tactfully. ‘Come on, Jonty; let’s start by getting the poultry back. We can put them in the tack room tonight because I don’t reckon Mr Bell will have found a new poultry shed. Just remember that the storm hit everyone alike; I bet there’s not an unwanted poultry house in the whole of the county of Norfolk.’

So presently she and Jonty, each carrying a bucket full of a mixture of meal, water and cooked vegetable peelings, emerged into the yard and began making the familiar clucking cry which the hens knew well. Almost immediately, and giving loud, delighted squawks, both hens and ducks came from every quarter of the compass, homing in on the farmyard and beginning to gobble the food which Tess and Jonty dispensed with a prodigal hand. ‘There’s too many to count, so I’ve no idea whether they’re all here,’ Jonty said, emptying the last of the food on to the cobbles. ‘No use in shutting them into the tack room in broad daylight, but we’d best get a couple of straw bales from the stack and spread them out over the floor ready for tonight. I know hens prefer to perch and perhaps Dad’ll put some poles across the far end, but if he doesn’t have time they’ll have to roost on the floor, and to be honest, I reckon they’ll be safer there than perching in the trees. I say, did you notice the grass in the orchard? There’s more windfalls down than you’d believe possible.’

Tess had noticed. ‘I expect when we’ve got all the pigs back into the hazel pasture, checked the cattle and made a note of all the broken fencing, uprooted hedges and stuff blown into the canal – I mean the cut – we’ll be sent to collect them, so that your mam can bottle or preserve any which aren’t too badly damaged,’ she said rather wearily. ‘Thank God Crippen wasn’t out with his numerous wives last night, but shut securely in his sty. I wouldn’t fancy arguing with him if he decided he didn’t want to go back into captivity.’

‘Nor me,’ Jonty said with feeling. They reached the hazel pasture and saw, with considerable relief, that the pigs were all present, though almost every one of the little wigwam-like shelters of which the Bells had been so proud was no longer usable. They went into the field to check, and having provided themselves with buckets of pigs’ swill were able to count the animals as they came greedily to the troughs. These were undamaged, but as they left the field once more Tess was dismayed to find a number of day-old chicks trodden into the mud, and very dead indeed. She began to pick up the little corpses, unable to prevent a trembling lip, a most unfarmerly approach, and when Jonty told her to put the chicks down so that the pigs could eat them she turned on him, telling him he was heartless and that some life might be left in one or two of the little balls of yellow fluff.