Still the figure moved on, and seemed to make light work of the heaps to skip from place to place, taking great long strides, rushing forward, now left, now right, as if he hadn’t a care. If he gets beyond me, I thought, if he keeps on going past me then he’s totally had it, then there’s nothing between here and Filching itself and that’s miles away, and, lord knows, he’ll never make it that far. He waved his arms about as he leapt on, as if he was a great long bird trying to gain flight, but not making it. Some seagulls swarmed around him, diving about as if playing with him. He seemed at times, caught up as he was in a mass of white feathers, to be greeting them, to be playing with them. But each time the seagulls swooped down I could see, for he was closer now, that he was dirtied by their attentions, that his clothes were getting fouled, there was filth on them and rips. They’re diving him, I realised, they’re biting him. They mean to do it.

‘Hey! Stop that!’ I called. ‘Leave him alone!’

They couldn’t hear me. He couldn’t hear me. Only I could hear myself. I’ve got to get to him, I said, I must get to him. The storm’s coming on, the heaps are getting up, they’ll be boiling in an instant. I must get to him, I must make him hear me.

I tried to twist my helmet off, but it wouldn’t come, I tried to open the window of the helmet but my thick gloves were too large and fat, too greasy and slippery to unfasten the bolt, and I couldn’t take the gloves off, they were part of the suit, stitched on they were. I must smash it, I said, before it’s too late. Look, look at him. He was opening his arms out to the gulls. They flew up between each attack, and he would stand again and open his arms to them, waving out for them to come back. And they would. There must have been a hundred of them, swarming, nipping and scrapping in the air, and each time they came back they barrelled into him, winding him, lifting him for a moment up off the ground, into the air, only to be dropped once more in a heap. A pale, torn scarecrow, bloodied now in parts, and still – how ridiculous this seemed – still with his top hat on his head, as if it was right to be properly dressed for such horrors.