I was bitten as I worked, there were bugs all about, sometimes as I took hold of an object some roach should flee from it. I’m very brave, I said. And the storm kept on. Pipes rattled about, it seemed to me the more I went on in my game the more the house shook and gurgled. Once I heard an enormous crash and saw a couple of servants run along the landing, a great banging and thumping. Some shutters had come unfastened and smacked against the walls. The window lasted only a very little time, there was a huge crashing as it broke and then as the poor servants battled on, seagulls, a whole flock of them, came careering in, yelling and cursing and shitting, and objects flew in after them. At first just some papers, some newspapers and a few books whose covers seemed to be flapping in the tempest, but then larger things, great bowls and bricks and hats, shoes, bits of other houses, a broken window frame came in through the window, rubble, a saucepan, a seat that looked as if it belonged in a music hall, all came crashing through, and the servants retreated then, they could not stop it, hiding behind a curtain, peeking out, I saw them barricading the door with an upturned table.

‘The house has been breached!’ one of the servants screamed. ‘Get help! I shan’t be able to hold this for long!’

The other ran off, seagulls hopping and flying all about. One gull, a large one, with a red tip to its beak, stood in front of the poor servant as he pressed himself and the table against the door, which had begun to thump now as if there were a person, not a thousand objects, trying to smash through from the other side. The seagull waddled up to the man in an appallingly good-humoured, slightly lazy way; it put its head to one side, and then it leaned forward slightly and began to peck at his shoe, then it waddled forward a little bit more and its beak snapped at the man’s shoelace.

‘Shoo!’ the man called.

With the next peck the seagull had undone the shoelace and was now tugging on it, trying to haul the man with his foot with all its might.

‘Get away! Get away!’

But the gull pulled all the harder and now other gulls came to watch this sport and one, cawing and screeching, waddled over to the other foot and began to peck at the neighbouring lace.

‘I can’t hold it! Help! Help ho!’

The other servant came back and I shuddered to see Sturridge who heaved all his colossal weight against the door and kicked one of the seagulls so hard that it burst against the wall.

‘Awaken everyone on the corridor,’ thundered the butler, ‘get them safely beyond. This landing must be sealed off! Move! Move!’