The thunder was coming nearer, but no rain had yet fallen. Ahead of him, he saw that a heavy tree had crashed down across his path and the exertion of clambering over it now presented itself to him as a fearful ordeal, as though the fallen tree had grown in size to become a hillside of impossible steepness.

He looked down at the ants. How would they approach the obstacle? He had seen red ants make a bridge across water with their tiny, armoured bodies, sacrificing some of their number in the process for the survival of the group, and he was interested to see what solution they would find now.

He walked on. When the ants reached the fallen tree, they didn’t pause, but quickly made a ladder of themselves, clambering one upon another until they had purchase on the tree trunk and the column could flow upwards and over it and resume its march on the other side. When the column reached its end, some of those who had formed the ladder had fallen onto their backs and lay stranded and dying. Edmund squatted down, picked up a small stick and righted the fallen ants, one by one. When one of them stung his hand, he didn’t flinch. He watched as they moved this way and that below the log, trying to find purchase that would take them over it. Finding none, they hurried away, in search of a new route to their destination.

Edmund sat down on the fallen tree. He heard a shrill cry and looked up to see the wide wings of a Brahminy kite spread against the darkening sky. To certain tribes in Borneo, these were birds of ill-omen and seeing them always made Edmund shiver.

Part Two

‘SOMEWHERE QUIET AND SOLITARY’

On a Sunday afternoon at the end of April Jane Adeane returned to Bath.

When Sir William, keeping watch at the surgery window, saw his daughter descend from her carriage and mount the steps to 28 Henrietta Street, he was so overcome with relief and delight that he thought he might dissolve into tears. He ran into the hall and took Jane in his arms. What he wanted to say to her was ‘never go away again’, but he knew better than to burden Jane with commands of such a peremptory and emotional kind. He well understood that, as his nurse and assistant, she would obey his every instruction; as his daughter, she was disinclined to obey any of them.

But Jane was moved to see her father. After she’d kissed his cheek, she stood back and looked at him and was amused to note that, in the many weeks that she’d been away, Sir William’s stomach had increased in girth considerably more than appeared possible in the time that had elapsed.

‘Oh Papa,’ she said, laughing, ‘where has my lean father gone? Who is this new father who is unable to fasten the bottom button of his waistcoat?’