“We want to make it by nightfall, don’t we?” Belinda said. “There’s precious few places to spend the night along the way, not until we get to the coast. And night on Bodmin Moor is not what I’d recommend.”

She put her foot down again and we slithered around the next corner, coming dangerously close to the bank. Things improved a little when we picked up the main road to the West Country, except that Belinda felt she had to overtake every lorry she met. We had a few close calls, making me wonder if this trip was such a good idea after all. Then we struck out cross-country again, speeding through Winchester, Salisbury, then into Somerset and finally Devon. Luckily the inclement weather meant that there was not too much traffic, as we were still going awfully fast. We passed through one pretty Devon town after another, with Belinda impatiently negotiating narrow streets. At last she was brought to a halt in Honiton where it was market day and we had to wait while farmers drove herds of sheep or led cows through the streets. We stopped for a late lunch in Exeter, eating a rather good roast lamb in the shadow of Exeter Cathedral. We filled the tank with petrol and set off again. As Belinda had predicted, the rain had lifted a little. It was now a fine drizzle rather than the more dangerous bluster we had endured previously.

Then we forged into bleaker country, skirting the northern edge of Dartmoor with scant signs of civilization.

“I could do with a cup of tea and to stretch my legs, couldn’t you?” I suggested after we had been driving through wild and deserted countryside with only a hint of an occasional tin mine or clay digging to tell us that other humans were not too far away.

“Good luck with that,” Belinda said. “We haven’t passed a house for at least half an hour. Where are we, anyway?”

I had been assigned the job of navigator with a map on my knees. I peered down at it. “We must be close to Bodmin Moor.”

“Why does that not cheer me up?” Belinda said. “About the most desolate spot on the planet. Oh, and look, the mist is coming down, right on cue.”

And it was. As the road entered a countryside of desolate upland, the light rain turned to mist. We could hardly see the road ahead.

“One of the old smuggling routes.” Belinda attempted to sound cheerful. “We’ll be fine as long as we don’t come across four and twenty ponies trotting through the dark. Remember that poem?”

I nodded. “‘Watch the wall, my darling, as the gentlemen go by.’” I chuckled. “They don’t still go in for smuggling in Cornwall, do they?”