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Back The Night of the Flood Save as PDF
Chapters (51)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Contents
  6. 1954
  7. PART 1
  8. 1.
  9. 2.
  10. 3.
  11. 4.
  12. 5.
  13. 6.
  14. 7.
  15. 8.
  16. 9.
  17. PART 2
  18. 1.
  19. 2.
  20. 3.
  21. 4.
  22. 5.
  23. 6.
  24. 7.
  25. 8.
  26. 9.
  27. 10.
  28. PART 3
  29. 1.
  30. 2.
  31. 3.
  32. 4.
  33. 5.
  34. 6.
  35. 7.
  36. PART 4
  37. 1.
  38. 2.
  39. 3.
  40. 4.
  41. 5.
  42. 6.
  43. 7.
  44. 8.
  45. 9.
  46. 10.
  47. 11.
  48. 1954
  49. Acknowledgements
  50. About the author
  51. An Invitation from the Publisher

For a moment she stood motionless. She had never been so alone. But she turned her back on the house and pushed on in the direction of the sea.

6.

Tidal surge receding on Norfolk coast
Tidal surge reaches Essex coast by 10 p.m.

The moon had quickly disappeared behind clouds once more. All Arthur could see, if he turned to look, was the patch of water in front of them, illuminated by the pale beam from the bike light and the golden one from the torch. His arms hurt with the effort of rowing against the current. The tide must have turned but the wind made the water a living thing, a surging, roaring beast crashing into their matchstick town.

Passing the shop, he saw a flicker of candlelight in the rooms and it both relieved him and confronted him with his absence.

As they tried to turn against the surge of water up to Beach Road, he heard calls. They must be coming from the prefabs down on the low-lying piece of land on the left-hand side of the road. His mother hated the prefabs. ‘A scourge on the landscape’ she called them and tsked each time she looked down at them from their flat above the shop. There were no lights on in any of the bungalows, but, craning round, Arthur could see their squat shapes in the dark. Down here, the wind seemed stronger, the night blacker and the calls eerie, like dogs or wolves. Maybe some of them were dogs. But then he thought he could hear children crying too and he shivered.

He twisted his neck round and shouted, ‘There are people down there. Children.’ The light illuminating his face, Jack nodded.

Arthur plunged his oars into the water and dragged the boat west, down towards the buildings. They bashed into the side of one of the prefabs and he realised that it was already almost fully submerged: the boat came up to its gutters.

‘Help!’ Arthur heard from what sounded like close by.

They were up against the side of the roof. He shipped the oars while Jack held onto the roof, leaned forward to his bike light and tried to tilt it to shine upwards. Jack did the same with his torch. The beams lit up a man’s face, haggard and deep-lined.