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Back The Night of the Flood
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

Without speaking, Arthur and Jack pulled their little boat towards the stranded rescuers. Underneath them, the bungalow was falling apart, hunks of wood tearing off and floating away. The rescue vessel had sprung a leak and been abandoned. On the roof of the collapsing bungalow huddled a family, two girls and their father. One of the little girls was crying, the man’s face was blank. Jack lifted the younger girl into the boat and Arthur held out his hand to the older one.

‘Mother and Terence have gone,’ she said, her face interested, curious. ‘Drowned,’ she told him.

Arthur didn’t ask questions, but set the girl down in the boat. He couldn’t look at the man and the sunken hollowness of his face again.

*

Verity could still see the house but she didn’t know how to get back to it. The water was so much stronger than she’d thought. It was not coming in waves and was oddly calm. The greatest rush of the water must be elsewhere. Yet it was moving steadily away from the house, back out to the sea, pulling her with it. It was irresistible. She could imagine her mother being taken out with the current and not seeing the point of fighting it. But she wasn’t her mother.

She crossed the garden and the first field, each step tentative. The moon flickered in and out from behind the clouds, throwing silver flashes across the watery field and lighting up the black stick outlines of the pine trees ahead. She thought she was at the bottom of the first field, but it was hard to tell. All the winter-sown crops would be completely ruined. Please God, let Peter be all right. Let the cowshed hold. The floodwater was coming over her boots. Freezing cold water sloshed down inside the rubber to her bare feet. What a fool she’d been. The wellingtons were dragging her down. She pulled them off and sacrificed them to the water, and watched them float away.

She hesitated, unsure whether to go on. She strained to listen. Just the whine of the wind, the whoosh of the water. Then, very faint, the distressed bleating of cows. And there – the neigh of a horse. She was sure of it. Gyps? She focused all her energy on the sound of the horse, trying to work out where it was coming from and if there was a human sound too. But the rush of the flood was too loud.