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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

The Army and other volunteers were repairing the breach in the flood wall. Watching them, he couldn’t help but remember the journey in the rowing boat out to the farm but it was hard to fully imagine now. The bank seemed so familiar in daylight, the sea choppy but not out of the ordinary, the floodwater almost completely receded. The marks of damage were everywhere and yet to remember himself within the storm felt impossible. It was like trying to capture the feeling of being on a motorbike after you had got off it. And there it was again – the shadow of Jack. He felt a rush of dizziness and leaned his bike against the harbourmaster’s house and crouched down next to it. No one had asked him about Jack. No one. Then he wanted someone to ask so he could get it over with, burn the wound, cauterise it. The US Air Force must have noticed he was gone. Yes it had been chaos, but why weren’t they even asking about him? He didn’t understand. And surely Peter would be in touch. It was as if everything was normal. He almost expected Jack to appear along Freeman Street with his motorbike. But he wouldn’t be doing that, would he?

‘You aright down there, boy?’ A grizzled old man was peering down at him. Arthur recognised him as the man he had seen at this spot on the afternoon of the flood. His face was puckered with deep creases and he was chewing on the end of a pipe.

Arthur blinked up at the old man and tried to smile but his mouth wouldn’t do it and he felt the muscles twist into a grimace.

The man nodded as if he understood. The nod turned into a shake. ‘Terrible what happened. You lost someone?’

Arthur hesitated then nodded. He had sunk to a crouch on the edge of the bank.

‘Right sorry to hear that, boy. We all have one way or another, ent we?’

Arthur stood up straight now, embarrassed to have been caught in a pose of such craven self-pity. The man didn’t offer any more information and Arthur didn’t ask. The man gestured to the mending of the breach.

‘They’ll fix it right back up soon enough,’ he said, ‘but it’ll happen again, mark my words. These fields and this marsh was all sea, once upon a time, and the sea’ll come again to claim them.’