Black water swirled where the staircase should be. It was the most terrifying thing she had ever seen.

She had left Alice down there to drown.

‘I’m going back.’

She lurched forwards, but Adam got in her path.

‘No!’ He shouted into her face. ‘Father went down.’ He burst into tears. ‘He went to get you and Alice. Father got you, so now you have to stay here. You have to stay here while he fetches Alice!’

Harriet allowed herself to be pulled away from the staircase, towards her aunt and uncle’s bedroom. The younger two followed. She had to believe that her uncle would rescue Alice. She sniffed hard, swallowing blood, then choking as a fresh bolt of pain ripped through her skull.

She went to touch her nose then dropped her hand. ‘What is happening?’

Adam gulped. He had fast hold of her hand, as if she would try to escape and plunge back into the depth. ‘We’ve been watching from the window.’ He tugged at her and she got her feet working again. ‘Come on, I’ll show you. The house, will it fall down, Harriet? Will we get swept away, too? I could hear screaming. Mama said it was pigs squealing, not people. Pigs. I think it was people.’

Polly was in bed, hunched against the headboard. She turned a glassy stare on Harriet.

‘Where’s my Alice?’ she whispered. She held out her arms and the younger boys ran to her, to be enfolded in a fierce embrace.

‘Father is fetching her,’ said Adam. ‘Isn’t he, Harriet? Isn’t he fetching her right now?’

‘The dam must have burst,’ Harriet said. She gulped and turned to the basin, hanging her head. ‘A boy came, earlier. He knew. He told us.’

‘I can’t understand you!’ said Polly. ‘What dam? There’s no dam.’

Adam let go of her hand and went to the window. ‘There’s a proper river outside, Lally. There’s all sorts in it. It’s right up to here.’ His voice was high, on the edge of hysteria. ‘There’s a horse, look!’

The younger boys pulled away from their mother’s embrace to crowd the window, open-mouthed.

‘Where’s Alice?’ cried Polly again. ‘Where’s Walter? Harriet, I’m talking to you. Fetch the constable!’

Harriet sat on the end of the bed and buried her face in her hands.

‘There’s a man, I can see his head, he’s hanging on to the lamp-post,’ Adam wailed. ‘Harriet, is that Father? Did he go outside? Come and look!’

Silas clung on as the current flowed around him, tugging at his body, urging him to give up, give in, allow the water to carry him away. It would be so easy. Where there had been a stinging across his chest, he was now numb. There was no feeling in his hands and he stared at his fingers curled around the lamp-post strut, terrified that if he took his eyes off them they would lose their grip and he would be swept along.

Faces stared out from upper-storey windows that were only inches above the fast-flowing deluge, gazing wide-eyed at him amid the wreckage whirling past. Spectators, safe and dry and warm. Silas hated them.