‘This here’s the schoolmaster. He nearly copped it an’ all.’

‘Thank you, Billy. I already have my wife reminding me I’m a fool.’ The man turned to Gunson. ‘I went back into the house, to fetch this.’ He tugged the sleeves of his overcoat. ‘It’s a sorry sight, isn’t it?’

For a confused moment, Gunson thought the schoolmaster meant the coat he was wearing and opened his mouth to politely protest it was in fact a fine garment then he realised that the man was talking about the devastation all around them. He clamped his mouth shut. Fool, fool.

‘What did tha mean,’ said the miller, ‘when tha said “we” before?’ He stepped back from Gunson, the better to glare at him. ‘Who’s this “we”?’

‘Dear me,’ said the schoolmaster. ‘I’m sorry for my friend, sir. We’re all…’

‘Who is he, though? A gentlemen ghoul from that cesspit of a town, come to ogle at us in the valley?’

Gunson spoke quietly. ‘No, I am not. I was here last night, when the dam burst. I work for the waterworks company.’ He almost told them he’d been nearly swept away himself, but it would sound too much like an appeal for their sympathy, which he neither wanted nor deserved.

A crow cawed in the weighted silence that followed.

‘Then p’raps,’ said the miller slowly, ‘if it belongs to thee, tha can tell us what happened up there? Were tha the fella that stopped to tell us it were nowt to worry about?’

‘We did stop, briefly, but in the dark—’

‘Aye, well, it were me.’

The schoolmaster put a warning hand on the miller’s arm and Gunson wondered whether he might end up sprawled in the mud from a punch with the weight of that compact body behind it.

‘We will try to establish the cause,’ he said. ‘We, we…’

‘There’s that “we” again.’ The miller hawked and spat on the ground.

Gunson took a deep breath. ‘I am the resident engineer. There was a crack. I was shown it last night. It was certainly not there during my inspection yesterday afternoon.’

Was it not? Had he missed it? Doubt gnawed like a rat in his gut.

‘We don’t know the cause of the burst, but it had nothing to do with the design or construction. They were sound.’

The schoolmaster spoke gently, ‘Clearly, they were not.’

The miller shook his head in disgust and walked away, towards a group of men and women who were shifting rocks and branches from the front of a collapsed building. ‘Oy! Got a man ’ere from the waterworks, them that built the dam!’

A couple of the villagers straightened and looked in Gunson’s direction.

He turned to the schoolmaster. ‘I am not here in an official capacity.’

‘Well, then,’ said the schoolmaster, ‘I would suggest removing yourself from this place sharpish. Nobody’s in their right mind this morning, and I should think that includes you, sir. Good day to you.’

‘Please, let me…’ Gunson reached for the man’s sleeve but skidded in the mud and lost his footing, falling forwards into the filth. He lay there, his humiliation complete. His gaze was level with the schoolmaster’s retreating feet. He got to his hands and knees, yellow mud oozing through his fingers, and finally onto his feet. He walked carefully away, a dull pain in his knees and back, cringing against anticipated jeers from behind but there was only silence.