Soon I’m driving up out of the village onto the dry roads beyond Beacon Hill, on my way to the local army camp. I’ve gathered from my second phone call that the army’s not at home, being occupied with exercises on Salisbury Plain, but the sentry grudgingly allowed that he did have sandbags. “I’m not sure I can lend you a lorry, though. You might be anyone.”

“Lorry Thief Poses as Vicar,” I murmur, as I take the final corner with a slight skid, mentally writing the article that would follow this headline. “He was so religious-looking,” camp sentry Barney Barnes told our reporter. “Just like a proper reverend.” I abandon my composition as the camp gates appear ahead of me.

—

The sentry muses over my driving license. Fifteen minutes must have gone by since I arrived at Church Walk. Finally he speaks.

“You’re the Vicar of Upton, you say?”

“Yes.”

I don’t sound very convinced, even to myself.

“But it says here you live in . . . Fulbrook.” He shows me my license. “Near Bristol. That’s quite a long way away.”

“I did live there, until very recently. I haven’t got round to changing my license yet. Look, I’d be leaving my car here. And if you wanted, you could send someone with me in the lorry.”

He gives my car a doubtful glance. I wonder if he’s calculating its value against that of a two-ton army lorry. “There’s Corporal Large,” he admits. “But he’s gone to bed. He’s got an awful cold.”

He can’t yet be eighteen, this boy. His jaws are red and scraped. Taking off his first stubble with a borrowed, blunt razor, I don’t doubt. I made the same hash of it at his age. He’s clasping his rifle to his body as if the simple act of holding it might protect him.

“Listen, Corporal . . . what’s your name?”

“Matthew Dodds.”

“Matthew.” I make my voice as gentle as I can in the circumstances. “There are old people in Upton whose houses will be flooded if I don’t get back to them in time. I must have a lorry and the sandbags. And some paraffin stoves if you’ve got them. Now, can you help me?”

He shuffles from foot to foot, and then without meeting my eyes traipses back into his kiosk and returns with a set of keys.