The Flood Read Free Page A

serene blue of the loch beyond Wolf’s Head and towards the ‘cloud’. It seemed to rise from the earth, a dark, stormy mass, thinning at the perimeter. The sky above it was clear, but spray – or what looked like spray – rose several hundred feet from the ground.
    Jenny Robertson said: “It is funny, isn’t it? It looks... angry.”
    “What odd ideas you get! Turbulent.”
    Suddenly the stormy, angry cloud, with its black, turbulent centre, seemed to burst. It was as if a great sheet of water shot upwards and headed towards the loch, leapt over the Wolf’s Head, and went out of sight. For a few seconds the cloud seemed to boil and bubble; then it settled down again.
    “I’ll tell you what,” said Woburn, “I’m going to have a look. Think Reg would mind if I borrowed his motor-bike?”
    “No, he won’t mind, but be careful,” Jenny said that as firmly as she would to her nineteen-year-old son. “I’m terrified in case he has an accident one day. I—” she broke off, as her brother shot out a hand and grabbed a couple of small jam tarts and popped one into his mouth.
    “Pig, I hope that jam’s hot enough to burn ye.”
    “Just right,” declared Woburn. “Thanks.”
    He went out, whistling. Jenny watched him cross the yard, and as he vanished round a corner, she shouted: “Bob!” A cock started crowing, and he didn’t hear. She ran out after him, and caught him up just round the comer, as he was straddling an old two-stroke motor-cycle.
    “Bob, put on Reggie’s crash-helmet!”
    Woburn grinned and got off the machine. The shiny white crash-helmet was hanging on a nail just inside an old stone-built stable which had been converted into a garage. He slipped it on and fastened it beneath his chin, straddled the machine again and a minute later turned the machine out of the farmyard gate on to a cart track which led towards the moors and then across country towards the Wolf’s Head and the loch. It was used by walkers as well as cyclists, even by the few motorists who came this way. The only other road to the village was nearly as bad, wide enough only for one car as it wound its way across the mountains.
    The great ‘cloud’ which seemed to rise out of the ground grew larger. For the first time, Woburn fancied that he could hear a sound, a kind of rumbling.
    The sun, striking it at a different angle from any he’d seen before, caused a vivid rainbow; and then sunlight sparkled, as on a cascade of water. It looked beautiful, but didn’t make any sense.
    He put on speed again, until he reached a spot where he would have to hoist the machine over, but that wouldn’t give serious trouble. He stopped the engine – and immediately knew that he had been right. A roaring sound was coming from the cloud, reminding him of water rushing over a great fall; like Niagara.
    “Nonsense!” he said aloud.
    He lifted the motor-cycle over, climbed the rocks himself, and started off. The sound was still in his ears, above the pop-pop-pop of the two-stroke engine. As he drew nearer the Wolf’s Head itself, most of the ‘cloud’ was hidden from his sight, but he could still see the top of it, silvery more than dark, and caught by the sun’s rays.
    The track rose sharply up the hill which led to Wolf’s Head. He ought to walk it. Instead, he put the nose of the machine towards it, and travelled fast. It was years since he had driven a motor-cycle, but he was as sure of himself as he would have been at the wheel of his car. He throttled down as he neared the top, feeling a sense of disquiet, almost of alarm. It was a kind of water-spout, of course; they trailed in the path of cyclones in distant waters.
    He reached the top – and for a moment, almost lost control of the machine. He braked too hard, and felt himself pitch forward. Water splashed. He let himself go. In that split second as he curved an arc over the handlebars, he was conscious of his own danger and of a sense of disbelief; for the cloud was