The wind rose and strengthened on their descent from the heights and the settlement. The cloud lowered and thickened and the rain began to needle into their faces. It scoured off the vast Atlantic, propelled by a chilly Westerly wind. They reached the encampment cold and wet and tired, a bedraggled bunch of people collectively dismayed by the atmosphere of the place they had left and collectively defeated by the raw, dwarfing fury of the elements. That was Lucy’s impression, anyway. Kale and Cooper looked suddenly like their men-of-action images were far more cosmetic than real. Jane and Alice looked as pissed-off and soaked through as she felt herself. Even Lassiter looked like a man who’d welcome a blue lamp signalling his local station and a mug of cocoa made by his old desk sergeant with something akin to relief. It took them well over an hour to get back over the boggy exposure of the island terrain and only Paul Napier and the priest seemed unmoved by the ferocious violence of the still-gathering storm.
