Authors OnLine -

Enid Michael set her book, 'Beyond Pendowry Water' in the North of her home county of Cornwall and we published it as an e-book in 1999. Enid switched on her television last night (16th August) to see her book being enacted before her eyes for real. The tragedy that took place in Boscastle last night Enid had described in full horror in her novel some five years ago. Here we reproduce the passage where she describes the full force of the water engulfing the village. To read about this book and the amazing coincidence it has thrown up and to buy the book click here. We dedicate this passage to the victims of Boscastle. Picture courtesy of the BBC showing the village of Boscastle after the torrent had hit.

Chapter Thirty One

Nobody saw the dam break, but miles away people heard the roar of it bearing down on the valley. Nobody was there to see the overgrown gateway bulge and give way to the thousands of tons of water dammed up behind it. Nobody saw the mountainous clay-coloured wave, with its giant curled over crest, thick with mud and debris, begin that first thundering plunge into the narrow gorge towards Trevada.
    Through the gully it roared. filling it up like a swamped ditch, breaking out through the woods at the bottom, demolishing Trevada Mill. It surged on, a great muddied torrent, swirling across the meadows, devouring all in its path, gateways, barns and hedges, down the long clough winding between the hills.
    Amos Wilkes saw it from his hillside farm. He had been bringing in a frightened pony, which had been bolting round her field, and he had stopped to look over the wall to see what had startled her. There was a watercourse of rapids chasing through Trigger Hollow. He watched it heading towards Watergate. It would never go under the bridge. It didn't; the giant wave curled over the top of it, sweeping into the queue of cars stuck in the dip, rolling them over into its mighty swell, engulfing their occupants.
    And so it rolled on, towards Pendowry, growing in strength, gathering speed, no mercy in it, charging through the narrow, snaking course of the river. It was a river, which normally trickled over green stones, was overhung with willows, thick with rushes, busy with wild life. Now rabbits, badgers and foxes, friend and foe, were on the run, and the birds, wood pigeons, herons, mallard rising noisily in flight. Travelling down towards Pendowry Water the bore was thirty feet high. The Manor house grounds lay directly in its path, a rise of parkland sweeping down, the river crater curving round it. The edge of the wave took a short cut and went sailing over the grassy bank. The high wall of the old man's garden fell without protest and the flood hurried on towards the house, to smash its way in through the French windows, bringing down the conservatory with a shriek of splintering glass, the sound soon muffled under the deluge of water.
    Ian MacDonald's company barge was moored up at the creekside jetty, three of the workmen on board. They had been loading the shed partitions and other equipment to move back to the station slip. The boss had suddenly decided to have everything sent down to another site at Salcombe and the men had been working all day. They were just about ready to leave when they heard the roar. Like one, they stood, heads cocked, listening, eyes turned towards the bridge. Then their jaws dropped in horror to see a billowing brown swell riding up over the top of it, but before they had time to shout it was upon them.
    Ian MacDonald saw the wave, but he was lucky. If he had been on his way back to Trefoy by motor boat, as was his plan, it would have overtaken him. But he hadn't been able to get the engine started; the storm shower had swamped it. To have waited for the barge might have made him late for his dinner date, and as it wasn't raining quite so hard, he decided to walk up through the woods to St Ruan. He had almost reached the creekside path when he heard the boomph of crashing water, and, looking back, saw the curling lip of the bore leap the bridge into the creek. Down it came, hurling an avalanche of froth and spume over the jetty and half burying the cottages. He watched in horror as he saw the barge turn turtle and the three men vanish into the surging torrent.
    Jed too was lucky because he'd left the boatyard promptly on six, knowing the dinner would be out of the oven, but the two boys who had been working with him were not; the wave claimed them because they stopped behind to bale their boat. Jed was climbing the veranda steps when he heard the torrent coming. He called to Joanna and the kids, who came rushing out to meet him. They all stared in utter disbelief at what they saw.
    The Pendowry inlet was a raging turmoil of broken water, creaming up grey with the silt, and carrying with it a great variety of objects it had collected on its way down through the valley; drifts of wood, leafy branches, a barrel, a wagon wheel, a velvet chair, a dinghy or two. Jed suddenly recognised the upturned hull of the motor boat he had been working on that afternoon, closely followed by the corrugated roof of the boatyard tool shed. He leapt to the steps then, but his heart sank to see the yard under water, the stilts slipping, thrown up into the flow.
    Joanna, gripping the veranda rail, was watching the flood, moving on into the Trefoy River, and she trembled for the craft it would meet in the crowded harbour. Already she could see the mastheads rocking about as if the devil had them, and her eyes were searching through the mist for boats she knew ... until, alerted by Jed's cry, she turned to see what the flood was doing to their own yard.