The great flood of 1852
wind and torrential rain thrash the Bradley home. The pitter-patter of the first drops to fall has been quickly replaced with a pelting that hits the windows so hard they risk smashing. Wagadhaany shivers with fear as a bitterly cold draught comes through a gap in the door frame.
‘We need to sandbag,’ Henry Bradley says forcefully, his role as patriarch of the family never more tested than now. ‘Others have already done it. We’re going to lose everything if we don’t take action now!’
It’s an announcement and an order in one, his four sons jumping to attention instantly, as does Wagadhaany, waiting for her instructions as their servant.
‘No!’ Mr Bradley’s wife, Elizabeth, has never raised her voice in their home and her challenge to her husband comes out with a tremble. She is fighting back tears and is visibly shaken by the torrential rain that is drenching their town. ‘We should just leave now, we should go to higher ground.’
She looks pleadingly at her husband as she keeps a firm grip on her Bible and prayer beads, shivering in the winter cold as it has been impossible to on the day that she first saw Mr Bradley.
