Precipice

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'This could be dangerous.' Philip Cardon said as he felt the wheels of the Land Rover sliding in the mud.

'If you're nervous give me the wheel. I like to be in the driver's seat.' suggested Eve.

There was a challenging note in her tone which jarred on Philip. He switched off the engine and Eve, sitting beside him, lit a fresh cigarette from the one she had just smoked. It was night and they were high up in the Purbeck Hills, approaching the cliffs which dropped into the sea.

Philip thought that Dorset in February was hellish. For days it had rained nonstop and the lowland fields they had long ago left behind were lakes, swamps. They were driving along the deep ruts of a track which led up the spine of a high ridge. It was bitterly cold and Eve was buttoning up the collar of her camel-hair coat round her neck.

At this point they were sheltered from the wind. Philip found the silence was eerie, as though issuing a warning. The sky was clear and the moon cast an unsettling glow over the vast landscape to their right. Only a few yards from the track the ridge dropped in a steep slope to a small valley hemmed in by another slope on the far side. They had their first sight of the sea, of the grim coast stretching westward. Jagged capes projected into the sea which was rough. Surf-tipped mountainous waves rolled in endlessly.

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