The Thames Valley Catastrophe | Page 7

of the inundation was

bound to be exactly what you know it to have been; we at the time
could not guess how high it might rise and how large an area of the
country it might overwhelm and devastate. Was it to stop at the
Chilterns, or to go north to Birmingham, York, and Scotland?
Still, in my trembling anxiety to warn my wife and children, I debated
with myself whether I should venture down into the valley, and hurry
along the main road with a wild burst for London. I thought of Ethel,
alone in our little home at Bayswater, and almost made up my mind to
risk it. At that moment, I became aware that the road to London was
already crowded with carriages, carts, and cycles, all dashing at a mad
pace unanimously towards London. Suddenly a fresh wave turned the
corner by Taplow and Maidenhead Bridge, and began to gain upon
them visibly. It was an awful sight. I cannot pretend to describe it. The
poor creatures on the road, men and animals alike, rushed wildly,
despairingly on; the fire took them from behind, and, one by one,
before the actual sea reached them, I saw them shrivel and melt away in
the fierce white heat of the advancing inundation. I could not look at it
any longer. I certainly could not descend and court instant death. I felt
that my one chance was to strike across the downs, by Stoke Poges and
Uxbridge, and then try the line of northern heights to London.
Oh, how fiercely I pedalled! At Farnham Royal (where again nobody
seemed to be aware what had happened) a rural policeman tried to stop
me for frantic riding. I tripped him up, and rode on. Experience had
taught me it was no use telling those who had not seen it of the disaster.
A little beyond, at the entrance to a fine park, a gatekeeper attempted to
shut a gate in my face, exclaiming that the road was private. I saw it
was the only practicable way without descending to the valley, and I
made up my mind this was no time for trifling. I am a man of peace,
but I lifted my fist and planted it between his eyes. Then, before he
could recover from his astonishment, I had mounted again and ridden
on across the park, while he ran after me in vain, screaming to the men
in the pleasure-grounds to stop me. But I would not be stopped; and I
emerged on the road once more at Stoke Poges.
Near Galley Hill, after a long and furious ride, I reached the descent to

Uxbridge. Was it possible to descend? I glanced across, once more by
pure instinct, for I had never visited the spot before, towards where I
felt the Thames must run. A great white cloud hung over it. I saw what
that cloud must mean: it was the steam of the river, where the lava
sucked it up and made it seethe and boil suddenly. I had not noticed
this white fleece of steam at Cookham, though I did not guess why till
afterwards. In the narrow valley where the Thames ran between hills,
the lava flowed over it all at once, bottling the steam beneath; and it is
this imprisoned steam that gave rise in time to the subsequent series of
appalling earthquakes, to supply forecasts of which is now the chief
duty of the Seismologer Royal; whereas, in the open plain, the basalt
advanced more gradually and in a thinner stream, and therefore turned
the whole mass of water into white cloud as soon as it reached each
bend of the river.
At the time, however, I had no leisure to think out all this. I only knew
by such indirect signs that the flood was still advancing, and, therefore,
that it would be impossible for me to proceed towards London by the
direct route via Uxbridge and Hanwell. If I meant to reach town (as we
called it familiarly), I must descend to the valley at once, pass through
Uxbridge streets as fast as I could, make a dash across the plain, by
what I afterwards knew to be Hillingdon (I saw it then as a nameless
village), and aim at a house-crowned hill which I only learned later was
Harrow, but which I felt sure would enable me to descend upon London
by Hampstead or Highgate.
I am no strategist; but in a second, in that extremity, I picked out these
points, feeling dimly sure they would lead me home to Ethel and the
children.
The town of Uxbridge (whose place you can still find marked on many
maps) lay in the valley of a small river, a confluent of the Thames. Up