High, high as Vale Church spire it rolled:
it bypassed Herm as on it bowled
then gathered speed and gathered height
till something in the change of light
silenced the gulls, caused dogs to bark
and people at Bordeaux remark
that fishing-boats out in the Bay
behaved in an unusual way.
Down at the Kiosk, talk was stilled,
as eyes turned seaward, hearts were chilled.
Men clutched their wives, wives hugged their brood
for out at sea a mountain stood;
a wall of water soaring high,
metallic in a darkened sky.
A wave, gargantuan and pale,
engulfed, then swallowed up the Vale.
As boats and cars were swept away
and houses left in disarray,
inhabitants of coast and lane
tried swimming but all was in vain.
There was no hope: they drowned like rats,
themselves, their children, dogs and cats
No one survived. It was a purge.
All perished in the deadly surge
like flies beneath a huge fly swat,
the locals, non-locals, the lot.
Greta Flood
