The Drowned Meadow

Text 1: High Water, by Callum Dunmore

An original novel extract.

By dawn the river had left its banks and taken the low meadow. Where the grass had been there was a moving sheet of brown water, flecked with foam and branches, sliding past the hedge tops with a low, steady hiss. Somewhere out in it, on the last hump of dry ground, twenty ewes stood pressed together, bleating.

Jack waded in up to his knees, then his thighs. The cold punched the breath out of him. The current leaned against his legs like a crowd pushing towards a door, and with each step the mud sucked at his boots as if it wanted to keep them. A fence post swept past, turning slowly, trailing wire.

‘Rope!’ he shouted back to the bank. His sister threw it. It fell short, and the river snatched it and dragged it away downstream. She hauled it in, coiled it, threw again. This time he caught it. He tied it round his waist with fingers that would barely bend and pushed on towards the sheep, the water now at his chest, his whole body shaking. Behind him the bank seemed very far away.

How does Callum Dunmore use language and structure to show the danger of the flood?

You should use relevant subject terminology to support your answer.