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By the time the Land Rover was halfway across the causeway it must have been obvious they were never going to make it. Not at the speed that tide was coming in. Not with that distance still to go. At which point, what do you do? One spot about halfway across at which careful passing is possible aside, even at its broadest the road linking the island to the mainland is only ever about a vehicle and a half wide. Even at its highest, at the lowest tide, the road is only a foot or two above the level of the surrounding mudflats. There is nowhere even to attempt a three-point turn. There is no way you are going to get back to the island in reverse, blind drunk, in the middle of the night, in a borrowed and unfamiliar vehicle. Behind you, on the island, the party is still going strong, fireworks popping and fizzing. A mile or so ahead you can just make out the silhouette of the village— the orange glow of the harbor front, a light or two still on here and there in an upstairs window. So what do you decide? Your first instinct is to keep going, to put your foot down. To take your chances at forty, at forty-five, fifty, on this unfamiliar, sinuous track in the pitch dark, the headlights illuminating just one unpredictably curved stretch of the causeway in front of you at a time, black waves already lapping across it, the road ahead rapidly narrowing, disappearing. You could sound the horn, flash your lights wildly—but even if you did manage to attract someone’s attention, even if somebody on shore did see you or hear you and call the coast guard, what could the coast guard possibly do, given the speed things are progressing, considering the distances involved?