Waterland

Tom elaborates on the properties of the bodily substance the Cricks possess, the “ambiguous humour”—phlegm. Its nature is contradictory—simultaneously advantageous and harmful—and requires expelling or it will damage the body. Ancient traditions suggest that phlegm should “be remedied by infusions of strengthening liquors” (344) like alcohol.

Tom and Henry find Dick. He is getting drunk and has started the dredger, the Rosa II, on the Ouse River, which is “not like our little old Leem. It’s like a sea” (353). After Henry breaks down while telling the skipper, Stan Booth, that Dick is Freddie’s killer and Henry’s son, Tom, Henry, and Stan set out to retrieve Dick. Henry yells to tell Dick they will save him, but Dick dexterously dives into the water and is “Gone.” Stan demands an explanation, and all that is left of Dick is “Obscurity. On the bank in the thickening dusk, in the will-o’-the-wisp dusk, abandoned but vigilant, a motor-cycle” (358).