I carried on reading South, comparing the trials and tribulations of Shackleton, Wild and crew on their epic open-boat voyage from Elephant Island to South Georgia with my own minor discomfort.

He learnt that, shortly before, some thirteen or fourteen convicts had succeeded in escaping from the penal settlement in an open boat, and had landed on a lonely part of the coast.

Uncle Liang, the town’s hermit, who lived in a shack by the reservoir, could have woken from his midday nap early and caught the young thieves clumsily rowing his boat into the open water.