Either 17 Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing. Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it: As the Queen pointed towards the gap between the island and the headland, Thornhill saw that Blackwood was tight as a fiddle-string. Those great slow swells, steady enough when they had plenty of sea room, were being funnelled into a tight neck of water that broke them into an angry chop and surge. The wind split against the pieces of land, eddying, veering, buffeting in confusion. The Queen seemed absurdly tiny, tossed like a leaf. Blackwood never took his eyes off the water, did not even seem to blink. His brown fist was closed around the tiller, his eyes half closed against the spray and wind, his cheeks wet as with tears. He leaned forward to keep his footing, his solid lighterman's legs braced against the planks. The Queen was a tough little lump, shuddering up and crashing down into the waves, but Thornhill had heard of boats pounded to pieces in such seas, the planks springing out of the stem, water pouring in. His fear had gone beyond feeling now, to a numbness where he could only watch Blackwood and hope. He gripped the gunwale and would have prayed, if he had known any God to pray to. Then they were through. The sea was still churning and seething beneath the boat, but the wind was muted by land on all sides. They had pushed through into another geography altogether. They call this Broken Bay, Blackwood said. River comes in yonder. He pointed ahead, where Thornhill could see only confusing stretches of water and thickly forested headlands. Best hidden river in the world, Blackwood said with satisfaction. Never find your way in nor you'd been shown like I'm showing you. Looking inland, where gusts of wind scraped at the water, Thornhill strained to find that secret river. In every direction, the reaches of Broken Bay seemed to end in yet another wall of rock and forest. A man could sail around for days and never find his way into the Hawkesbury. Blackwood pointed the boat towards a solid wall of land, a heaped-up ridge that tumbled down into the water all cliffs and skinny trees that grew out of the very stones themselves, and what had seemed a dead end slyly opened up into a stretch of river between cliffs. As the boat glided along on the tide, the cliffs rose sheer on both sides, mouse-grey except where the wind had exposed buttery rock, as if the landscape itself was a dark- skinned creature with golden flesh beneath. The rock had been laid down flat, layer after layer piled high like flitches of timber. As it had worn away, great slabs the size of a house had fallen off and tumbled all skewiff at the foot of the cliffs. Some lay half in the water, melting away. Where the cliff met the water a tangle of snake-like roots, vines and mangroves knotted around the fallen boulders. This was a place out of a dream, a fierce landscape of chasms and glowering cliffs and a vast unpredictable sky. Everywhere was the same but everywhere was different. Thornhill felt his eyes wide open, straining to find something they could understand. It seemed the emptiest place in the world, too wild for any man to have made it his home. Then Blackwood said, See yonder? and pointed with his blunt hand at a promontory to port. Beyond the fringe of mangroves Thornhill could see tussocky grass and trees, and a heap of something pale. Oysters, the shells, Blackwood said, and watched the promontory fall behind them. Suck the guts out, chuck the shells away. Been doing it since the year dot. He laughed. And fish! My word they get the fish. Not putting none by? Thornhill said. For tomorrow, like? Blackwood gave him an amused look. Aye, he said. Not putting none by. He slapped at a mosquito on his arm. Why would they? River ain't going nowhere. Thornhill glanced around. A breeze made leaves shiver and catch the light, casting shadows that shifted and speckled differently every moment. Where are they, then, he asked. Blackwood took his time answering. Every- bloody-where, mate, he said, gesturing up ahead. Thornhill saw smoke rising thin into the air, almost lost against the rocks and trees. He turned and glanced astern and there was another grey column. It might have been smoke or the light. Blackwood did not need to glance. They seen us all right, he said. Now they're telling the others, up the line. Thornhill stared into the tangle of trees and rocks on the bank. He saw something move: a man gesturing, or just a branch behaving like a man? Blackwood gave Thornhill a short judging look. One thing you best know, only time we see them is when they want us to. [from Part Two] How does Grenville's writing powerfully convey the strangeness of Will's experience at this moment in the novel?