Thankfully, as he returns to the vehicle, he is shaking his head ruefully. I consult the map once more for another route, but in vain.
“That’s it, just over there,” I say, pointing to a glistening steeple in the distance to our left, “but there’s no other road around.”
We sit in sullen silence a moment, before a steely glint comes to his eye. “What’s the point of an offroad vehicle if you never use it off-road?”
Before I get the chance to tell him that a coupé doesn’t qualify as off-road, we are plunging forward through a weakness in the hedge. The car churns across the field, the undercarriage ploughing the land as the engine complains violently at this treatment. We carve our way across the muck towards a strip of lush grass on the horizon and the sparkly mirage of the town just beyond. It can’t be denied that we are closing in on the target. Amidst the lurching and heaving of the car over unseen bumps in the field, things fly into the air within the cockpit.
We are in the International Space Station for all that gravity seems to matter. Only the boss is static, stoic, clenching the wheel and forging onwards. My eyes and the ancient map cross paths in the zero gravity and something registers in my mind. I grab hold of it and look again more intently.
“The river, the river! Stop! Stop! ” I scream.