Henry and I arrived in Skagen expecting light. That famous Skagen light. The one painters have been chasing for more than a century.

A vast, rolling cloud formation moved in over the dunes near the northern tip of Denmark, where Skagerrak and Kattegat meet – where the North Sea and the Baltic begin to fold into one another. It looked less like a cloud than a living thing – a huge grey intestine dragging itself across the sky.

Technically, it was probably an arcus cloud, more specifically a shelf cloud. Cold air pushing out ahead of a storm, lifting warm, moist air into that long, theatrical wall. But standing there, camera in hand, it felt almost biblical. Says the atheist.

Minutes later, the thing broke apart, and the rain arrived. Not a drizzle. A proper soaking.

The only place to take shelter from the rain was inside the ruins of the Nazi-era bunkers spread across the beach.

We met two Ukrainian women in one of them. They had taken shelter in Denmark from the war in the eastern part of their country, since Russia has declared that Ukraine needs rescuing from Nazism.