Wyatt's Hurricane

I

It seemed to Dawson that the second half of the hurricane was not as bad as the first half, but perhaps that was because there was little rain. Still, it was bad enough. When Wyatt left the road he had driven the Land-Rover into the rough bush on the hillside and had found an almost imperceptible dip in the ground. This was the best he could do to ensure the safety of their vehicle.

Dawson said, ‘Why not stay inside?’

Wyatt disillusioned him. ‘It wouldn’t take much to push it over on to its side even though I’ve jammed it among the trees. We can’t risk it.’

So Dawson gave up hope of being out of the wind and rain and they began looking for personal shelter further along the hillside. The wind was already bad and steadily increased in strength and in the more violent gusts they were hard put to it to retain their footing. Presently they encountered the outlying flank of the regiment that Favel had sent to the ridge above the Negrito. The men were digging in and Wyatt was able to borrow an entrenching tool to do a bit of burrowing himself.

Digging in was harder than it had been outside St Pierre; the ground was hard and stony with bedrock not far beneath the thin layer of poor soil and all he could manage was a shallow scrape. But he took as much advantage of inequalities of the ground as he could and chose a place where there was an outcropping of rock to windward which would give immovable protection.

When he had finished he said to Dawson, ‘You stay here. I’m going to see if I can find one of the officers of this crowd.’

Dawson huddled behind the rock and looked apprehensively at the sky. ‘Take it easy — that’s no spring zephyr you’re walking in.’

Wyatt crept away, keeping very close to the ground. The wind closed about him like a giant’s hand and tried to pick him up and shake him, but he flattened out to elude its grip and crawled on his belly to the nearest foxhole, where he found a curled-up bundle of clothing which, when straightened out, would be a soldier.

‘Where’s your officer?’ he yelled.

A thumb jerked, indicating that he should go further along the hillside.

‘How far?’

Spread fingers said three hundred feet — or was it metres? A long way in either case. Puzzled brown eyes watched Wyatt as he crawled away and then were shrouded in a coat as the wind blew harder.

It took Wyatt a long time to find an officer, but when he did so he recognized him as one he had seen in Favel’s headquarters. Better still, the officer recognized Wyatt and welcomed him with a white-toothed grin. ‘Allo, ti blanc,’ he shouted. ‘Come down.’

Wyatt dropped into the foxhole and jammed himself next to the officer. He regained his breath, then said, ‘Have you seen a white woman round here?’

‘I have seen no one. There is no one this high up the hillside but the regiment.’ He grinned widely. ‘Just unfortunate soldiers.’

Wyatt was disappointed even though he had not really expected good news. He said, ‘Where are the people — and how are they taking this?’

‘Down there,’ said the officer. ‘Near the bottom of the valley. I don’t know how they are — we didn’t have time to find out. I sent some men down there but they didn’t come back.’

Wyatt nodded. The regiment had done a magnificent job — a forced march of nearly ten miles and then a frantic burrowing into the ground, all in two hours. It was too much to expect them to have done more.

The officer said, ‘But I expected to find some of them up here.’

‘It’s more exposed at this height,’ said Wyatt. ‘They’re safer down there. I don’t suppose they’ll get a wind much above eighty or ninety miles an hour. Up here it’s different. How do you think your men will take it?’

‘We will be all right,’ said the officer stiffly. ‘We are soldiers of Julio Favel. There have been worse things than wind.’

‘No doubt,’ said Wyatt. ‘But the wind is bad enough.’

The officer nodded his agreement vigorously, then he said, ‘My name is André Delorme. I had a plantation higher up the Negrito — I will get it back now that Serrurier is gone. You must come and see me, ti Wyatt, when this is over. You will always be welcome — you will be welcome anywhere in San Fernandez.’

‘Thank you,’ said Wyatt. ‘But I don’t know if I’ll stay.’

Delorme opened his eyes wide in surprise. ‘But why not? You saved the people of St Pierre; you showed us how to kill Serrurier. You will be a great man here — they will make you a statue better than the one of Serrurier in the Place de la Libération Noire. It is better to make a statue of one who saves lives.’

‘Saves lives?’ echoed Wyatt sardonically. ‘But you say I showed you how to kill Serrurier — and his whole army.’

‘That is different.’ Delorme shrugged. ‘Julio Favel told me you saw Serrurier and he did not believe you when you said there would be a hurricane.’

‘That is so.’

‘Then it is his own fault he is dead. He was stupid.’

‘I must get back,’ said Wyatt. ‘I have a friend.’

‘Better you stay here,’ said Delorme, raising his head to listen to the wind.

‘No, he is expecting me.’

‘All right, ti Wyatt; but come and see me at La Carrière when this is over.’ He held out a muscular brown hand which Wyatt gripped. ‘You must not leave San Fernandez, ti Wyatt; you must stay and show us what to do when the hurricane comes again.’ He grinned. ‘We are not always fighting in San Fernandez — only when it is necessary.’

Wyatt climbed out of the foxhole and gasped as the wind buffeted him. He had been tempted to stay with Delorme but he knew he had to get back. If Dawson got into trouble he could not do much to help himself with his injured hands and Wyatt wanted to be with him. It took him over half an hour to find Dawson and he was exhausted as he climbed round the outcrop and tumbled into the shallow hole.

‘I thought you’d been blown away,’ shouted Dawson as he rearranged his limbs. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Nothing much. There’s been no sign of Julie or Mrs Warmington. They’re probably down on the lower slopes, and it’s just as well.’

‘How far are we from the map position that guy gave us back in St Pierre?’

‘It’s a little over a mile up the valley.’

Dawson pulled his jacket about his chest and huddled against the rock. ‘We’ll just have to sit this one out, then.’

He had been doing a lot of thinking in Wyatt’s absence, planning what to do when the hurricane was over. He would not stay in St Pierre; he would go right back to New York and rearrange his affairs. Then he would come back to San Fernandez, buy a house overlooking the sea, and buy a boat and do a lot of fishing. And write a book once in a while. His last three books had not been too good; they had sold because of Wiseman’s jazzy publicity, but in his heart he knew they were not good books even though the critics had let them by. He wondered why he had lost his steam and had been troubled about it, but now he knew he could write again as well, or better, than he had ever done.

He smiled slightly as he thought of his agent. Wiseman would have already written a lot of junk about Big Jim Dawson, the great hero, practically saving San Fernandez single-handed, but he wouldn’t really give a damn whether Dawson was alive or dead — in fact, if Dawson had been killed it would be a red-hot story. Dawson would take great pleasure in reading all the press releases and then tearing them up and littering Wiseman’s desk with the fragments. This was one episode in his life that wasn’t going to be dirtied and twisted for profit by a conniving press agent. Or a conniving and dastardly writer, for that matter.

Maybe he would write the story of the last few days himself. He had always wanted to tackle a great non-fiction subject and this was it. He would tell the story of Commodore Brooks, of Serrurier and Favel, of Julie Marlowe and Eumenides Papegaikos, and of the thousands of people caught in the double disaster of war and wind. And, of course, it would be the story of Wyatt. There would be little, if anything, in it of himself. He had done nothing but get Wyatt in gaol and cause trouble all round. That would go in the book — but no false heroics, none of Wiseman’s synthetic glorification. It would be a good book.

He twisted and lay closer to the ground in an effort to avoid the driving wind.

The day wore on and again San Fernandez was subject to the agony of the hurricane. Once more the big wind tormented the island, sweeping in from the sea like a destroying angel and battering furiously at the central core of mountains as though it would sweep even those back into the sea from where they had come. Perhaps the hurricane did contribute towards the time when this small piece of land would be finally obliterated — a landslide here, a new watercourse gouged in the earth there, and a fraction of a millimetre removed from the top of the highest mountain in the Massif des Saints. But the land would survive many more hurricanes before being finally defeated.

Life was more vulnerable than inanimate rock. The soft green plants were uprooted, torn from the soil to fly on the wind; the trees broke, and even the tough grasses, stubbornly clumped with long spreading roots, felt the very earth dissolve beneath. The animals of the mountains died in hundreds; the wild pig was flung from the precipice to spill its brains against the stone, the wild dog whimpered in its rocky shelter and scratched futilely against the earthfall that sealed the entrance, and the birds were blown from the trees to be whirled away in the blast and to drown in the far sea.

And the people?

On the slopes of the Negrito alone were almost 60,000 exposed men, women and children. Many died. The old and tired died of exposure, and the young and fit died of the violence of air. Some died of stupidity, not having the sense to find proper shelter, and some died in spite of their intelligence through mere ill-luck. Others died of illness — those with weak hearts, weak chests and other ailments. Some, even, died of shock; perhaps one can say that these died of surprise at the raw violence of the world in which they lived.

But not as many died as would have perished if they had stayed in the ruined city of St Pierre.

For ten hours the storm raged at the island — the hurricane — the big wind. Ten hours, every minute of which was a stupefying eternity of shattering noise and hammering air. There was nothing left to do except to cower closer to the earth and hope to survive. Wyatt and Dawson crouched in their shallow trench behind the rock and, as Dawson had said, they ‘sat this one out’.

At first Wyatt thought in some astonishment of what Delorme had said, and he smiled sardonically. So this was how legends were created. He was to be cast as a saviour, a hero of San Fernandez — the man who had saved a whole population and won a war. He would be praised for the good he had done and the bad he had been unable to prevent. Obviously Delorme had been quite sincere. To him, Serrurier and all who followed him had been devils incarnate and deserved no better than they had received. But to Wyatt, Serrurier had been sick with madness, and his followers, while misguided, had been men like any others, and he had been the one who had shown Favel the trap into which they might be led. Others might forgive him, or even not realize there was anything to forgive, but he would never forgive himself.

And then the hurricane drowned all thought and he lay there supine, waiting patiently for the time when he would be allowed to rouse himself to action and go down into the valley in search of the one person in the world he wanted to bring out in safety — Julie Marlowe.

The hurricane reached its height at eleven in the morning and from that time the wind began to decrease in violence very slowly. Wyatt knew there would not be any sudden drop in wind-speed as when the eye of the hurricane came over the island; the wind would quieten over a period of hours and would remain blustery for quite a long time.

It was not until three in the afternoon that it became safe enough for a man to stand in the open, and even then it was risky but Wyatt was in no mood for waiting any longer. He said to Dawson, ‘I’m going into the valley now.’

‘Think it’s safe?’

‘Safe enough.’

‘Okay,’ said Dawson, sitting up. ‘Which way do we go?’

‘It will be best to go right down, and then across the lower slopes.’ Wyatt turned and looked across the hillside in the direction of Delorme’s foxhole. ‘I’m going to have a word with that officer again.’

They walked gingerly across the slope and Wyatt bent down and shouted to Delorme, ‘I’d wait another hour before you get your men out.’

Delorme looked up. His face was tired and his voice was husky as he said, ‘Are you going down now?’

‘Yes.’

Then so will we,’ said Delorme. He heaved himself up and groped in his pocket. ‘Those people down there might not be able to wait another hour.’ He blew shrilly on a whistle and slowly the hillside stirred as his men emerged from a multitude of holes and crevices. One of his sergeants came up and Delorme issued a rapid string of instructions.

Wyatt said, ‘I’d take it easy on the way down — it’s not so difficult to break a leg. If you come across any white people I’d be glad to know.’

Delorme smiled. ‘Favel said we were to watch for a Miss Marlowe. He said you were worried about her.’

‘Did he?’ said Wyatt in surprise. ‘I wonder how he knew.’

‘Favel knows everything,’ said Delorme with pride. ‘He misses nothing. I think he talked with the other Englishman — Causton.’

‘I’ll have to thank him.’

Delorme shook his head. ‘We owe you a lot, ti Wyatt; what else could we do? If I find Miss Marlowe I will let you know.’

‘Thanks.’ Wyatt looked at Delorme and knew he had changed his mind. ‘And I’ll certainly come to see you at your plantation. Where did you say it was?’

‘Up the Negrito — at La Carrière.’ Delorme grinned. ‘But wait until I have cleaned it up and replanted — it will not look good now.’

‘I’ll wait,’ promised Wyatt, and turned away.

It was not easy going down the hill. The wind plucked at them viciously and the surface had been loosened at the height of the storm so that small landslides were easy to start. There were many fallen trees round which they had to make their way, and the ripped-up trees left gaping holes. It was three-quarters of an hour before they reached the first of the survivors, a huddle of bodies lying in a small depression. The wind was still fierce and they had not yet stirred.

Dawson looked at them with an expression of horror. ‘They’re dead,’ he said. ‘The whole lot of them are dead.’ hugging a child in her arms; the child was obviously dead — the head hung unnaturally on one side like that of a broken-jointed doll — but the woman seemed not to be aware of it. ‘What can you do about a thing like that?’ he asked.

‘We can’t do anything,’ said Wyatt. ‘It’s best to leave her to her own people.’

Dawson looked back along the hill. ‘But there are thousands here — what can one regiment of men do? There are no medical supplies, no doctors, no hospitals left standing in St Pierre. A lot of these people are going to die — even those who have survived so far.’

‘There are a lot of people on the other side of the valley, too,’ said Wyatt, pointing across the flood. ‘It’s like this all along the Negrito — on both sides.’

The hillside heaved with slow, torpid movement as the inhabitants of St Pierre came to the tired realization that their agony was over. Favel’s men were now among them, but there was little they could do beyond separating the living from the dead, and the men who had enough first-aid knowledge to be able to splint a broken limb were kept very busy.

Wyatt said hopelessly, ‘How can we find one person in this lot?’

‘Julie’s white,’ said Dawson. ‘She ought to stand out.’

‘A lot of these people are as white as we are,’ said Wyatt glumly. ‘Let’s get on.’

They took to the slopes again where an incursion of the flood crept inland, and Wyatt paused constantly to ask the more alert-seeming survivors if they had seen a white woman. Some did not answer, others replied with curses, and others were slow and incoherent in their replies — but none knew of a white woman. Once Wyatt yelled, ‘There she is!’ and plunged back down the hill to grasp a woman by the arm. She turned and looked at him, revealing the creamy skin of an octoroon, and he let her arm fall limply.

At last they arrived at their goal and started a more systematic search, patrolling up and down the hill and looking very closely at each group of people. They searched for nearly an hour and did not find Julie or any other white person, male or female. Dawson was sickened by what he saw, and estimated that if what he saw was a fair sample there must have been a thousand killed on the one side of the Negrito alone — and the injured were beyond computation.

The people seemed unable to fight their way clear of the state of shock into which they had been plunged. The air was alive with the moaning and screaming of the injured, while the fit either just sat looking into space or moved aimlessly with the gait of tortoises. Only a minute few seemed to have recovered their initiative enough to leave the hillside or help in the rescue work.

Wyatt and Dawson met again and Dawson shook his head heavily in response to Wyatt’s enquiring and wild-eyed look. ‘The man can’t have made a mistake,’ said Wyatt frantically. ‘He can’t have.’

‘All we can do is keep on looking,’ said Dawson. ‘There’s nothing else we can do.’

‘We could go over to the coast road. That’s where they went in the first place. That we know.’

‘We’d better finish checking here first,’ said Dawson stolidly. He looked over Wyatt’s shoulder. ‘Hey, there’s one of Favel’s boys coming this way — it looks as though he wants us.’

Wyatt spun on his heel as the soldier ran up. ‘You looking for a blanc?’ asked the man.

‘A woman?’ asked Wyatt tersely.

‘That’s right; she’s over there — just over the rise.’

‘Come on,’ shouted Wyatt and started to run, with Dawson close behind. They came to the top of the slight rise and looked down at the couple of hundred people, some of whom raised enquiring black faces and rolling eyes in their direction.

‘There!’ jerked out Dawson. ‘Over there.’ He stopped and said quietly, ‘It’s the Warmington woman.’

‘She’ll know where Julie is,’ said Wyatt exultantly, and ran down the slope. He pushed his way among the people and reached out to grasp Mrs Warmington’s arm. ‘You’re safe,’ he said. ‘Where’s Julie — Miss Marlowe?’

Mrs Warmington looked up at him and burst into tears. ‘Oh, thank God — thank God for a white face. Am I glad to see you!’

‘What happened to Julie — and the others?’

Her face crumpled. ‘They killed him,’ she said hysterically. ‘They shot him and stabbed a bayonet in his back... again... and again. My God... the blood...’

Wyatt went cold. ‘Who was killed? Rawsthorne or Papegaikos?’ he demanded urgently.

Mrs Warmington looked at the backs of her hands. ‘There was a lot of blood,’ she said with unnatural quietness. ‘It was very red on the grass.’

Wyatt held himself in with an effort. ‘Who... was... killed?’

She looked up. ‘The Greek. They blamed me for it. It wasn’t my fault; it wasn’t my fault at all. I had to do it. But they blamed me.’

Dawson said, ‘Who blamed you?’

‘That girl — that chit of a girl. She said I killed him, but I never did. He was killed by a soldier with a gun and a bayonet.’

‘Where is Julie now?’ asked Wyatt tensely.

‘I don’t know,’ said Mrs Warmington shrilly. ‘And I don’t care. She kept on hitting me, so I ran away. I was frightened she’d kill me — she said she would.’

Wyatt looked at Dawson in shocked surprise, then he said dangerously softly, ‘Where did you run from?’

‘We came from the other side, near the sea,’ she said. ‘That’s where we were locked up. Then I ran away. There was a river and a waterfall — we all got wet.’ She shivered. ‘I thought I’d get pneumonia.’

‘Is there a river between here and the coast?’ asked Dawson.

Wyatt shook his head. ‘No.’ Mrs Warmington was obviously in a state of shock and would have to be treated with kid gloves if they were going to get anything out of her. He said gently, ‘Where was the river?’

‘On the top of a hill,’ said Mrs Warmington incomprehensibly. Dawson sighed audibly and she looked up at him. ‘Why should I tell you where they are? They’ll only tell you a lot of lies about me,’ she said spitefully. ‘I’m not going to tell you anything.’ She clenched her fists and the nails dug into her palms. ‘I hope she dies like she meant me to.’

Dawson tapped Wyatt on the shoulder. ‘Come over here,’ he said. Wyatt was looking horrified at Mrs Warmington, but he backed away under Dawson’s pressure until they stood a few paces away from her. Dawson said, ‘I don’t know what this is all about. I think that woman has gone crazy.’

‘She’s raving mad,’ said Wyatt. He was trembling.

‘Maybe — but she knows where Julie is all right. Something’s thrown a hell of a scare into her, and it wasn’t the hurricane, although that might have tipped her over the edge. Maybe she did kill Eumenides and Julie saw her do it — that means she’s scared of a murder charge. She may be crazy, but I think she’s crazy like a fox — faking it up, I mean.’

‘We’ve got to get it out of her,’ said Wyatt. ‘But how?’

‘Leave it to me,’ said Dawson savagely. ‘You’re an English gentleman — you wouldn’t know how to handle her kind. Now, me — I’m an eighteen-carat diamond-studded American son-of-a-bitch — I’ll get it out of her even if I have to beat her brains in.’

He walked back to her and said in a deceptively conciliatory manner, ‘Now, Mrs Warmington; you’ll tell me where Julie Marlowe and Mr Rawsthorne are, won’t you?’

‘I’ll do no such thing. I don’t like people tattling and telling lies about me.’

Dawson’s voice hardened. ‘Do you know who I am?’

‘Sure. You’re Big Jim Dawson. You’ll get me out of here, won’t you?’ Her voice broke pathetically into a wail. ‘I want to go back to the States.’

He said dangerously, ‘So you’ll know my reputation. I’m supposed to be a bad bastard. You’ve got one chance to get back to the States quick. Tell me where Rawsthorne is or I’ll have you held here pending the enquiry into the disappearance of the British consul. There’s sure to be an enquiry — the British are conservative, they don’t like losing officials, even minor ones.’

‘On top of the hill,’ she said sullenly. ‘There’s a gully up there.’

‘Point it out.’ His eyes followed the direction of her wavering hand, then he looked back at her. ‘You’ve come out of this hurricane pretty well,’ he said grimly. ‘Someone must have been looking after you. You should be thankful, not spiteful.’

He went back to Wyatt. ‘I’ve got it. There’s a gully up there somewhere.’ He waved his hand. ‘Over in that direction.’

Without a word Wyatt left at a run and started to climb the hill. Dawson grinned and moved after him at a slower, more economical pace. He heard a noise in the air and looked up to see a helicopter coming over the brow of the hill like a huge grasshopper. ‘Hey!’ he shouted. ‘Here comes the Navy — they’ve come back.’

But Wyatt was far ahead, climbing the hill as though his life depended on it. Perhaps it did.

II

Causton stood on the concrete apron near the ruined control tower of the airfield on Cap Sarrat Base and watched the helicopters come in from the sea in a straggling and wavering line. Commodore Brooks had been quick off his mark — the aircraft carrier under his command must have been idling just on the outskirts of Mabel and he had sent off his helicopters immediately the weather was fit for flying. And this was only the first wave. Planes would soon pour into San Fernandez, bringing much-needed medical aid.

He looked across at the small group of officers surrounding Favel and grinned. The Yanks were due for a surprise — but perhaps not just yet.

Favel had been quite clear about it. ‘I am going to occupy Cap Sarrat Base,’ he said. ‘Even if only with a token force. This is essential.’

So a platoon of men had made the dangerous trip across the flooded mouth of the Negrito and here they were, waiting for the Americans. It all hinged on the original treaty of 1906 in which Favel had found a loophole. ‘The position is simple, Mr Causton,’ he said. ‘The treaty states that if the American forces voluntarily give up the Base and it is thereafter claimed by the government of San Fernandez, then the treaty is abrogated.’

Causton raised his eyebrows. ‘It’ll look a pretty shabby gesture,’ he said. ‘The Americans come in to bring you unstinting aid, and you reciprocate by taking the Base.’

‘The Americans will bring us nothing they do not owe already,’ said Favel drily. ‘They have rented eight square miles of valuable real estate for sixty years at a pittance, on a lease forced at a time when they occupied San Fernandez as though it were an enemy country.’ He shook his head seriously. ‘I do not want to take the Base away from them, Mr Causton. But I think I will be in a position to negotiate another, more equitable lease.’

Causton took a notebook from his pocket and refreshed his memory. ‘One thousand, six hundred and ninety-three dollars a year. I think it’s worth more than that, and I think you ought to get it.’

Favel grinned cheerfully. ‘You forgot the twelve cents, Mr Causton. I think the International Court at The Hague will give us just judgement. I would like you to be at the Base as an independent witness to the fact that the San Fernandan government has assumed control of Cap Sarrat.’

So now he was watching the first helicopter touch down on the territory of the sovereign government of San Fernandez. He watched men climb out and saw the gleam of gold on a flat cap. ‘My God, I wonder if that’s Brooks,’ he murmured, and began to walk across the apron. He saw Favel move forward and watched the two men meet.

‘Welcome back to Cap Sarrat,’ said Favel, offering his hand. ‘I am Julio Favel.’

‘Brooks — Commodore in the United States Navy.’

The two men shook hands and Causton wondered if Brooks knew about the flaw in the treaty. If he did, he showed no awareness of his changed position, nor did he evince any surprise as he flicked his eyes upwards at the sodden green and gold flag of San Fernandez which hung limply from an improvised mast on the control tower. He said, ‘What do you need most, Mr Favel, and where do you need it? Anything we’ve got, you just have to ask for it.’

Favel shook his head sadly. ‘We need everything — but first, doctors, medical supplies, food and blankets. After that we would like some kind of large-scale temporary housing — even tents would do.’

Brooks indicated the helicopters landing on the runways. ‘These boys are going to check the airfield to see if it’s safe for operation. We’ll set up a temporary control tower over there. When that’s done the big planes can start to move in — they’re already waiting for a signal in Miami and Puerto Rico. In the meantime, we have five choppers full of medics. Where do you want them to go?’

‘Up the Negrito. They will have plenty of work.’

Brooks raised his eyebrows. ‘The Negrito? Then you got your people out of St Pierre.’

‘With the help of your Mr Wyatt. That is a very forceful and persuasive young man.’

They began to move away. ‘Yes,’ said Brooks. ‘I wish I had...’ His voice was lost to Causton as they walked up the runway.

III

Dawson caught up with Wyatt when he was nearly at the top of the hill. ‘Take it easy,’ he gasped. ‘You’ll bust a gut.’

Wyatt kept silent, reserving his breath to power his legs which were working like pistons. They reached the crest and he looked around, his chest heaving and the muscles of his legs sore with the effort he had made. ‘I don’t... see... a gully.’

Dawson looked over the other side towards the sea and saw a line of welcome blue sky on the horizon. He turned back. ‘Suppose they had come up from the coast — where would they go from here?’

Wyatt shook his head in irritation. ‘I don’t know.’

‘My inclination would be to edge in towards St Pierre,’ said Dawson. ‘So I wouldn’t have so far to go home when it was all over.’ He pointed to the left. ‘That way. Let’s have a look.’

They walked a little way along the crest of the hill, and Wyatt said, ‘That’s it — I suppose you’d call that a gully.’

Dawson looked down at the cleft cut into the hillside. ‘It’s our best bet so far,’ he said. ‘Let’s go down.’

They climbed down into the ravine and looked about. Pools of water lay trapped among the rocks, and Wyatt said, ‘There’d be quite a bit of water coming down here during the hurricane. That’s what Mrs Warmington meant when she talked of a river on the top of a hill.’ He filled his lungs with air. ‘Julie!’ he shouted. ‘Julie! Rawsthorne!’

There was no answer. Everything was silent save for the distant roar of a helicopter landing at the bottom of the valley.

‘We’ll go a bit further,’ said Dawson. ‘Perhaps they’re lower down. Perhaps they’ve left already — gone down to the valley.’

‘They wouldn’t do that,’ objected Wyatt. ‘Rawsthorne knows that the St Michel road is easier.’

‘Okay, perhaps they’ve gone that way.’

‘We’ll look down here first,’ said Wyatt. He began to climb among the tumbled rocks at the bottom of the ravine, wading through pools, heedless of the water. Dawson followed him, and kept a careful watch all round. From time to time Wyatt shouted, and then they paused to listen but heard no answering cry.

After a while Dawson said, ‘That Warmington cow said something about a waterfall. You see anything that could have been a waterfall?’

‘No,’ said Wyatt shortly.

They went further down the ravine and found themselves enclosed within its sheer walls. ‘This would be as good a place to sit out a hurricane as any,’ commented Dawson. ‘Better than the goddam holes we had.’

‘Then where the hell are they?’ demanded Wyatt, losing his temper.

‘Take it easy,’ said Dawson. ‘We’ll find them if they’re here. I’ll tell you what; you carry on down the ravine, and I’ll get up on the hillside. I can move faster up there and still see most of what there is to be seen down here.’

He climbed up the ravine wall and regained the open hillside, and as he thought, he was immediately able to keep up a better speed. Even though he was hampered by fallen trees, they were easier to negotiate than the jumble of rocks in the ravine. He carried on down the hill, outstripping Wyatt, and returned to the lip of the ravine frequently to scan the bottom very carefully. It was quite a while before he found anything.

At first he thought it was some kind of animal moving very slowly, and then his breath hissed as he saw it was a man crawling painfully on his belly. He climbed down to the bottom and stumbled across the rocks to where the crawling figure had stopped. When he turned the man over he lifted his head and yelled, ‘Wyatt, come here — I’ve found Rawsthorne!’

Rawsthorne was in a bad way. His face was deathly pale, accentuating the blood streaks on the side of his head. His right side appeared to be completely paralysed and he made ineffectual pawing movements with his left arm as Dawson gently cradled him. His eyes flickered open and his lips moved but he made no sound.

‘Take it easy,’ said Dawson. ‘You’re safe now.’

Rawsthorne’s breath rasped and he whispered, ‘Heart... heart... attack.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Dawson. ‘Relax.’

Small stones clattered as Wyatt came up, and Dawson turned his head. ‘The poor guy’s had a heart attack. He’s not too good.’

Wyatt took Rawsthorne’s wrist and felt the faint thread of pulse and then looked into the glazing eyes which seemed focused an infinity away. The grey lips moved again. ‘Waterfall... tree... tree...’

Rawsthorne suddenly sagged and lay in Dawson’s arms, gazing vacantly at the sky, his jaw dropped open.

Dawson eased him down on to the rocks. ‘He’s dead.’

Wyatt stared down at the body and his face looked haggard. ‘Was he crawling?’ he whispered.

Dawson nodded. ‘He was going down the ravine. I don’t know how he expected to make it.’

‘Julie would never have left him,’ said Wyatt in an over-controlled voice. ‘Not if he was sick. Something must have happened to her.’

‘He said something about a waterfall, too — just like Warmington.’

‘It must be higher up,’ said Wyatt. ‘And I think I know where it is.’ He rose to his feet and stumbled away, moving much too fast for the broken ground and reckless of twisted or broken ankles. Dawson followed him more cautiously and found him beneath an outcrop of rock too hard and stubborn to be worn away. He stooped and picked up something from the cleft in the base of the rock. It was a woman’s purse.

‘This was Warmington’s,’ he said. ‘This is the waterfall.’ His head jerked upwards to the tangle of tree roots above his head on the edge of the ravine. ‘And that’s the tree — he said “tree”, didn’t he?’

He scrambled up the side of the ravine and then turned to give a hand to Dawson. ‘Let’s have a closer look at this bloody tree.’

They walked around the tree and saw nothing, and then Wyatt pushed in among the branches and suddenly gave a choked sound. ‘She’s here,’ he said brokenly.

Dawson pushed his way through and looked over Wyatt’s shoulder, then turned away. He said heavily, ‘Well — we found her.’

She was lying with the trunk of the tree across her legs and hips and a branch across her right arm, pinning it to the ground. The fingertips of her left hand were scraped bloodily raw where she had scrabbled at the trunk in her efforts to move it. Her face, smudged with dirt, was otherwise marble-white and drained of blood, and the only thing about her that moved was a strand of her hair that waved gently in the wind.

Wyatt stepped back away from the tree and looked at it calculatingly. He said in a repressed voice, ‘Let’s move this tree. Let’s shift this damned tree.’

‘Dave,’ said Dawson quietly, ‘she’s dead.’

Wyatt turned in a flash, his face furious. ‘We don’t know,’ he shouted. ‘We don’t know that.’

Dawson fell back a step, intimidated by the controlled violence emanating from this man. He said, ‘All right, Dave. We’ll move the tree.’

‘And we’ll do it carefully, do you hear?’ said Wyatt. ‘We’ll do it very carefully.’

Dawson looked at the tree dubiously. It was big and heavy and awkward. ‘How do we start?’

Wyatt attacked a broken branch and wrenched it free by sheer force. He stepped back panting. ‘We take the weight off her... her body, then one of us can draw her out.’

That did not look so easy to Dawson, but he was willing to give it a try. He took the branch which Wyatt offered and walked round the tree looking for a convenient place to wedge it under the trunk. Wyatt collected some rocks and followed him. ‘There,’ he said abruptly. ‘That’s the place.’ His face was very white. ‘We must be careful.’

Dawson rammed the branch beneath the trunk and cautiously tested the leverage. He doubted if the trunk would move but said nothing. Wyatt pushed him out of the way and swung his weight on to the branch. There was a creak, but otherwise nothing. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘You can push on this, too.’

‘Who is going to push the stones under?’ asked Dawson reasonably. ‘Neither of us can do it if we’re both heaving on that branch.’

‘I can do it with my foot,’ said Wyatt impatiently. ‘Come on.’

Both of them leaned heavily on the branch and Dawson felt an agony of pain in his hands. The trunk of the tree moved fractionally and he set his teeth and held on. Slowly the trunk lifted, inch by inch, and Wyatt, both his feet off the ground, nudged one of the rocks with the tip of his shoe until it slid underneath. Then another, a larger one, went under, and he gasped, ‘That’s enough — for now.’

Slowly they released the branch and the trunk settled again, but it was slightly raised on the rocks. Dawson staggered back, his hands aflame with pain, and Wyatt looked up and saw his face. ‘What’s the matter?’ Then he caught on. ‘Oh, my God, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.’

Dawson suppressed the sickness that welled up within him and grinned weakly. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said, trying to keep his voice steady. ‘There’s nothing to it. I’m all right.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m fine,’ he said nonchalantly.

Wyatt switched his attention back to the tree. ‘I’ll see if I can pull her out now.’ He crawled under the branches and was silent for some minutes, then said in a muffled voice, ‘It needs one more swing.’ He came out. ‘If you can get under there and pull her out while I lift this damned tree, I think we’ll do it.’

He carefully chocked in the rocks he had already inserted under the trunk while Dawson got in position, and when Dawson shouted that he was ready he swung again on the lever. Nothing happened, so he swung harder, again and again, leaning his whole weight on the branch and pushing down until he thought his bones would crack. The thought entered his mind dizzily that he had gone through all this before in the prison cell. Well, he had done it before and he would do it again.

The tree-trunk did not move.

Dawson called a halt and came out from under the branches. He had been close to Julie’s body and was now certain that she was dead, but whatever he privately thought of the uselessness of all this did not show on his face for one moment. He said, ‘What we need here is weight — not strength. I’m sixty pounds heavier than you are — it may not be all muscle, but that doesn’t matter. You pull her out while I do the lifting.’

‘What about your hands?’

‘They’re my hands, aren’t they? Get under there.’

He waited until Wyatt was ready, then leaned on the branch and thrust down with all his force and weight. He almost screamed at the cruel torment in his hands and sweat beaded his forehead. The trunk moved and Wyatt gave a shout. ‘Keep it up! For God’s sake, keep it up!’

Dawson went through an eternity of purgatory and for a fraction of a second he wondered if he Would ever be able to use his hands again — say, on a typewriter. Hell! he grunted to himself, I can always dictate — and pressed down harder. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Wyatt backing out, drawing something with him, and it was with exquisite relief that he heard a faint and faraway voice say, ‘Okay, you can let it go.’

He released the branch and flopped to the ground, thankfully feeling the flaming hell centred in his hands dying to a welcome numbness. With lacklustre eyes he watched Wyatt bend over Julie, rip open her shirt and apply his ear to her chest. And it was with something approaching shock that he heard him shout exultantly, ‘She’s alive! She’s still alive! It’s faint, but it’s there.’

It took a long time for them to signal a helicopter, but when they did action was swift. The chopper hovered over them and swirled the dust while Wyatt lay over Julie and protected her from the blast. A man was lowered by a winch and dropped to the ground, and Dawson lurched up to him. ‘We need a doctor.’

The man gave a brief grin. ‘You’ve found one — what’s the trouble?’

‘This woman.’ He led the way to where Julie was lying and the doctor dropped to one knee beside her and produced a stethoscope. After a few seconds he fumbled in a cartouche at his waist and drew forth a hypodermic syringe and an ampoule. While Wyatt watched anxiously he gave Julie an injection. Then he waved back the helicopter and, speaking through a microphone at the bottom of the dangling hoist, he gave terse instructions.

The hoist was reeled in and presently another man came down, bearing a folded stretcher and a bundle of splints, and the helicopter retreated again to continue its circling. Julie was tenderly bound in a complex of splints and given another injection. Wyatt said, ‘How is... will she...?’

The doctor looked up. ‘We got to her in time. She’ll be all right if we can get her off this hillside real fast.’ He waved to the helicopter which came in again, and Julie was hoisted up on the stretcher.

The doctor surveyed them. ‘You coming?’ He looked at Dawson. ‘What’s the matter with your hands?’

‘What hands?’ asked Dawson with tremulous irony. He thrust bandaged claws forward. ‘Look, doc, no hands!’ He began to laugh hysterically.

The doctor said, ‘You’d better come with us.’ He looked at Wyatt. ‘You, too; you look half beat to death.’

They were hoisted up by the winch one at a time, and the doctor followed and tapped the pilot once on the shoulder. Wyatt sat next to the stretcher and looked at Julie’s white face. He wondered if she would consider marrying a man who had failed her, who had let her go into the storm to die. He doubted it — but he knew he would ask her.

He stared down blindly at the receding hillside and at the broad waters of the flooded Negrito and felt a touch on his hand. He turned quickly and saw that Julie was awake and that her hand touched his. Two tears ran down her cheeks and her lips moved, but all sound was lost in the roar of the aircraft.

Quickly he bent down with his ear to her lips and caught the faint thread of sound. ‘Dave! Dave! You’re alive!’ Even in the thin whisper there were overtones of incredulity.

He smiled at her. ‘Yes, we’re alive. You’ll be back in the States today.’

Her fingers tightened weakly on his hand and she spoke again. He missed something of what she said, but caught the gist of it. ‘...come back. I want house... overlooking sea... St Pierre.’

Then she closed her eyes but her fingers still held his hand and he felt half his burden taken from him. She was going to be all right and they were going to be together.

And so he went back to Cap Sarrat Base and into fame and history. He did not know that the headlines of the world’s newspapers would blazon his name in a hundred languages as the man who saved a whole city’s people — as the man who had destroyed an army. He did not know that honours awaited him, to be bestowed by lesser men. He did not know that one day, when he was a very old man, he would be the one who was to show the way to the taming of the big wind — the hurricane.

He knew nothing of all this. All he knew was that he was very tired and that he was a professional failure. He did not know how many soldiers had died in the trap of St Pierre — many hundreds or many thousands — but even if only one had died it would serve to proclaim to the world his failure in his work and he felt miserable.

David Wyatt was a dedicated scientist, unversed in the ways of the world and very young for his years.