Wyatt's Hurricane

I

The drumfire of the guns jerked Causton from a deep sleep. He started violently and opened his eyes, wondering for a moment where he was and relieved to find the familiarity of his own room at the Imperiale. Eumenides, to whom he had offered a bed, was standing at the window looking out.

Causton sat up in bed. ‘God’s teeth!’ he said, ‘those guns are near. Favel must have broken through.’ He scrambled out of bed and was momentarily disconcerted to find he was still wearing his trousers.

Eumenides drew back from the window and looked at Causton moodily. ‘They will fight in town,’ he said. ‘Will be ver’ bad.’

‘It usually is,’ said Causton, rubbing the stubble on his cheeks. ‘What’s happening down there?’

‘Many peoples — soldiers,’ said Eumenides. ‘Many ’urt.’

‘Walking wounded? Serrurier must be in full retreat. But he’ll do his damnedest to hold the town. This is where the frightful part comes in — the street fighting.’ He wound up a clockwork dry shaver with quick efficient movements. ‘Serrurier’s police have been holding the population down; that was wise of him — he didn’t want streams of refugees impeding his army. But whether they’ll be able to do it in the middle of a battle is another thing. I have the feeling this is going to be a nasty day.’

The Greek lit another cigarette and said nothing.

Causton finished his shave in silence. His mind was busy with the implications of the nearness of the guns. Favel must have smashed Serrurier’s army in the Negrito and pushed on with all speed to the outskirts of St Pierre. Moving so fast, he must have neglected mopping-up operations and there were probably bits of Serrurier’s army scattered in pockets all down the Negrito; they would be disorganized now after groping about in the night, but with the daylight they might be a danger — a danger Favel might be content to ignore.

For a greater danger confronted him. He had burst on to the plain and was hammering at the door of St Pierre in broad daylight, and Causton doubted if he was well enough equipped for a slugging match in those conditions. So far, he had depended on surprise and the sudden hammer blow of unexpected artillery against troops unused to the violence of high explosives — but Serrurier had artillery and armour and an air force. True, the armour consisted of three antiquated tanks and a dozen assorted armoured cars, the air force was patched up from converted civilian planes and Favel had been able to laugh at this display of futile modernity when still secure in the mountains. But on the plain it would be a different matter altogether. Even an old tank would be master of the battlefield, and the planes could see what they were bombing.

Causton examined his reflection in the glass and wondered if Favel had moved fast enough to capture Serrurier’s artillery before it had got into action. If he had, he would be the luckiest commander in history because it had been sheer inefficiency on the part of the Government artillery general that had bogged it down. But luck — good and bad — was an inescapable element on the field of battle.

He plunged his head into cold water, came up spluttering and reached for a towel. He had just finished drying himself when there was a knock on the door. He held up a warning hand to Eumenides. ‘Who’s that?’

‘It’s me,’ called Julie.

He relaxed. ‘Come in, Miss Marlowe.’

Julie looked a little careworn; there were dark circles under her eyes as though she had had very little sleep and she was dishevelled. She pushed her hair back, and said, ‘That woman will drive me nuts.’

‘What’s La Warmington doing now?’

‘Right now she’s dozing, thank God. That woman’s got a nerve — she was treating me like a lady’s maid last night and got annoyed because I wouldn’t take orders. Then in the middle of the night she got weepy and nearly drove me out of my mind. I had to fill her full of luminol in the end.’

‘Is she asleep now?’

‘She’s just woken up, but she’s so dopey she doesn’t know what’s going on.’

‘Perhaps it’s just as well,’ said Causton, cocking his head as he listened to the guns. ‘It might be just as well to keep her doped until we get out of here. I hope to God Rawsthorne can make it in time.’ He looked at Julie. ‘You don’t look too good yourself.’

‘I’m beat,’ she confessed. ‘I didn’t sleep so well myself. I was awake half the night with Mrs Warmington. I got her off to sleep and then found I couldn’t sleep myself — I was thinking about Dave and Mr Dawson. When I finally got to sleep I was woken up almost immediately by those damned guns.’ She folded her arms about herself and winced at a particularly loud explosion. ‘I’m scared — I don’t mind admitting it.’

‘I’m not feeling too good myself,’ said Causton drily. ‘How about you, Eumenides?’

The Greek shrugged eloquently, gave a ferocious grin and passed his fingers across his throat. Causton laughed. ‘That about describes it.’

Julie said, ‘Do you think it’s any good trying to get Dave out of that gaol again?’

Causton resisted an impulse to swear. As a man who earned his living by the writing of the English language, he had always maintained that swearing and the use of foul language was the prop of an ignorant mind unable to utilize the full and noble resources of English invective. But the previous night he had been forced to use the dirtiest language he knew when he came up against the impenetrably closed mind of Sous-Inspectéur Roseau. He had quite shocked Rawsthorne, if not Roseau.

He said, ‘There’s not much hope, I’m afraid. The walls of the local prison may be thick, but the coppers’ heads are thicker. Maybe Favel may be able to get him out if he hurries up.’

He put his foot up on the bed to lace his shoe. ‘I had a talk with Rawsthorne last night; he was telling me something about Wyatt’s hurricane. According to Rawsthorne, it’s not at all certain there’ll be a hurricane here at all. What do you know about that?’

‘I know that Dave was very disturbed about it,’ she said. ‘Especially after he saw the old man.’

‘What old man?’

So Julie told of the old man who had been tying his roof down and Causton scratched his head. He said mildly, ‘For a meteorologist, Wyatt has very unscientific ways of going about his job.’

‘Don’t you believe him?’ asked Julie.

‘That’s the devil of it — I do,’ said Causton. ‘I’ll tell you something, Julie: I always depend on my intuition and it rarely lets me down. That’s why I’m here on this island right now. My editor told me I was talking nonsense — I had no real evidence things were going to blow up here — so that’s why I’m here unofficially. Yes, I believe in Wyatt’s wind, and we’ll have to do something about it bloody quickly.’

‘What can we do about a hurricane?’

‘I mean we must look after ourselves,’ said Causton. ‘Look, Julie; Wyatt’s immediate boss didn’t believe him; Commodore Brooks didn’t believe him, and Serrurier didn’t believe him. He did all he can and I don’t think we can do any better. And if you think I’m going to walk about in the middle of a civil war bearing a placard inscribed “Prepare To Meet Thy Doom” you’re mistaken.’

Julie shook her head. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘But there are sixty thousand defenceless people in St Pierre — it’s terrible.’

‘So is civil war,’ said Causton gravely. ‘But there’s still nothing we can do apart from saving ourselves — and that’s going to be dicey.’ He took his map from the pocket of his jacket and spread it on the bed. ‘I wish Rawsthorne had been ready to leave last night, but he said he had to go back to the consulate. I suppose even a lowly consul has to burn the codebooks or whatever it is they do when you see smoke coming from the Embassy chimney on the eve of crisis. What time is it?’

‘Nearly ’alf pas’ seven,’ said Eumenides.

‘He said he’d be here by eight, but he’ll probably be late. Neither of us expected Favel to be so quick — I don’t suppose Serrurier expected it, either. Rawsthorne might be held up, even in a car with diplomatic plates. Damn that bloody fool Dawson,’ he said feelingly. ‘If he hadn’t messed things up we’d have been away in Wyatt’s car hours ago.’

He looked at the map. ‘Wyatt said we should find a place above the hundred-foot mark and facing north. This damned map has no contour lines. Eumenides, can you help me here?’

The Greek looked over Causton’s shoulder. ‘There,’ he said, and laid his finger on the map.

‘I dare say it is a nice place,’ agreed Causton. ‘But we’d have to go through two armies to get there. No, we’ll have to go along the coast in one direction or another and then strike inland to get height.’ His finger moved along the coast road. ‘I don’t think there’s any point in going west towards Cap Sarrat. There are units of the Government army strung along there, and anyway, it’s pretty flat as I remember it. The civil airfield is there and Favel will probably strike for it, so altogether it’ll be a pretty unhealthy place. So it’ll have to be the other way. What’s it like this road, Eumenides? The one that leads east?’

‘The road goes up,’ said Eumenides. ‘There is... there is...’ He snapped his fingers in annoyance. ‘It fall from road to sea.’

‘There are cliffs on the seaward side — this side?’ asked Causton, and the Greek nodded. ‘Just what we’re looking for,’ said Causton with satisfaction. ‘What’s the country like inland — say, here?’

Eumenides waved his hand up and down expressively. ‘’Ills.’

‘Then that’s it,’ said Causton. ‘But you’d better discuss it further with Rawsthorne when he comes.’

‘What about you?’ asked Julie. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Someone has to do a reconnaissance,’ said Causton. ‘We have to find if it’s a practicable proposition to go that way. I’m going to scout around the east end of town. It’s safe enough for one man.’

He rose from his knees and went to the window. ‘There are plenty of civilians out and about now; the police haven’t been able to bottle them all up in their houses. I should be able to get away with it.’

‘With a white skin?’

‘Um,’ said Causton. ‘That’s a thought.’ He went over to his bag and unzipped it. ‘A very little of this ought to do the trick.’ He looked with distaste at the tin of brown boot-polish in his hand. ‘Will you apply it, Julie? Just the veriest touch — there are plenty of light-coloured Negroes here and I don’t want to look like a nigger minstrel.’

Julie smeared a little of the boot-polish on his face. He said, ‘Don’t forget the back of the neck — that’s vital. It isn’t so much a disguise as a deception; it only needs enough to darken the skin so that people won’t take a second look and say “Look at that blanc”.’

He rubbed some of the polish on his hands and wrists, then said, ‘Now I want a prop.’

Julie stared at him. ‘A what?’

‘A stage property. I’ve wandered all through the corridors of power in Whitehall and got away with it because I was carrying a sheaf of papers and looked as though I was going somewhere. I got a scoop from a hospital by walking about in a white coat with a stethoscope dangling from my pocket. The idea is to look a natural part of the scenery — a stethoscope gives one a right to be in a hospital. Now, what gives me a right to be in a civil war?’

Eumenides grinned maliciously, and said, ‘A gun.’

‘I’m afraid so,’ said Causton regretfully. ‘Well, there ought to be plenty of those outside. I ought to be able to pick up a rifle and maybe a scrap of uniform to make it look convincing. Meanwhile, where’s that pop-gun of yours, Eumenides?’

‘In the bar where I lef’ it.’

‘Right — well, I’ll be off,’ said Causton. There was a heavy explosion not far away and the windows shivered in their frames. ‘It’s warming up. A pity this place has no cellars. Eumenides, I think you’d all better move downstairs — actually under the stairs is the best place. And if that Warmington woman gets hysterical, pop her one.’

Eumenides nodded.

Causton paused by the door. ‘I don’t think I’ll be long, but if I’m not back by eleven I won’t be coming back at all, and you’d better push off. With the townspeople coming out now the road might be difficult, so don’t wait for me.’

He left without waiting for a reply and ran down the stairs and into the bar. There were soda-water bottles stacked on the counter but no sign of the gun. He looked about for a couple of minutes then gave up, vaguely wondering what had happened to it. But he had no time to waste so he crossed the foyer and, with a precautionary glance outside, stepped boldly into the street.

II

Mrs Warmington was still drugged with sleep, for which Julie was thankful. She opened one drowsy eye and said, ‘Wha’ time is it?’

‘It’s quite early,’ said Julie. ‘But we must go downstairs.’

‘I wanna sleep,’ said Mrs Warmington indistinctly. ‘Send the maid with my tea in an hour.’

‘But we must go now,’ said Julie firmly. ‘We are going away soon.’ She began to assemble the things she needed.

‘What’s all that noise?’ complained Mrs Warmington crossly. ‘I declare this is the noisiest hotel I’ve ever slept in.’ This declaration seemed to exhaust her and she closed her eyes and a faint whistling sound emanated from the bed — too ladylike to be called a snore.

‘Come on, Mrs Warmington.’ Julie shook her by the shoulder.

Mrs Warmington roused herself and propped up on one elbow. ‘Oh, my head! Did we have a party?’ Slowly, intelligence returned to her eyes and her head jerked up as she recognized the din of the guns for what it was. ‘Oh, my God!’ she wailed. ‘What’s happening?’

‘The rebels have started to bombard the town,’ Julie said.

Mrs Warmington jumped out of bed, all traces of sleep gone. ‘We must leave,’ she said rapidly. ‘We must go now.’

‘We have no car yet,’ said Julie. ‘Mr Rawsthorne hasn’t come.’ She turned to find Mrs Warmington pushing her overfed figure into a tight girdle. ‘Good grief!’ she said, ‘don’t wear that — we might have to move fast. Have you any slacks?’

‘I don’t believe in women of... of my type wearing pants.’

Julie surveyed her and gave a crooked smile. ‘Maybe you’re right at that,’ she agreed. ‘Well, wear something sensible; wear a suit if it hasn’t got a tight skirt.’

She stripped the beds of their blankets and folded them into a bundle. Mrs Warmington said, ‘I knew we ought to have gone to the Base last night.’ She squeezed her feet into tight shoes.

‘You know it was impossible,’ said Julie briefly.

‘I can’t imagine what Commodore Brooks is thinking of — leaving us here at the mercy of these savages. Come on, let’s get out of here.’ She opened the door and went out, leaving Julie to bring the large bundle of blankets.

Eumenides was at the head of the stairs. He looked at the blankets and said, ‘Ver’ good t’ing,’ and took them from her.

There was a faint noise from downstairs as though someone had knocked over a chair. They all stood listening for a moment, then Mrs Warmington dug her finger into the Greek’s ribs. ‘Don’t just stand there,’ she hissed. ‘Find out who it is.’

Eumenides dropped the blankets and tiptoed down the stairs and out of sight. Mrs Warmington clutched her bag to her breast, then turned abruptly and walked back to the bedroom. Julie heard the click as the bolt was shot home.

Presently Eumenides reappeared and beckoned. ‘It’s Rawst’orne.’

Julie got Mrs Warmington out of the bedroom again and they all went downstairs to find Rawsthorne very perturbed. ‘They’ve started shelling the town,’ he said. ‘The Government troops are making a stand. It would be better if we moved out quickly before the roads become choked.’

‘I agree,’ said Mrs Warmington.

Rawsthorne looked around. ‘Where’s Causton?’

‘He’s gone to find the best way out,’ said Julie. ‘He said he wouldn’t be long. What time is it now?’

Rawsthorne consulted a pocket watch. ‘Quarter to nine — sorry I’m late. Did he say when he’d be back?’

She shook her head. ‘He didn’t think he’d be long, but he said that if he wasn’t back by eleven then he wouldn’t be coming at all.’

There was a violent explosion not far away and flakes of plaster drifted down from the ceiling. Mrs Warmington jumped. ‘Lead the way to your car, Mr Rawsthorne. We must leave now.’

Rawsthorne ignored her. ‘A little over two hours at the most,’ he said. ‘But he should be back long before that. Meanwhile...’ He looked up meaningly at the ceiling.

‘Causton said the best place for us was under the stairs,’ said Julie.

‘You mean we’re staying here?’ demanded Mrs Warmington. ‘With all this going on? You’ll get us all killed.’

‘We can’t leave Mr Causton,’ said Julie.

‘I fix,’ said Eumenides. ‘Come.’

The space under the main staircase had been used as a store-room. The door had been locked but Eumenides had broken it open with a convenient fire axe, tossed out all the buckets and brooms and had packed in all the provisions they were taking. Mrs Warmington objected most strongly to sitting on the floor but went very quietly when Julie said pointedly, ‘You’re welcome to leave at any time.’ It was cramped, but there was room for the four of them to sit, and if the door was kept ajar Rawsthorne found he had a view of the main entrance so that he could see Causton as soon as he came back.

He said worriedly, ‘Causton should never have gone out — I’ve never seen St Pierre like this, the town is starting to boil over.’

‘He’ll be all right,’ said Julie. ‘He’s experienced at this kind of thing — it’s his job.’

‘Thank God it’s not mine,’ said Rawsthorne fervently. ‘The Government army must have been beaten terribly in the Negrito. The town is full of deserters on the run, and there are many wounded men.’ He shook his head. ‘Favel’s attack must have come with shocking suddenness for that to have happened. He must be outnumbered at least three to one by the Government forces.’

‘You said Serrurier is making a stand,’ said Julie. ‘That means the fighting is going to go on.’

‘It might go on for a long time,’ said Rawsthorne soberly. ‘Serrurier has units that weren’t committed to battle yesterday — Favel didn’t give him time. But those fresh units are digging in to the north of the town, so that means another battle.’ He clicked deprecatingly with his tongue. ‘I fear Favel may have overestimated his own strength.’

He fell silent and they listened to the noise of the battle. Always there was the clamour of the guns from the out-skirts of the town, punctuated frequently by the closer and louder explosion of a falling shell. The air in the hotel quivered and gradually became full of a sifting dust so that the sunlight slanting into the foyer shone like the beams of searchlights.

Julie stirred and began to search among the boxes which Eumenides had packed at the back. ‘Have you had breakfast, Mr Rawsthorne?’

‘I didn’t have time, my dear.’

‘We might as well eat now,’ said Julie practically. ‘I think I can cut some bread if we rearrange ourselves a little. We might as well eat it before it becomes really stale.’

They breakfasted off bread and canned pressed meat, washing it down with soda-water. When they had finished Rawsthorne said, ‘What time is it? I can’t seem to get at my watch.’

‘Ten-fifteen,’ said Julie.

‘We can give Causton another three-quarters of an hour,’ said Rawsthorne. ‘But then we must go — I’m sorry, but there it is.’

‘That’s all right,’ said Julie quietly. ‘He did tell us to go at eleven.’

Occasionally they heard distant shouts and excited cries and sometimes the clatter of running boots. Eumenides said suddenly, ‘Your car... is in street?’

‘No,’ said Rawsthorne. ‘I left it at the back of the hotel.’ He paused. ‘Poor Wyatt’s car is in a mess; all the windows are broken and someone has taken the wheels; for the tyres, I suppose.’

They relapsed into cramped silence. Mrs Warmington hugged her bag and conducted an intermittent monologue which Julie ignored. She listened to the shells exploding and wondered what would happen if the hotel got a direct hit. She had no idea of the damage a shell could do apart from what she had seen at the movies and on TV and she had a shrewd idea that the movie version would be but a pale imitation of the real thing. Her mouth became dry and she knew she was very frightened.

The minutes dragged drearily by. Mrs Warmington squeaked sharply as a shell exploded near-by — the closest yet — and the windows of the foyer blew in and smashed. She started to get up, but Julie pulled her back. ‘Stay where you are,’ she cried. ‘It’s safer here.’

Mrs Warmington flopped back and somehow Julie felt better after that. She looked at Eumenides, his face pale in the dim light, and wondered what he was thinking. It was bad for him because, his English being what it was, he could not communicate easily. As she looked at him he pulled up his wrist to his eyes. ‘Quar’ to ’leven,’ he announced. ‘I t’ink we better load car.’

Rawsthorne stirred. ‘Yes, that might be a good idea,’ he agreed. He began to push open the door. ‘Wait a minute — here’s Causton now.’

Julie sighed. ‘Thank God!’

Rawsthorne pushed the door wider and then stopped short. ‘No, it’s not,’ he whispered. ‘It’s a soldier — and there’s another behind him.’ Gently he drew the door closed again, leaving it open only a crack and watching with one eye.

The soldier was carrying a rifle slung over one shoulder but the man behind, also a soldier, had no weapon. They came into the foyer, carelessly kicking aside the cane chairs, and stood for a moment looking at the dusty opulence around them. One of them said something and pointed, and the other laughed, and they both moved out of sight.

‘They’ve gone into the bar,’ whispered Rawsthorne.

Faintly, he could hear the clinking of bottles and loud laughter, and once, a smash of glass. Then there was silence. He said softly, ‘We can’t come out while they’re there; they’d see us. We’ll have to wait.’

It was a long wait and Rawsthorne began to feel cramp in his leg. He could not hear anything at all and began to wonder if the soldiers had not departed from the rear of the hotel. At last he whispered, ‘What time is it?’

‘Twenty past eleven.’

‘This is nonsense,’ said Mrs Warmington loudly. ‘I can’t hear anything. They must have gone.’

‘Keep quiet!’ said Rawsthorne. There was a ragged edge to his voice. He paused for a long time, then said softly, ‘They might have gone. I’m going to have a look round.’

‘Be careful,’ whispered Julie.

He was about to push the door open again when he halted the movement and swore softly under his breath. One of the soldiers had come out of the bar and was strolling through the foyer, drinking from a bottle. He went to the door of the hotel and stood for a while staring into the street through the broken panes in the revolving door, then he suddenly shouted to someone outside and waved the bottle in the air.

Two more men came in from outside and there was a brief conference; the first soldier waved his arm towards the bar with largesse as though to say ‘be my guests’. One of the two shouted to someone else outside, and presently there were a dozen soldiers tramping through the foyer on their way to the bar. There was a babel of sound in hard, masculine voices.

‘Damn them!’ said Rawsthorne. ‘They’re starting a party.’

‘What can we do?’ asked Julie.

‘Nothing,’ said Rawsthorne briefly. He paused, then said, ‘I think these are deserters — I wouldn’t want them to see us, especially...’ His voice trailed away.

‘Especially the women,’ said Julie flatly, and felt Mrs Warmington begin to quiver.

They lay there in silence listening to the racket from the bar, the raucous shouts, the breaking glasses and the voices raised in song. ‘All law in the city must be breaking down,’ said Rawsthorne at last.

‘I want to get out of here,’ said Mrs Warmington suddenly and loudly.

‘Keep that woman quiet,’ Rawsthorne hissed.

‘I’m not staying here,’ she cried, and struggled to get up.

‘Hold it,’ whispered Julie furiously, pulling her down.

‘You can’t keep me here,’ screamed Mrs Warmington.

Julie did not know what Eumenides did, but suddenly Mrs Warmington collapsed on top of her, a warm, dead weight, flaccid and heavy. She heaved violently and pushed the woman off her. ‘Thanks, Eumenides,’ she whispered.

‘For God’s sake!’ breathed Rawsthorne, straining his ears to hear if there was any sudden and sinister change in the volume of noise coming from the bar. Nothing happened; the noise became even louder — the men were getting drunk. After a while Rawsthorne said softly, ‘What’s the matter with that woman? Is she mad?’

‘No,’ said Julie. ‘Just spoiled silly. She’s had her own way all her life and she can’t conceive of a situation in which getting her own way could cause her death. She can’t adapt.’ Her voice was pensive. ‘I guess I feel sorry for her more than anything else.’

‘Sorry or not, you’d better keep her quiet,’ said Rawsthorne. He peered through the crack. ‘God knows how long this lot is going to stay here — and they’re getting drunker.’

They lay there listening to the rowdy noise which was sometimes overlaid by the reverberation of the battle. Julie kept looking at her watch, wondering how long this was going to go on. Every five minutes she said to herself, they’ll leave in another five minutes — but they never did. Presently she heard a muffled sound from Rawsthorne. ‘What is it?’ she whispered.

He turned his head. ‘More of them coming in.’ He turned back to watch. There were seven of them this time, six troopers and what seemed to be an officer, and there was discipline in the way they moved into the foyer and looked about. The officer stared across into the bar and shouted something, but his voice was lost in the uproar, so he drew his revolver and fired a shot in the air. There came sudden silence in the hotel.

Mrs Warmington stirred weakly and a bubbling groan came from her lips. Julie clamped her hand across the woman’s mouth and squeezed tight. She heard an exasperated sigh from Rawsthorne and saw him move his head slightly as though he had taken one quick look back.

The officer shouted in a hectoring voice and one by one the deserters drifted out of the bar and into the foyer and stood muttering among themselves, eyeing the officer insolently and in defiance. The last to appear was the soldier with the rifle — he was very drunk.

The officer whiplashed them with his tongue, his voice cracking in rage. Then he made a curt gesture and gave a quick command, indicating that they should line up. The drunken soldier with the rifle shouted something and unslung the weapon from his shoulder, cocking it as he did so, and the officer snapped an order to the trooper standing at his back. The trooper lifted his submachine-gun and squeezed the trigger. The stuttering hammer of the gun filled the foyer with sound and a spray of bullets took the rifleman across the chest and flung him backwards across a table, which collapsed with a crash.

A stray bullet slammed into the door near Rawsthorne’s head and he flinched, but he kept his eye on the foyer and saw the officer wave his arm tiredly. Obediently the deserters lined up and marched out of the hotel, escorted by the armed troopers. The officer put his revolver back into its holster and looked down at the man who had been killed. Viciously he kicked the body, then turned on his heel and walked out.

Rawsthorne waited a full five minutes before he said cautiously, ‘I think we can go out now.’

As he pushed open the door and light flooded into the store-room Julie released her grip of Mrs Warmington, who sagged sideways on to Eumenides. Rawsthorne stumbled out and Julie followed, then they turned to drag out the older woman. ‘How is she?’ asked Julie. ‘I thought I would suffocate her, but I had to keep her quiet.’

Rawsthorne bent over her. ‘She’ll be all right.’

It was twenty minutes before they were in the car and ready to go. Mrs Warmington was conscious but in a daze, hardly aware of what was happening. Eumenides was white and shaken. As he settled himself in the car seat he discovered a long tear in his jacket just under the left sleeve, and realized with belated terror that he had nearly been shot through the heart by the stray bullet that had frightened Rawsthorne.

Rawsthorne checked the instruments. ‘She’s full up with petrol,’ he said. ‘And there are a couple of spare cans in the back. We should be all right.’

He started off and the car rolled down the narrow alley at the back of the hotel heading towards the main street. The Union Jack mounted on the wing of the car fluttered a little in the breeze of their passage.

It was a quarter to two.

III

When Causton stepped out into the street he had felt very conspicuous as though accusing eyes were upon him from every direction, but after a while he began to feel easier as he realized that the people round him were intent only on their own troubles. Looking up the crowded street towards the Place de la Libération Noire he saw a coil of black smoke indicating a fire, and even as he watched he saw a shell burst in what must have been the very centre of the square.

He turned and began to hurry the other way, going with the general drift. The noise was pandemonium — the thunder of the guns, the wail of shells screaming through the air and the ear-splitting blasts as they exploded were bad enough, but the noise of the crowd was worse. Everyone seemed to find it necessary to shout, and the fact that they were shouting in what, to him, was an unknown language did not help.

Once a man grasped him by the arm and bawled a string of gibberish into his face and Causton said, ‘Sorry, old boy, but I can’t tell a word you’re saying,’ and threw the arm off. It was only when he turned away that he realized that he himself had shouted at the top of his voice.

The crowd was mainly civilian although there were a lot of soldiers, some armed but mostly not. The majority of the soldiers seemed to be unwounded and quite fit apart from their weariness and the glazed terror in their eyes, and Causton judged that these were men who had faced an artillery barrage for the first time in their lives and had broken under it. But there were wounded men, trudging along holding broken arms, limping with leg wounds, and one most horrible sight, a young soldier staggering along with his hands to his stomach, the red wetness of his viscera escaping through his slippery fingers.

But the civilians seemed even more demoralized than the soldiery. They ran about hither and thither, apparently at random. One man whom Causton observed changed the direction of his running six times in as many minutes, passing and re-passing Causton until he was lost in the crowd. He came upon a young girl in a red dress standing in the middle of the street, her hands clapped to her ears and her prettiness distorted as she screamed endlessly. He heard her screams for quite a long time as he fought his way through that agony of terror.

He finally decided he had better get into a side street away from the press, so he made his way to the pavement and turned the first corner he came to. It was not so crowded and he could make better time, a point he noted for when the time came to drive out the car. Presently he came upon a young soldier sitting on an orange box, his rifle beside him and one sleeve of his tunic flapping loose. Causton stopped and said, ‘Have you got a broken arm?’

The young man looked up uncomprehendingly, his face grey with fatigue. Causton tapped his own arm. ‘Le bras,’ he said, then made a swift motion as though breaking a stick across his knee. ‘Broken?’

The soldier nodded dully.

‘I’ll fix it,’ said Causton and squatted down to help the soldier take off his tunic. He kicked the orange box to pieces to make splints and then bound up the arm. ‘You’ll be okay now,’ he said, and departed. But he left bearing the man’s tunic and rifle — he now had his props.

The tunic was a tight fit so he wore it unbuttoned; the trousers did not match and he had no cap, but he did not think that mattered — all that mattered was that he looked approximately like a soldier and so had a proprietary interest in the war. He lifted the rifle and worked the action to find the magazine empty and smiled thoughtfully. That did not matter, either; he had never shot anyone in his life and did not intend starting now.

Gradually, by a circuitous route which he carefully marked on the map, he made his way to the eastern edge of the city by the coast road. He was relieved to see that here the crowds were less and the people seemed to be somewhat calmer. Along the road he saw a thin trickle of people moving out, a trickle that later in the day would turn to a flood. The sooner he could get Rawsthorne started in the car, the better it would be for everyone concerned, so he turned back, looking at his watch. It was later than he thought — nearly ten o’clock.

Now he found he was moving against the stream and progress was more difficult and would become even more so as he approached the disturbed city centre. He looked ahead and saw the blazon of smoke in the sky spreading over the central area — the city was beginning to burn. But not for long, he thought grimly. Not if Wyatt is right.

He pressed on into the bedlam that was St Pierre, pushing against the bodies that pressed against him and ruthlessly using the butt of his rifle to clear his way. Once he met a soldier fighting his way clear and they came face to face; Causton reversed his rifle and manipulated the bolt with a sharp click, thinking, What do I do if he doesn’t take the hint? The soldier nervously eyed the rifle muzzle pointing at his belly, half-heartedly made an attempt to lift his own gun but thought better of it, and retreated, slipping away into the crowd. Causton grinned mirthlessly and went on his way.

He was not far from the Imperiale when the press of the crowd became so much that he could not move. Christ! he thought; we’re sitting ducks for a shell-burst. He tried to make his way back, but found that as difficult as going forward — something was evidently holding up the crowd, something immovable.

He found out what it was when he struggled far enough back, almost to the corner of the street. A military unit had debouched from the side street and formed a line across the main thoroughfare, guns pointing at the crowd. Men were being hauled out of the crowd and lined up in a clear space, and Causton took one good look and tried to duck back. But he was too late. An arm shot out and grabbed him, pulling him bodily out of the crowd and thrusting him to join the others. Serrurier was busy rounding up his dissolving army.

He looked at the group of men which he had joined. They were all soldiers and all unwounded, looking at the ground with hangdog expressions. Causton hunched his shoulders, drooped his head and mingled unobtrusively with them, getting as far away from the front as possible. After a while an officer came and made a speech to them. Causton couldn’t understand a word of it, but he got the general drift of the argument. They were deserters, quitters under fire, who deserved to be shot, if not at dawn, then a damn’ sight sooner. Their only hope of staying alive was to go and face the guns of Favel for the greater glory of San Fernandez and President Serrurier.

To make his point the officer walked along the front row of men and arbitrarily selected six. They were marched across to the front of a house — poor, bewildered, uncomprehending sheep — and suddenly a machine-gun opened up and the little group staggered and fell apart under the hail of bullets. The officer calmly walked across and put a bullet into the brain of one screaming wretch, then turned and gave a sharp order.

The deserters were galvanized into action. Under the screams of bellowing non-coms they formed into rough order and marched away down the side street, Causton among them. He looked at the firing squad in the truck as he passed, then across at the six dead bodies. Pour encourager les autres, he thought.

Causton had been conscripted into Serrurier’s army.

IV

Dawson was astonished at himself.

He had lived his entire life as a civilized member of the North American community and, as a result, he had never come to terms with himself on what he would do if he got into real trouble. Like most modern civilized men, he had never met trouble of this sort; he was cosseted and protected by the community and paid his taxes like a man, so that this protection should endure and others stand between him and primitive realities such as death by bullet or torture.

Although his image was that of a free-wheeling, all-American he-man and although he was in danger of believing his own press-clippings, he was aware in the dim recesses of his being that this image was fraudulent, and from time to time he had wondered vaguely what kind of a man he really was. He had banished these thoughts as soon as they were consciously formulated because he had an uneasy feeling that he was really a weak man after all, and the thought disturbed him deeply. The public image he had formed was the man he wanted to be and he could not bear the thought that perhaps he was nothing like that. And he had no way of proving it one way or the other — he had never been put to the test.

Wyatt’s hardly concealed contempt had stung and he felt something approaching shame at his attempt to steal the car — that was not the way a man should behave. So that when his testing-time came something deep inside him made him square his shoulders and briskly tell Sous-Inspecteur Roseau to go to hell and make it damn’ fast, buddy.

So it was that now, lying in bed with all hell breaking loose around him, he felt astonished at himself. He had stood up to such physical pain as he had never believed possible and he felt proud that his last conscious act in Roseau’s office had been to look across at the implacable face before him and mumble, ‘I still say it — go to hell, you son of a bitch!’

He had recovered consciousness in a clean bed with his hands bandaged and his wounds tended. Why that should be he did not know, nor did he know why he could not raise his body from the bed. He tried several times and then gave up the effort and turned his attention to his new and wondrous self. In one brief hour he had discovered that he would never need a public image again, that he would never shrink from self-analysis.

‘I’ll never be afraid again,’ he whispered aloud through bruised lips. ‘By God, I stood it — I need never be afraid again.’

But he was afraid again when the artillery barrage opened up. He could not control the primitive reaction of his body; his glands worked normally and fear entered him as the hail of steel fell upon the Place de la Libération Noire. He shrank back on to the bed and looked up at the ceiling and wondered helplessly if the next shell would plunge down to take away his new-found manhood.

V

Not far away, Wyatt sat in the corner of his cell with his hands over his ears because the din was indescribably deafening. His face was cut about where broken glass had driven at him, but luckily his eyes were untouched. He had spent some time delicately digging out small slivers of glass from his skin — a very painful process — and the concentration needed had driven everything else out of his mind. But now he was sharply aware of what was going on.

Every gun Favel had appeared to be firing on the Place de la Libération Noire. Explosion followed explosion without ceasing and an acrid chemical stink drifted through the small window into the cell. The Poste de Police had not yet been hit, or at least Wyatt did not think so. And he was sure he would know. As he crouched in the corner with his legs up, grasshopper fashion, and his face dropped between his knees, he was busy making plans as to what he would do when the Poste was hit — if he still remained alive to do anything at all.

Suddenly there was an almighty clang that shivered the air in the cell. Wyatt felt like a mouse that had crawled into a big drum — he was completely deafened for a time and heard the tumult outside as though through a hundred layers of cloth. He staggered to his feet, shaking his head dizzily, and leaned against the wall. After a while he felt better and began to look more closely at the small room in which he was imprisoned. The Poste had been hit — that was certain — and surely to God something must have given way.

He looked at the opposite wall. Surely it had not had that bulge in it before? He went closer to examine it and saw a long crack zigzagging up the wall. He put his hand out and pushed tentatively, and then applied his shoulder and pushed harder. Nothing gave.

He stepped back and looked around the cell for something with which to attack the wall. He looked at the stool and rejected it — it was lightly built of wood, a good enough weapon against a man but not against the wall. There remained the bed. It was made of iron of the type where the main frame lifts out of sockets in the head and foot. The bed head, of tubular metal, was bolted together, but the bolts had rusted and it was quite a task to withdraw them. However, at the end of half an hour he had a goodly selection of tools with which to work — two primitive crowbars, several scrapers devised from the bed springs and an object which was quite unnameable but for which, no doubt, he could find a use.

Feeling rather like Edmond Dantes, he knelt before the wall and began to use one of the scrapers to detach loose mortar from the crack. The mortar, centuries old, was hard and ungiving, but the explosion had not done the wall any good and gradually he excavated a small hole, wide enough and deep enough to insert the end of his crowbar. Then he heaved until his muscles cracked and was rewarded with the minutest movement of the stone block which he was attacking.

He stood back to inspect the problem and became conscious that the intense shellfire directed at the square had ceased. The shell which had cracked the wall must have been one of the last fired in that direction, and all that could be heard now was a generalized battle noise away to the north of the town.

He dismissed the war from his mind and looked thoughtfully at his improvised crowbar. A crowbar is a lever, or rather, part of a lever — the other part is a fulcrum, and he had no fulcrum. He took the foot of the bed and placed it against the wall; it could be used as a fulcrum but not in the place he had made the hole. He would have to begin again and make another hole.

Again it took a long time. Patiently he scraped away at the iron-hard mortar, chipping and picking it to pieces, and when he had finished his knuckles were bruised and bleeding and his fingertips felt as though someone had sand-papered them raw. He was also beginning to suffer from thirst; he had drunk the small carafe of water that had been in the cell, and no one had come near since that last colossal explosion — a good sign.

He inserted the tip of his crowbar into the new hole and heaved again. Again he felt the infinitesimal shift in the wall. He took the bed foot and placed it within six inches of the wall and then plunged his crowbar into the hole. It rested nicely just on top of the metal frame of the bed. Then he took a deep breath and swung his whole weight on to the crow-bar. Something had to give — the crowbar, the bed, the wall — or, maybe, Wyatt. He hoped it would be the wall.

He felt the metal tube of the crowbar bending under his weight but still bore down heavily, lifting his feet from the floor. There came a sudden grating noise and a sharp shift in pressure and he found himself abruptly deposited on the floor. He turned over and coughed and waved his hand to disperse the dust which eddied and swirled through the cell illuminated by a bright beam of sunlight which shone through the gaping hole he had made.

He rested for a few minutes, then went to look at the damage. By his calculations, he should merely have broken through to the next cell and it had been a calculated risk whether he would find the door to that cell locked. But to his surprise, when he looked through the hole he could see, though not very clearly, a part of the square partly obscured by a ragged exterior wall.

The shell that had hit the Poste had totally destroyed the next cell and it was only by the mercy of the excellent and forgotten builders of his prison that he had not been blown to kingdom come.

He had dislodged only two of the heavy ashlar blocks that made up the wall and the hole would be a tight fit, but luckily he was slim and managed to wriggle through with nothing more than a few additional scrapes. It was tricky finding a footing on the other side because half the floor had been blown away, leaving the ground-floor office starkly exposed to the sky. A man looked up at him from down there with shocked brown eyes — but he was quite dead, lying on his back with his chest crushed by a block of masonry.

Wyatt teetered on the foot-wide ledge that was his only perch and supported himself with his hands while he looked across the square. It was desolate and uninhabited save for the hundreds of corpses that lay strewn about, corpses dressed in the light blue of the Government army uniform. The only movement was from the smoke arising from the dozen or so fiercely burning army trucks grouped round what had been the centrepiece — the heroic statue of Serrurier. But the statue was gone, blown from its plinth by the storm of steel.

He looked down. It would be quite easy to descend to the ground and to walk away as free as the air. But then he looked across and saw the door of the ruined cell hanging loose with one hinge broken, and although he hesitated, he knew what he must do. He must find Dawson.

He picked his way carefully along the narrow ledge until he came to a wider and safer part near the door. From then on it was easy and inside thirty seconds he was in the corridor of the cell block. It was strange; apart from the heavy layer of dust which overlay everything, there was not a sign that the building had been hit.

Walking up the corridor, he called, ‘Dawson!’ and was astonished to hear his voice emerge as a croak. He cleared his throat and called again in a stronger voice, ‘Dawson! Dawson!’

A confused shouting came from the cells around him, but he could not distinguish Dawson’s voice. Angrily, he shouted, ‘Taisez-vous!’ and the voices died away save for a faint cry from the end of the corridor. He hastened along and called again. ‘Dawson! Are you there?’

‘Here!’ a faint voice said, and he traced it to a room next to Roseau’s office. He looked at the door — this was no cell, it would be easy. He took a heavy fire-extinguisher, and, using it as a battering ram, soon shattered the lock and burst into the room.

Dawson was lying in bed, his head and hands bandaged. Both his eyes were blackened and he seemed to have lost some teeth. Wyatt looked at him. ‘My God! What did they do to you?’

Dawson looked at him for some seconds without speaking, then he summoned up a grin. ‘Seen yourself lately?’ he asked, speaking painfully through swollen lips.

‘Come on,’ said Wyatt. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

‘I can’t,’ said Dawson with suppressed rage. ‘The bastards strapped me down.’

Wyatt took a step forward and saw that it was true. Two broad straps ran across Dawson’s body, the buckles well under the bed far beyond the reach of prying hands. He ducked under the bed and began to unfasten them. ‘What happened after you were beaten up?’ he asked.

‘That’s the damnedest thing,’ said Dawson with perplexity. ‘I woke up in here and I’d been fixed up with these bandages. Why in hell would they do that?’

‘I threw a scare into Roseau,’ said Wyatt. ‘I’m glad it worked.’

‘They still didn’t want to lose me, I guess,’ said Dawson. ‘That’s why they strapped me down. I’ve been going through hell, waiting for a shell to bust through the ceiling. I thought it had happened twice.’

‘Twice? I thought there was only one hit.’

Dawson got out of bed. ‘I reckon there were two.’ He nodded to a chair. ‘Help me with my pants; I don’t think I can do it myself — not with these hands. Oh, how I’d like to meet up with that son of a bitch, Roseau.’

‘How are your legs?’ asked Wyatt, helping to dress him.

‘They’re okay.’

‘We’ve got a bit of climbing to do; not much — just enough to get down to street level. I think you’ll be able to do it. Come on.’

They went out into the corridor. ‘There’s a cell a bit further along that’s been well ventilated,’ said Wyatt. ‘We go out that way.’

A shot echoed in the corridor shockingly noisily and a bullet sprayed Wyatt with chips of stone as it ricocheted off the wall by his head. He ducked violently and turned to find Roseau staggering down the corridor after them. He was in terrible shape. His uniform was hanging about him in rags and his right arm was hanging limp as though broken. He held a revolver in his left hand and it was perhaps that which saved Wyatt from the next shot, which went wide.

He yelled, ‘That cell there,’ and pushed Dawson violently. Dawson ran the few yards to the door and dashed through to halt, staggering, in an attempt to save himself falling over the unexpected drop.

Wyatt retreated more slowly, keeping a wary eye on Roseau who lurched haltingly down the passage. Roseau said nothing at all; he brushed the blood away from his fanatical eyes with the back of the hand that held the gun, and his jaw worked as he aimed waveringly for another shot. Wyatt ducked through the cell door as the gun went off and heard a distinct thud as the bullet buried itself in the door-jamb.

‘Over here!’ yelled Dawson, and Wyatt hastily trod over the rubble and on to the narrow ledge. ‘If that crazy bastard comes out we’ll have to jump for it.’

‘It’s as good a way to break a leg as any,’ Wyatt said. He felt his fingers touch something loose and they curled round a fist-sized piece of rock.

‘Here he comes,’ said Dawson.

Roseau shuffled through the door, seemingly oblivious of the drop at his feet. He staggered forward, keeping his eyes on Wyatt, until the tips of his boots were overhanging space, and he lifted the gun in a trembling hand.

Wyatt threw the rock and it hit Roseau on the side of the head. The gun fired and he spun, losing his footing, to crash face down in the ruins below. His arm lay across the shoulder of the dead man as though he had found a lost comrade, and the newly disturbed dust settled again on the dead man’s open and puzzled eyes.

Dawson took a deep breath. ‘Jesus! Now there was a persistent son of a bitch. Thanks, Wyatt.’

Wyatt was shaking. He stood on the ledge with his back to the wall and waited for the quivers to go away. Dawson looked down at Roseau and said, ‘He wanted to implicate you — I didn’t, Wyatt. I didn’t tell him anything.’

‘I didn’t think you had,’ said Wyatt quietly. ‘Let’s get down from here. There’s nothing happening here now, but that could change damn’ quickly.’

Slowly they made their way down to the street. It was difficult for Dawson because his hands hurt, but Wyatt helped him. When they stood on the pavement Dawson asked, ‘What do we do now?’

‘I’m going back to the Imperiale,’ said Wyatt. ‘I must find Julie. I must find if she’s still in St Pierre.’

‘Which way is it?’

‘Across the square,’ said Wyatt, pointing.

They set off across the Place de la Libération Noire and Dawson stared at the carnage in horror. There were bodies everywhere, cut down in hundreds. They could not walk in a straight line for more than five yards without having to deviate and they gave up trying and stepped over the corpses. Suddenly Dawson turned and retched; he had not drunk or eaten for a long time, and his heavings were dry and laboured.

Wyatt kicked something which rang with a hollow clang. He looked down to see the decapitated head of a man; the eyes stared blankly and there was a ghastly hole in the left temple.

It was the bronze head of the statue of Serrurier.