Wyatt's Hurricane

I

Favel said tolerantly, ‘Because Charles seems pleased does not mean that he does not realize the gravity of the situation. It is merely that he likes to face reality — he is no shadow boxer.’

The dining-room of the Imperiale was stiflingly hot and Causton wished that the fans would work. Favel had promised to get the city electricity plant working as soon as possible, but there was no point in it now. He unstuck his shirt from the small of his back and looked across at Wyatt. Manning isn’t the only happy man around here, he thought; Wyatt has made his point at last.

But if Wyatt was more relaxed he was not too happy; there was much to do and the time was slipping away, minute by minute, while Favel airily tossed off inconsequential comments. He shrugged irritably and then looked up as Favel addressed him directly, ‘What is your advice, Mr Wyatt?’

‘Evacuation,’ said Wyatt promptly. ‘Total evacuation of St Pierre.’

Manning snorted. ‘We’re fighting a war, dammit. We can’t do two things at once.’

‘I’m not too sure,’ said Favel in a low voice. ‘Charles, come over here — I want to show you something.’ He took Manning by the arm and led him to a table, where they bent over a map and conversed in a murmur.

Wyatt looked across at Causton and thought of what he had said just before this conference began. He had been a shade cynical about Favel and his concern for ‘my people’. ‘Naturally he’s concerned,’ Causton said. ‘St Pierre is the biggest town on the island. It’s the source of power — that’s why he’s here now. But the power comes from the people in the city, not the buildings, and, as a politician, he knows that very well.’

Wyatt had said that Favel seemed to be an idealist, and Causton laughed. ‘Nonsense! He’s a thoroughly practical politician, and there’s precious little idealism in politics. Serrurier’s not the only killer — Favel has done his share.’

Wyatt thought of the carnage in the Place de la Libération Noire and was forced to agree. But he could not agree that Favel was worse than Serrurier after he had seen them both in action.

Favel and Manning came back, and Favel said, ‘We are in trouble, Mr Wyatt. The American evacuation of Cap Sarrat has made my task ten times more difficult — it has released a whole new army of Government troops to assault my right flank.’ He smiled. ‘Fortunately, we believe that Serrurier has taken command himself and I know of old that he is a bad general. Rocambeau on my left flank is another matter altogether, even though his men are tired and defeated. I tell you — if the positions of Serrurier and Rocambeau were reversed then this war would be over in twelve hours and I would be a dead man.’

He shook his head sadly. ‘And in these conditions you want me to evacuate the entire population of our capital city.’

‘It must be done,’ said Wyatt stolidly.

‘Indeed I agree,’ said Favel. ‘But how?’

‘You’ll have to make an armistice. You’ll have...’

Manning threw back his head and laughed. ‘An armistice,’ he scoffed. ‘Do you think Serrurier will agree to an armistice now he knows he can crack us like a nut?’

‘He will if he knows there’s a hurricane coming.’

Favel leaned forward and said intensely, ‘Serrurier is mad; he does not care about hurricanes. He knows this island does not have hurricanes. So you told me yourself in your account of your interview with him.’

‘He must believe it now,’ exclaimed Wyatt. ‘How else can he account for the evacuation of Cap Sarrat Base?’

Favel waved his hand. ‘He will find that easy to rationalize. The Americans withdrew because they feared an assault from the mighty army of Serrurier, the Black Star of the Antilles. The Americans ran away because they were afraid.’

Wyatt looked at him in astonishment and then knew that Favel was right. Any man who could banish a hurricane would automatically reason in that grandiloquent and paranoiac manner. He said unwillingly, ‘Perhaps you’re right.’

‘I am right,’ said Favel decisively. ‘So what must we do now? Come, I will show you.’ He led Wyatt to the map table. ‘Here we have St Pierre — and here we have your line which marks the limit of flooding. The population of St Pierre will be evacuated up the Negrito Valley, but keeping away from the river. While this is being done the army must contain the assaults of Serrurier and Rocambeau.’

‘And that’s not going to be too bloody easy,’ said Manning.

‘I am going to make it less easy,’ said Favel. ‘I want two thousand troops to supervise the evacuation. That leaves one thousand to withstand Serrurier on the right, and two thousand to contain Rocambeau on the left. They’ll have all the artillery, of course.’

‘Julio, have a heart,’ yelled Manning. ‘It can’t be done that way. We haven’t the men to spare. If you don’t have enough infantry to protect the guns they’ll be overrun. You can’t do it.’

‘It must be done,’ said Favel. ‘There is not much time. To move a whole population, we will need the men to get the people from their homes, by force if necessary.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It is now nine-thirty. In ten hours from now I do not want a single living being left in the city apart from the army. You will be in charge of the evacuation, Charles. Be ruthless. If they won’t move, prod them with bayonets; if that fails, then shoot a few to encourage the others. But get them out.’

Wyatt listened to Favel’s flat voice and, for the first time, knew the truth of what Causton had implied. This was a man who used power like a weapon, who had the politician’s view of people as a mass and not as individuals. Perhaps it was impossible for him to be otherwise: he had the ruthlessness of a surgeon wielding a knife in an emergency operation — to cure the whole he would destroy the parts.

‘So we get them out,’ said Manning. ‘Then what?’

Favel gestured at the map, and said softly, ‘Then we let Serrurier and Rocambeau have St Pierre. For the first time in history men will use a hurricane as a weapon of war.’

Wyatt drew in his breath, shocked to the core of his being. He stepped forward and said in a cracked voice, ‘You can’t do that.’

‘Can’t I?’ Favel swung on him. ‘I’ve been trying to kill those men with steel, and if I had my way I would kill every one of them. And they want to kill me and my men. Why shouldn’t I let the hurricane have them? God knows how many of my men will be lost saving the inhabitants of St Pierre; they’ll be outnumbered five to one and a lot of them will die — so why shouldn’t the hurricane exact my revenge?’

Wyatt momentarily quailed before those blazing blue eyes and fell back. Then he said, ‘I gave you the warning to save lives, not to take them. This is uncivilized.’

‘And the hydrogen bomb is civilized?’ snapped Favel. ‘Use your brains — what else can I do? This afternoon, when the evacuation is complete, my men will be in sole possession of St Pierre. I am certainly not going to leave them there. When they withdraw the Government forces will move in, thinking we are in retreat. What else would they think? I am not asking them to be drowned in St Pierre — they enter the city at their own risk.’

‘How far will you withdraw?’ asked Wyatt.

‘You drew the line yourself,’ said Favel remorselessly. ‘We will hold, as far as we can, on the eighty-foot contour line.’

‘You could withdraw further,’ said Wyatt heatedly. ‘They’d follow you on to higher ground.’

Favel’s hand came down on the table with the sound of a pistol shot. ‘I have no wish to fight further battles. There has been enough of killing men. Let the hurricane do its work.’

‘This is murder.’

‘What else is war but murder?’ asked Favel, and turned his back on Wyatt. ‘Enough, we have work to do. Charles, let us see which men I can spare you.’

He walked to the end of the room, leaving Wyatt shattered. Causton came over and put his hand on his shoulder. ‘Don’t worry your head about the policies of princes,’ he advised. ‘It’s dangerous.’

‘This is against all I’ve ever worked for,’ said Wyatt in a low voice. ‘I never intended this.’

‘Otto Frisch and Lise Meitner didn’t mean trouble when they split the uranium atom back in 1939.’ Causton nodded up the room towards Favel. ‘If you find a way of controlling hurricanes, it’s men like that who’ll decide what they’ll be used for.’

‘He could save everyone,’ said Wyatt in a stronger voice. ‘He could, you know. If he retreated up into the hills the Government forces would follow him.’

‘I know,’ said Causton.

‘But he’s not going to do that. He’s going to pen them in St Pierre.’

Causton scratched his head. ‘That may not be as easy as it sounds. He’s got to stand off Rocambeau and Serrurier until the evacuation is completed, then he has to conduct a controlled retreat without being smashed while he’s doing it. Next, he has to establish his perimeter on the eighty-foot line and that’s a hell of a long line to hold with five thousand men — less what he’ll have lost while all this has been going on. And on top of all that he’ll have to dig in against the wind.’ He shook his head doubtfully. ‘A tricky operation altogether.’

Wyatt looked at Favel. ‘I think he’s as power-mad as Serrurier.’

‘Look, laddie,’ said Causton. ‘Start thinking straight. He’s doing what he has to do in the circumstances. He’s begun something he’s got to go through with and in the dicey position he’s in now, he’ll use any weapon at hand — even a hurricane.’ He paused thoughtfully. ‘Maybe he’s not as bad as I thought. When he said he didn’t want any more battles, I think he meant it.’

‘He might well,’ said Wyatt. ‘As long as he comes out on top.’

Causton grinned. ‘You’re getting an education in the political facts of life. Damn it, some of you scientists are bloody naive.’

Wyatt said, with something of despair in his voice, ‘I’d have liked to have gone into atomic physics — my tutor wanted me to — but I didn’t like the end results of what they were doing. Now it’s happening to me anyway.’

‘You can’t live in an ivory tower all your life,’ said Causton roughly. ‘You can’t escape the world outside.’

‘Perhaps not,’ said Wyatt, frowning. ‘But there’s something I’ve got to do. What about Julie and Rawsthorne and the others? We must do something about them.’

Causton made a strangled noise. ‘What were you thinking of doing?’ he asked with caution.

‘We’ve got to do something,’ said Wyatt angrily. ‘I want transport — a car or something — and an escort for part of the way.’

Causton struggled for a while to sort out his emotions. At last he said, ‘You weren’t intending — by any chance — going into the middle of Rocambeau’s army, were you?’

‘It seems to be the only way,’ said Wyatt. ‘I can’t think of anything else.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t worry Favel about it now,’ advised Causton. ‘He’s busy.’ He regarded Wyatt thoughtfully, trying to decide if he could be entirely sane. ‘Besides, Favel won’t want to lose you.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ demanded Wyatt.

‘He’ll expect you to consult the skies and give him a timetable for his operations.’

‘I’m not lending myself to that sort of thing,’ said Wyatt through his teeth.

‘Now, look here,’ said Causton in a hard voice. ‘Favel has over sixty thousand people to think of. You have only four — and you’re really only thinking of one. He is getting the people out of St Pierre, you know — and that is not essential to his military plans. In fact, the effort might damn’ well cripple him. I’ll leave it to you to see where your duty lies.’ He turned on his heel and walked away.

Wyatt looked after him with a sinking feeling in his stomach. Causton was right, of course; too damnably right. He was caught up in this thing whether he liked it or not — in saving the population of St Pierre he would help to destroy the Government army. Perhaps it would be better to think of it the other way round — in helping to destroy the army he would save the people. He thought about that, but it did not make him feel much better.

II

At eleven o’clock the city of St Pierre boiled over. Manning’s plan was brutally simple. Starting simultaneously in the eastern and western suburbs, just behind the troops drawn up ready for battle, his evacuating force pitched the inhabitants into the streets, going systematically from house to house. The people could take the clothes they stood up in and as much food as they could carry — nothing else. The result was as though someone had thrust a stick into an ants’ nest and given it a vicious twist.

Manning issued maps of the city to his officers, scored with red and blue lines. The red lines indicated the lines of communication of the army; no civilians were allowed on those streets at all on pain of death — at all costs the army must be protected and serviced and nothing must stand in the way of that. The blue lines led to the main road leading up through the Negrito Valley, the road along which Wyatt had driven with Julie what seemed a hundred years before.

There were incidents. The blue lines indicated one-way traffic only, a traffic regulation enforced with violence. Those attempting to go against the stream were brusquely ordered to turn round, and if this failed, then the point of a bayonet was a convincing argument. But sometimes, against a frantic father looking for his family, even the bayonet was not convincing enough and the rifle beyond the bayonet spoke a louder word. The body would be dragged to the side of the road so as not to impede the steady shuffle of feet.

It was brutal. It was necessary. It was done.

Causton, wearing the brassard of a rebel officer, roamed the city. In all the hot spots of a troubled world he had covered in the course of his work he had never seen anything like this. He was simultaneously appalled and exultant — appalled at the vast scale of the tragedy he was witnessing, and exultant that he was the only newspaperman on the spot. The batteries of his tape recorder having run down, he wrote the quick, efficient shorthand he had learned as a cub reporter in notebooks looted from a stationery shop, and recorded the scene for a news-hungry world.

The people were apathetic. For years Serrurier had systematically culled the leaders from among them and all that were left were the sheep. They resisted vocally on being told to get out of their homes but the sight of the guns silenced them, and, once in the street, they fell into the long line obediently and shuffled forward with Favel’s men at their heels chivvying them to greater speed. Inevitably there were confusions and bottlenecks as the greater mass of the populace came on to the streets; at one corner where two broad streets debouched into a third at a narrow angle there was chaos — a tangled inextricable mass of bodies crushed against one another which took Favel’s bawling noncoms two hours to straighten out, and when at last this traffic jam was eased it left a couple of dozen crushed and suffocated corpses as evidence of anarchy.

Causton, in his borrowed car, toured the city and finally turned to the Negrito, checking on his map to find the quickest way on a red-lined route. He arrived by means of a side road at the main road leading into the Negrito Valley quite close to where Serrurier’s artillery had been captured, and saw the long line of refugees streaming away in the distance. Here there was a sizeable force of rebel soldiers, about two hundred strong. They were weeding out able-bodied men from the passing stream, forming them into squads and marching them away. Curious, Causton followed one of these squads to see where they were going and saw them set to digging under the rifles of Favel’s men.

Favel was establishing his final defence line on the eighty-foot contour.

When Causton returned to his car he saw a little pile of bodies tossed carelessly into a heap by the roadside behind the rebel troops — the conscientious objectors, the men who would not dig for victory.

Sickened by death, he contemplated driving up the Negrito to safety. Instead, he turned the car and went back into the city because he still had his job to do and because his job was his life. He drove back to general headquarters at the Imperiale and asked for Wyatt, finding him eventually on the roof, looking at the sky.

He looked up too, and saw a few feathery clouds barely veiling the furnace of the sun. ‘Anything doing yet?’ he asked.

Wyatt turned. ‘Those clouds,’ he said. ‘Mabel’s on her way.’

Causton said, ‘They don’t seem much. We get clouds like that in England.’

‘You’ll see the difference pretty soon.’

Causton cocked an eye at him. ‘Got over your bloody-mindedness?’

‘I suppose so,’ said Wyatt gloomily.

‘I have a thought that might console you,’ Causton said. ‘The people who are going to get it in the neck are Serrurier’s soldiers, and soldiers are paid to get killed. That’s more than you can say for the women and children of St Pierre.’

‘What’s it like out there?’

‘Grim,’ said Causton. ‘There was a bit of looting, but Favel’s men soon put a stop to that.’ He deliberately refrained from mentioning the methods being used to get the people on the move; instead, he said, ‘The devil of it is that there’s only one practicable road out of town. Have you any idea how much road-space a city full of people takes up?’

‘I’ve never had occasion to work it out,’ said Wyatt sourly.

‘I did some quick mental arithmetic,’ said Causton. ‘And I came up with the figure of twelve miles. Since they’re not moving at more that two miles an hour, it takes six hours for the column to pass any given spot.’

‘I spent an hour looking at maps,’ said Wyatt. ‘Favel wanted me to outline safe areas for the people. I did my best, looking at bloody contours, but—’ he thumped a fist into the palm of his hand — ‘safe? I don’t know. This town ought to have had a hurricane plan ready for lifting from a pigeon-hole and putting into action,’ he said savagely.

‘That’s not Favel’s fault,’ pointed out Causton reasonably. ‘You can blame Serrurier for that.’ He looked at his watch. ‘One o’clock and Rocambeau hasn’t made a move yet. He must have been mauled more seriously than we thought. Have you eaten yet?’

Wyatt shook his head, so Causton said, ‘Let’s see what we can rustle up. It might be the last time we’ll eat for quite a while.’

They went downstairs and were buttonholed by Manning, who had just walked in. ‘When’s that hurricane due?’ he asked abruptly.

‘I can’t tell you yet,’ said Wyatt. ‘But give me another couple of hours and I’ll tell you exactly.’

Manning looked disgusted, but said nothing. Causton said, ‘Is there anything to eat around here? I’m getting peckish.’

Manning grinned. ‘We did find a few stray chickens. You’d better come with me.’

He took them into the manager’s office, which had been converted into an officers’ mess, and they found Favel just finishing a meal. He also questioned Wyatt, going into it much more thoroughly than Manning had, and then he went back to his map room, leaving them to eat in peace.

Causton gnawed on a chicken leg and then paused, pointing it at Manning. ‘Where do you come into all this?’ he asked. ‘How did you get tangled up with Favel?’

‘A matter of business,’ said Manning offhandedly.

‘Such as professional advice on how to organize a war?’

Manning grinned. ‘Favel doesn’t need any teaching about that.’

Causton looked profound. ‘Ah,’ he said, as though enlightenment had suddenly come to him. ‘Your business is AFC business.’

Wyatt looked up. ‘What’s that?’

‘The Antilles Fruit Corporation — very big business in this part of the world. I was wondering where Favel got his finance.’

Manning put down a bone. ‘I’m not likely to tell you, am I? I wouldn’t shoot off my mouth to a reporter.’

‘Not in the normal way,’ agreed Causton. ‘But if the reporter had the smell of the right idea and he was good enough at his job to ferret out the rest of it, you’d want him to get the right story, wouldn’t you? From your angle, I mean.’

Manning laughed. ‘I like you, Causton; I really do. Well, I can give you some kind of story — but it’s off the record and don’t quote me on it. Let’s say I’m having a quiet talk with Wyatt here, and you’re eavesdropping with those long ears.’ He looked at Wyatt. ‘Let’s say there was a big American corporation which had a lot of capital invested in San Fernandez at one time, and all its holdings were expropriated by Serrurier.’

‘AFC,’ said Causton.

‘Could be,’ said Manning. ‘But I’m not saying so out loud. The officers of this corporation were as mad as hornets, naturally — their losses were more than twenty-five million dollars — and the shareholders weren’t pleased, either. That’s one half of it. The other half is Favel — he’s the chap who could do something about it — for reasons of his own. But he had no money to buy arms and train men, so what more natural than they get together?’

‘But why pick you as a go-between?’ asked Causton.

Manning shrugged. ‘I’m in the business — I’m for hire. And they didn’t want an American; that might not have looked right. Anyway, I went shopping with the corporation’s money — there’s a chap in Switzerland, an American, who has enough guns to equip the British army, let alone our piddling little effort. Favel knew exactly what he wanted — rifles, machine-guns, mortars to pack a big wallop and yet be easily moved, recoilless rifles and a few mountain guns. He got his best men off the island and set up a training school — and I’d better not tell you where. He hired a few artillery instructors to train his men and then gradually started to recruit again on the island. When he had enough men we shipped in the arms.’

Wyatt said incredulously, ‘Do you mean to tell me that all this has been done so that a fruit company can make a few dollars more profit?’

Manning looked at him sharply and his hand curled into a ball. ‘It has not,’ he said crisply. ‘Where do you get that idea?’

Causton said hastily, ‘Pray forgive my young friend. He’s still wet behind the ears — he doesn’t understand the facts of life, as I’ve had occasion to tell him.’

Manning pointed his finger at Wyatt. ‘You say that to Favel and you’ll get your head chopped off. Somebody had to get Serrurier out and Favel was the only one with guts enough. And it couldn’t be done constitutionally because Serrurier abolished the constitution, so it had to be done with blood — a surgical operation. It’s a pity, but there it is.’

He relaxed and grinned at Causton. ‘Our hypothetical fruit corporation might have caught a tiger by the tail — Favel is no one’s dummy. He’s a bit of a reformer, you know, and he’ll hold out for fair pay and good working conditions on the plantations.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m no company man; it’s no skin off my nose if Favel bites the hand that’s fed him.’

Wyatt winced. It seemed that Causton was right again. Nothing in this topsy-turvy world of politics made sense to him. It was a world in which black and white merged into an indeterminate grey, where bad actions were done for good reasons and good reasons were suspect. It was not his world and he wished he were out of it, in his own uncomplicated sphere of figures and formulae where all he had to worry about was whether a hurricane would behave itself.

He was about to apologize but he saw that Manning was still talking to Causton. ‘...will be better when San Fernandez can build up a fund of development capital instead of it being siphoned off into Serrurier’s pocket. A bit of spare money round here would make all the difference — it could be a good place.’

Causton said, ‘Can Favel be trusted?’

‘I think so. He’s liberally inclined, but he’s not a milk-and-water liberal, and he’s got no inclination to be taken over by the Russians like Castro. He’ll stand up to the Americans, too.’ Manning grinned. ‘He’ll make them pay a hell of a lot more for Cap Sarrat Base than they’ve been paying.’ He became serious. ‘He’ll be a dictator because he can’t be anything else right now. Serrurier beat the stuffing out of these people, killed their natural leaders and drained them of guts — they’re not fit for government yet. But I don’t think he’ll be a bad dictator, certainly not as bad as Serrurier.’

‘Um,’ said Causton. ‘He’ll have to take a lot of criticism from well-meaning fools who don’t know what’s been going on here.’

‘That won’t worry him,’ said Manning. ‘He doesn’t give a damn about what people say about him. And he can give as good as he gets.’

The table shook and there came a roll of thunder rumbling from the east. Manning lifted his head. ‘The party’s started — Rocambeau has begun his attack.’

III

Julie looked through a crack in the door of the corrugated iron hut, paying no attention to the shrill voice of Mrs Warmington who sat crouched on a box behind her. There still seemed to be a lot of trucks in the quarry, although she had heard many drive away. And there were still many soldiers about, some standing in groups, talking and smoking, and others moving about intent on their business. She was thankful that the officer had not considered it necessary to post a guard on the hut; he had merely tested the bolt on the outside of the door before pushing them inside.

She had had a hard time with Mrs Warmington — the woman was impossible. When they were captured and brought down to the quarry Mrs Warmington had tried to talk her way out of it, raising her voice in an attempt to get her point over — which was that she was an American and not to be treated like a criminal when she had merely been defending her life and honour. It had not worked because no one understood English, no matter how loudly shouted, and they had been thrust into the hut and, Julie hoped, forgotten.

She turned from the door, irritated with Mrs Warmington’s monologue. ‘For God’s sake, will you be quiet?’ she said wearily. ‘What do you want them to do — come in here and shut you up with a gun? They will, you know, once they get as tired of you as I am.’

Mrs Warmington’s mouth shut with a snap — but not for long. ‘This is intolerable,’ she said with the air of a victim. ‘The State Department will know of this when I get home.’

‘If you get home,’ said Julie cruelly. ‘You shot a man, you know. You shot him with Eumenides’s gun.’ She cocked her head at the door. ‘They’re not going to like that.’

‘But they don’t know,’ said Mrs Warmington craftily. ‘They think it was that Greek.’

Julie looked at her in disgust for a long moment. ‘They don’t know,’ she agreed. ‘But they will if I tell them.’

Mrs Warmington gulped. ‘But you wouldn’t do that... would... you?’ Her voice tailed away as she saw the expression on Julie’s face.

‘I will if you don’t keep your big trap shut,’ said Julie callously. ‘You killed Eumenides — you killed him as surely as if you’d shot him and pushed a bayonet into his back yourself. He was a nice guy; not very brave maybe — who is? — but a nice guy. He didn’t deserve that. I’m not going to forget it, you know, so you’d better watch yourself. If I killed you here and now it wouldn’t be murder, just decent execution.’

She spoke levelly and without emphasis, but her words were chilling and Mrs Warmington shrank into a corner with horror in her eyes. Julie said, ‘So walk carefully round me, you big bag of wind, or I might be tempted. I could kill you, it shouldn’t be too difficult.’ Her voice was detached, but when she looked down at her hands she saw they were shaking violently.

She turned and looked again through the crack in the door, astonished at herself. Never before had she struck at another person with such deadly intent to hurt, never before had she trembled in such fury. For too long she had exercised the tact drilled into her as an air hostess and it felt good to let rip at this futile and dangerous woman. She felt a surge of strength and knew she had done the right thing.

She felt a warm trickle run down her thigh, and looked at her arm and saw the drying blood where she had been jabbed by a bayonet. There was much activity outside but no one seemed to be taking particular note of the hut, so she stripped off her slacks and examined the wounds in her legs.

Incredibly, Mrs Warmington had retained her purse when they were dragged down the hill, and now Julie picked it up and dumped the contents on to the floor. It contained no more than the usual rat’s nest found in a woman’s purse; lipstick, compact, comb, money in notes and coins — quite a lot of that, traveller’s cheques, pen, notebook, a packet of tissues, a bottle of aspirin, a small flask of spirit which proved to be bourbon, an assortment of hairpins, several loose scraps of paper and a cloying scent of spilled face powder.

She stirred the heap with her finger and said sardonically, ‘You’ve lost your jewels.’ She took the tissues and began to stanch her wounds. They were not too bad; the worst was not a quarter of an inch deep, but they bled freely and she knew that when they stopped bleeding her legs would become very stiff and painful to move. She took two of the aspirin tablets and dumped half of the contents of the bottle into her shirt pocket. As she swallowed the aspirins she wished they had water, and wondered what could be done about that. Then she donned her slacks and tossed the remainder of the tissues to Mrs Warmington. ‘Clean yourself up,’ she ordered abruptly, and went to the door again.

She stayed to observe the scene for a long time. The quarry apparently formed a convenient military park close to the main road but not in the way of traffic. There were many trucks moving in and out but she noted that the general trend was to lessen the number of vehicles standing idle. She hoped briefly, but with no great assurance, that everyone would go away, forgetting the white women imprisoned in the hut, and wondered how much chance there was of that happening.

After a while she tired of the changing scene that always remained the same and began to explore the hut. Mrs Warmington sat mutely in her corner, looking at Julie with frightened eyes, and Julie ignored her. Most of the boxes were empty, but behind a large tea-chest filled with bits and pieces of scrap iron she found a sledge-hammer and a pickaxe, both in reasonably good condition.

Julie hefted the hammer and then explored the walls of the hut. The wooden framework was rotten and the nails that held the rusty iron sheets were corroded, and she thought she would have no difficulty in battering her way out provided there was no one within earshot — an unlikely eventuality. She put the tools close to hand behind the door where they would not be easily seen and settled down again to her vigil.

The morning wore on and slowly the quarry emptied of vehicles. As the sun rose higher in the sky the hut warmed to an oven-like heat and the iron walls were too hot to touch. The two women sat there and sweated, listening to the noisy clash of gears and the roar of engines as trucks drove to and fro — and they became very thirsty.

She wondered what had happened to Rawsthorne and concluded that he must also have been taken prisoner, or perhaps killed. It had only been the fortunate arrival of the Negro officer that had saved them, and maybe Rawsthorne had not been so lucky. She coldly contemplated the grim fact that if she did not get out of this hut she would die. Rawsthorne had already rejected the quarry as being safe from the hurricane, and however the fortunes of the civil war she would die if she could not escape.

Her thoughts again turned to Wyatt. It was a great pity that now they had come together at last they should be parted and that both would probably die. At the moment she did not give much for her own chances, and while she was ignorant of what had happened to Wyatt, she was doubtful of his having survived the war that had washed over St Pierre.

She was aroused from her reverie by Mrs Warmington. ‘I’m thirsty.’

‘So am I,’ said Julie. ‘Shut up!’

Something was happening — or rather, not happening — and she made a quick gesture with her hand, pressing Mrs Warmington to silence. It had suddenly gone very quiet. True, there was the noise of traffic from the main coast road, but the closer rumble of trucks from the quarry had ceased. She looked through the crack in the door again and found the quarry empty except for one soldier, who squatted in the shade a dozen yards away and seemed to be dozing. There had been a guard, after all.

Julie turned and snatched the purse from Mrs Warmington’s grasping hand and took out the wad of notes. Mrs Warmington flared up. ‘Don’t take that — it’s mine.’

‘You want water, don’t you?’ asked Julie. ‘We might be able to buy some.’ She looked at the thick bundle of money. ‘We might even be able to buy our way out of here — if you keep quiet.’ Mrs Warmington closed her mouth abruptly, and Julie said, ‘I don’t know my way around in this language, but I’ll try; the money will speak loud enough, anyway.’

She went to the door and looked through the crack. ‘Hey you, there!’

The soldier turned round lazily and blinked at the door. He saw what appeared to be a bank-note of large denomination protruding through the door of the hut and moving gently up and down. He scrambled to his feet, seized his rifle, and approached the hut with circumspection diluted with avarice. The bank-note flashed from sight as he made a grab for it, and a feminine voice said, ’L’eau... agua. Can you get us some?’

Julie watched the puzzlement on the man’s face, and said urgently, ‘Bring us water. Water... l’eau... agua. You can have the money.’

The soldier scratched his head, and then his face cleared. ‘Ah — l’eau.’

‘That’s right. You can have the money — the money, see when you bring l’eau.’

He broke into a jabber of incomprehensible patois, finally ending with, ’L’argent... la monnaie... pour l’eau?’

‘That’s right, buster; you’ve got it.’

He nodded and went away and Julie breathed a sigh of relief. Her throat was parched and felt like sand-paper, and the thought of cool water made her feel dizzy for a moment. But there was something that had to be done before the soldier returned. It was not likely he would unlock the door — he probably had no key — and how would he get the water into the hut?

She seized the sledge-hammer and prodded tentatively at the bottom of the door where it seemed to be weakest. Then she swung the hammer like a golf club and crashed it once against the rotten wood. A piece gave way leaving a small opening, and she dared not do more. She did not know how far the soldier had gone and he could still be within earshot — one sharp noise he might dismiss, but not the constant repetition necessary to break down the door.

She saw him coming back bearing a bottle and a tin cup and he paused a moment and looked helplessly as she rattled the door. He said something and shrugged his shoulders and she knew he could not open the door, so she bent down and put her hand through the hole she had made. ‘Down here,’ she shouted, hoping he did not realize the opening was new.

He squatted before the door and put the bottle and cup just out of her reach. ‘L’argent,’ he said in a bass growl. ‘La monnaie.’

She cursed him and pushed a bank-note through the hole. He grabbed it and pushed the tin cup within her reach. She drew it through the hole gently, careful not to spill it, and passed it to Mrs Warmington. When she reached for the bottle it was still beyond her grasp. The soldier grinned and said cheerfully, ‘L’argent?’ and she was forced to give him more money before he would let her have the bottle.

The water, tepid though it was, was a benison to her dry throat. She drank half the bottle in one swallow and then paused, looking at Mrs Warmington who was licking the last drop from the rim of the dirty cup. She said, ‘Take it easy; this stuff is expensive — it’s costing you over four dollars a cup.’ She put the bottle in the corner and looked at her watch. It was twelve-thirty.

The soldier had gone back to sitting in the shade, but he kept his eye on the hut, hoping for more easy money. Julie said, ‘I wish to hell he’d go away.’

She heard a tapping sound from behind her and turned to look at Mrs Warmington, who was gazing hopefully into the cup as though she expected it to fill up by magic. The tapping continued and came from the back of the hut, so Julie went to the back wall and listened closely. There was a familiar but incomplete rhythm which she recognized as the old shave-and-a-haircut of her childhood days, so she gave the two taps necessary to complete the phrase and said in a low voice, ‘Who’s that?’

‘Rawsthorne — don’t make a noise.’

Her heart leaped in her breast. ‘How did you get here?’

‘I followed you when you were brought down here. I’ve been watching from the top of the quarry. I was only able to get down when that bloody guard went away just now.’

‘Where did he go?’ asked Julie urgently.

‘Up the track and out of sight,’ said Rawsthorne. ‘I think he went as far as the main road.’

‘Good!’ said Julie. ‘I think I can make him do it again. If he goes that far we can get out of here. Can you wait there?’

‘Yes,’ said Rawsthorne. He sounded very much his age and as though he was desperately tired. ‘I can wait.’

Julie went back and found that Mrs Warmington had finished the bottle of water. She looked up defiantly, and said, ‘Well, it was my money, wasn’t it?’

Julie snatched the bottle from her hands. ‘It doesn’t matter now; we’re getting out of here. Get ready — and keep quiet.’

She went to the door and called out, ’L’eau... more l’eau, please,’ and fluttered another bank-note through the crack. This time she wasn’t quick enough and the soldier snatched it from her before she could withdraw it. He grinned in satisfaction as he stuffed it into his pocket but made no objection to taking the bottle and cup.

She watched him walk out of sight and forced herself to wait two full minutes, then she swung at the door with the hammer and with her full strength. One of the planks split along its length; it was rotten with age and lack of paint and another blow shattered it. Rawsthorne called, ‘Wait!’ and stuck his head through the opening she had made. ‘Hit it down there,’ he said, indicating the area of the lock.

She swung the hammer again and the hasp and staple burst out of the rotten wood and the door creaked open. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Make it fast.’ And ran outside, not really caring if Mrs Warmington followed or not.

‘Over here,’ called Rawsthorne, and she ran after him round a corner of rock and out of sight of the hut. ‘We’re still in a trap,’ Rawsthorne told her. ‘This quarry is a deadend, and if we go along the track we’ll meet that guard coming back.’

‘How did you get down?’

Rawsthorne pointed upwards. ‘I came down there — and nearly broke my neck. But we can’t get up that way — not before the guard comes back — he’d pick us off the cliff like ducks in a shooting gallery.’ He looked around. ‘The only thing we can do is to hide.’

‘But where?’

‘There’s a ledge up there,’ said Rawsthorne. ‘If we lie flat we should be out of sight of anyone down here. Come on, Mrs Warmington.’

It was an awkward climb. Julie and Rawsthorne gave the ungainly Mrs Warmington a boost, and then Rawsthorne went up and turned to give Julie his hand. She rolled on to the narrow ledge with skinned knees and flattened herself out. Although she kept her head down she could still see the corner of the hut in the distance and expected to see the guard return with the water at any moment.

She whispered, ‘Supposing we do get on top of the quarry — what then?’

‘All the troops have gone from the top,’ said Rawsthorne. ‘They moved out of the plantation back towards St Pierre. I think General Rocambeau is going to attack very soon. I thought we could cut across country behind his army, moving over the hills until we reach the Negrito. We should be safe enough there.’ He paused. ‘But we might not have time; have you looked at the sky?’

Julie twisted her neck and looked up, wincing as the sun bit into her eyes. ‘I don’t see much — just a few high clouds. Feathery ones.’

‘There’s a halo round the sun,’ said Rawsthorne. ‘I think the hurricane will be here soon.’

Julie saw a movement near the hut. ‘Hush, he’s come back.’

The soldier looked at the hut in astonishment and dropped the bottle and the cup, spilling the water carelessly on the dusty ground. He unslung his rifle and Julie heard quite clearly the snap of metal as he slipped off the safety-catch. He looked around the quarry and she froze — if she could see him, then he could see her if he looked carefully enough in the right direction.

Slowly the soldier walked around the hut; he walked with deliberation, his rifle held ready to shoot, and she heard the dry crunch of his boots on the ground. He came forward intent on searching the quarry, and cast in a wide circle, peering into all the nooks and crannies left by the blasting. As he came closer he vanished from sight and Julie held her breath and hoped the Warmington woman would keep quiet, because now the man was very close — she could even hear the rasp of his breath as he stood below the ledge.

And he stood there for a long time. There was no movement of his feet at all, and Julie pictured him looking up at the ledge and wondering if it was worthwhile climbing up to investigate. There was a clink and a scraping sound as of metal on rock, and she thought: He’s put down his gun; he needs both hands for climbing. He’s coming up!

She jerked at the sound of a shattering explosion, and then there was another — and another. She heard the thud of boots and, after a few seconds, saw the man running across the quarry away from them to stand looking up the track with his hand shielding his eyes from the glare of the sun. The explosions continued in rapid succession. It was a noise Julie was becoming familiar with — an artillery barrage. Rocambeau had attacked and Favel was laying down protective fire.

The soldier hesitated and looked about the quarry again, then slung his rifle on his shoulder and disappeared from her view at a rapid trot, heading towards the track. ‘I think he’s gone,’ she said after a long moment.

Rawsthorne lifted himself up and looked about. ‘Then we must go too,’ he said. ‘We must strike for the high ground.’

IV

Favel’s force in the east resisted the first assault, shattering the wave of Government troops that tried to cross the open ground before the furthest suburbs with a deluge of shells and mortar bombs. Rocambeau had no artillery and was impotent in the face of this onslaught of fire, but he had the men — seven thousand to Favel’s two thousand — and he used them ruthlessly.

He lost five hundred in that first attack, but when it was beaten off he occupied a line within two hundred yards of the nearest houses, his men burrowing into the shell-holes that pitted the ground; and he filtered in reinforcements from the rear, crawling on their bellies from crater to crater, until his position was unassailable.

Not that Favel meant to counter-attack — or could attack. Over half his force was serving the guns and he had only nine hundred infantrymen to cover them — a dangerously small force. But his infantry were exceptionally well equipped to fight a decisive battle; they had all the automatic weapons which had been withdrawn from the men now evacuating the city and they had had time to site them well. Rocambeau was going to lose a lot more men before he had a chance of getting at those murderous guns which were hammering his force — if he ever could get at them. For the guns were prepared to retreat at a moment’s notice; their limbers and transport lay close at hand and they could retreat in echelon to already prepared positions when the order was given, and Rocambeau would be left to go through the whole futile, man-killing process again.

Favel did not even leave his headquarters. His officers knew what was expected of them and he knew he could rely on them to carry out the master plan, so he was left free to concentrate on the coming attack from the west. That morning he had gone down to the docks and watched the American evacuation of Cap Sarrat Base, powerful binoculars shortening the distance across the water. One by one the ships went and the aircraft roared towards the northeast in the direction of Puerto Rico and safety. A hazy pall of black smoke covered the Cap as the oil tanks went up in flames. Commodore Brooks was not leaving anything behind that would do anyone any good.

Favel thought of what Serrurier would do. Putting last things first, he would immediately occupy the Base. The American occupation of Cap Sarrat had always been a sore point with him and several times he had sought to break the agreement, only to be faced with the inflexible refusal of the American Government to be thrown out. Now it was open for him to take and take it he would — an empty victory with the promise of defeat lurking in the background. He would waste time on Cap Sarrat instead of organizing an attack on St Pierre with his reserve of fresh and unblooded troops now freed from the irrational fear of a stab in the back by the Americans.

So when Favel heard the guns from the east bellow in response to Rocambeau’s assault he smiled thinly. Rocambeau with his defeated and demoralized army had come into action first and Serrurier was still wallowing in his fool’s paradise on Cap Sarrat. Good! Let him stay there. If he knew there were but a thousand men to oppose his eight thousand perhaps he might change his mind — but there was no one to tell him, and if anyone did he would not believe it. He was a suspicious man and, fearing a trap, he would not believe anything so ridiculous.

Favel called an orderly and instructed him to bring Manning and Wyatt as soon as they could be found. Then he sat back in his chair and placidly lit a long thin cigar.

Wyatt was again on the roof when the orderly found him, scanning the horizon with binoculars. The high cirrus clouds, feathery and fragile, now covered the sky and were giving place to cirrostratus from the south, extending in a great flat sheet. It was still intensely hot and the air was still and sultry without the trace of a breeze. The sun was haloed — an ominous sign to Wyatt as he checked the time again.

He went down to see Favel and found Manning giving a progress report. ‘We’re moving along as fast as we can,’ he said. ‘But it takes time.’

Wyatt said abruptly, ‘Time is something we haven’t got. Mabel is moving faster than I thought.’

‘How long?’ asked Manning.

‘She’ll hit about five o’clock.’

‘Christ!’ said Manning. ‘It can’t be done.’

‘It must be done,’ said Favel curtly. He turned to Wyatt. ‘What do you mean when you say it will hit at five o’clock?’

‘You’ll have winds of sixty miles an hour.’

‘And the flooding?’

Wyatt shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ he said honestly. ‘That’s one aspect of hurricanes I haven’t studied. I don’t really know when you can expect the tidal wave — but I wouldn’t put it much after six o’clock.’

Favel said reflectively, ‘It is two o’clock now — that gives us four hours, or three at the worst. What is likely to happen between now and then?’

‘Not much,’ said Wyatt. ‘The clouds will thicken very perceptibly in the next hour and a breeze will spring up. From then on it just gets worse.’

‘Charles, how is the evacuation going in the east? Can we withdraw to the second prepared line?’

Manning nodded unwillingly. ‘I’ve got all that area cleared — but you’ll be pushing it a bit hard. If Rocambeau breaks through — and he could if we aren’t careful on this retreat — he’ll be right in the middle of us and we won’t have a chance.’

Favel pulled a telephone towards him. ‘We retreat,’ he said firmly. ‘Speed things up, Charles. I want every effort made.’

‘All right, Julio,’ said Manning wearily. ‘I’ll do my best.’ He strode out. Wyatt hesitated, wondering if he should go too, but Favel held up his hand while speaking into the telephone, so he leaned on the edge of the table and waited.

Favel put down the handset gently, and said, ‘You mentioned rain, Mr Wyatt. Is this going to be a serious factor?’

‘You can expect a lot of rain — more than you’ve ever seen before; it will add to the flooding problem in the Negrito but I took it into account when you asked me to outline the safe areas. The worst rainfall will occur in the right front quadrant of the hurricane, but I think that will be to the west of here. Still, you can expect between five and ten inches spread over twenty-four hours.’

‘A lot of rain,’ observed Favel. ‘That is likely to preclude serious military operations.’

Wyatt laughed grimly. ‘I hope you aren’t thinking of doing any military operations during the next day or so. The wind will stop you if the rain doesn’t.’

Favel said, ‘I was thinking of afterwards. Thank you, Mr Wyatt. Keep me informed of any serious developments.’

So Wyatt went back on the roof and watched the dark line of nimbostratus gather on the horizon.

Rocambeau’s second blow fell on thin air. True, the shelling was just as severe as before but there was no small-arms fire until his men had penetrated over half a mile into the city. They rushed into this sudden vacuum and became over-extended, and when they came up against opposition they were thin on the ground. The stragglers were lucky, but the enthusiasts in the forefront suffered heavy casualties from strong machine-gun fire and retreated a little way to lick their wounds.

But they did not mind because they heard the sudden rumble of guns from the other side of the city and knew that Serrurier had begun his attack at last. Now Favel and his rebels would surely be crushed.

Serrurier was even more brutal and callous about losses than Rocambeau. His bull-headed rush against the pitiful thin line of defenders was overwhelming. Despite the artillery and the plentiful machine-guns he cracked Favel’s line in three places, threatening to split the small force into fragments. Favel took over decisively and ordered an immediate retreat into the city. In the open he had no chance against eight-to-one odds, but street fighting was another matter.

The fighting became brisk on both fronts and Favel’s men gave way slowly, suffering many losses but not nearly as many as the Government armies. There was a constant coming and going at the Imperiale as Favel demanded news and yet more news of the evacuation, carefully timing his withdrawals on both flanks to accommodate the slow ebbing of the human tide from St Pierre, and grudgingly trading ground for enemy casualties. It was a risky business and it lost him more good men than he liked, but he stubbornly kept to his plan and somehow made it work.

The city was in flames to east and west as he withdrew. His men had orders to set all buildings on fire to put a barrier of flame before the advancing and victorious Government troops. The flames, fanned by the brisk breeze that had sprung up, roared to the sky and the smoke drifted north to lie over the Negrito.

At four o’clock he decided that he could not possibly save his artillery and gave orders for the guns to be spiked and abandoned as his commanders thought fit. The road to the Negrito was jammed with refugees and it was impossible to push the guns through at the same time, and he knew the guns would not be needed when the hurricane had passed. Already more than fifteen hundred of the troops Manning had used to evacuate the city were in position in the defence line on the eighty-foot contour, and Serrurier and Rocambeau were pushing in faster and pressing harder.

Five minutes later he gave the order to abandon headquarters, and an orderly passed the news to Wyatt, who cast one more glance at the dark horizon and hurried downstairs. Favel was waiting in the foyer, watching maps being loaded into a truck standing outside the hotel and seemingly more intent on the lighting of his cigar than on the din of battle.

‘We will let Serrurier and Rocambeau join hands,’ he said. ‘I think they will waste time greeting each other, and perhaps they’ll split a bottle of rum together. We will also form one line — but we are united.’ He smiled. ‘I do not think Rocambeau will take kindly to being superseded by Serrurier.’

A soldier shouted from the truck and Favel, after making sure his cigar was lit, applied the still-burning match to a twist of paper. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, and walked back into the bar. As he came back Wyatt saw the quick glow of fire behind him.

‘Come, we must go,’ said Favel, and pushed Wyatt through the door and into the street. As the truck pulled off Wyatt looked back at the Imperiale and saw smoke pouring through the windows to be whipped away in the rising wind.

It was four-thirty in the afternoon.