Wyatt's Hurricane

I

Wyatt had advocated evacuation — now he saw the reality and was shocked.

The truck travelled through the deserted streets in the centre of the town, while all around the clamour of battle echoed from the blank faces of the buildings as the rebel army grimly retreated in their narrowing circle. The sky was darkening and a wind had risen which blew tattered papers along dirty pavements. The city smelled of fire and the smoke, instead of rising, was now driven down into the streets to catch in the throat.

Wyatt coughed and stared at a body lying on the pavement. A little way along the street he saw another, then another — all male, all civilian. He jerked his head round and said to Favel, ‘What the devil has been going on?’

Favel stared straight ahead. He asked tonelessly, ‘Have you any conception of what is needed to evacuate a city in a few hours? If the people will not move, then they must be made to move.’

The truck slowed to swerve round another corpse in the middle of the street — a woman in a startlingly patterned red floral dress and a yellow bandanna about her head. She was sprawled like a toy abandoned by a child, her limbs awry in the indecency of violent death. Favel said, ‘We share the guilt, Mr Wyatt. You had the knowledge; I had the power. Without your knowledge this would never have happened, but you brought your knowledge to one who had the power to make it happen.’

‘Need there have been killing?’ asked Wyatt in a low voice.

‘There was no time to explain, no plans already made, no knowledge in the people themselves.’ Favel’s face was stern. ‘Everyone knows we do not have hurricanes in San Fernandez,’ he said as though he were quoting. ‘The people did not know. That is another crime of President Serrurier — perhaps the worst of all. So the people had to be forced.’

‘How many dead?’ asked Wyatt grimly.

‘Who knows? But how many shall be saved? Ten thousand? Twenty — thirty thousand? One must make a balance in these things.’

Wyatt was silent. He knew he would have to live with this thing and that it would hurt. But he could still try to sway Favel in his decision to contain and destroy the Government army. He said, ‘Need there be more killing? Must you still stand and fight around St Pierre? How many will you kill in the city, Julio Favel? Five thousand? Ten — fifteen thousand?’

‘It is too late,’ said Favel austerely. ‘I cannot do otherwise if I wished. The evacuation took a long time — it is not yet complete — and my men will be lucky if they can get to their prepared positions in time.’ His voice became sardonic. ‘I am not a Christian — it is a luxury few honest politicians can afford — but I have justification in the Bible. The Lord God parted the waters and let the Israelites through the flood dry-shod; but he stayed his hand and drowned the pursuing Egyptians — every soldier, every horse, every chariot was destroyed in the Red Sea.’

The truck pulled up at a checkpoint, beyond which Wyatt could see a long line of refugees debouching from a side road. A rebel officer came up and conferred with Favel, and a white man waved and hurried over. It was Causton. ‘You took your time,’ he said. ‘How far has the Government army got into the city?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Wyatt. He climbed out of the truck. ‘What’s happening up here?’

Causton indicated the refugees. ‘The last of the many,’ he said. ‘They should be all through in another fifteen minutes.’ He stretched his arms wide. ‘This is where Favel makes his stand — this is the eighty-foot contour line.’ The rising wind plucked at his shirt-sleeves. ‘I’ve got a hole already picked out for us — unless you want to push on up the Negrito.’

‘You’re staying here, then?’

‘Of course,’ said Causton in surprise. ‘This is where the action will be. Dawson is here, too; he said he was waiting for you.’

Wyatt turned and looked back at the city. In the distance he could see the sea, no longer a beaten silver plate but the dirty colour of uncleaned pewter. The southern sky was filled with the low iron-grey mass of the coming nimbostratus, bringing with it torrential rain and howling wind. Already it was perceptibly darker because of the lowering clouds and the smoke from the city.

Above the faint keening of the wind he could hear the sound of battle, mostly small-arms fire and hardly any artillery. The noise fluctuated as the wind gusted, sometimes seeming far away and sometimes very close. The ground sloped away down to the city, and between the top of the low ridge on which he was standing and the nearer houses there was not a soul to be seen.

‘I’ll stay here,’ he said abruptly. ‘Though I’m damned if I know why.’ Of course he did know. His desire was a curious amalgam of professional interest in the action of a hurricane on the sea in shallow waters and a macabre fascination at the sight of a doomed city and a doomed army. He looked up the road. ‘Where exactly is Favel making his stand?’

‘On this ridge. There are positions dug in on the reverse slope — the men can nip down there when the weather gets really bad.’

‘I hope those holes are well drained,’ said Wyatt grimly. ‘It’s going to rain harder than you’ve seen it rain before. Any hole dug without provision for drainage is going to get filled up fast.’

‘Favel thought of that one,’ said Causton. ‘He’s pretty bright.’

‘He asked me about rainfall,’ said Wyatt. ‘I suppose that was why.’

Favel called, ‘Mr Wyatt, headquarters has been established about three hundred yards up the road.’

‘I’m staying with Causton,’ said Wyatt, moving nearer the truck.

‘As you wish.’ Favel’s lips quirked. ‘There is nothing more you or I can do now, except perhaps to send a prayer to Hunraken or any other appropriate god.’ He spoke to his driver and the truck pulled into the thinning line of refugees.

‘Let’s join Dawson,’ said Causton. ‘We’ve established our new home just over there.’

He led the way off the road and down the reverse side of the ridge, where they found Dawson sitting cross-legged by the side of a large foxhole. He looked pleased when he saw Wyatt, and said, ‘Well, hello! I thought you’d been captured again.’

Wyatt looked at the foxhole. It had a drainage trench at the rear which was obviously going to be inadequate. ‘That wants deepening — and there should be two. Are there any spades around?’

‘Those are in short supply,’ said Dawson. ‘But I’ll see what I can find.’

Wyatt looked along the ridge and saw that it was alive with men, a long, thin line of them burrowing into the earth like moles. At the top of the ridge overlooking the city others were busy, siting machine-guns, excavating more foxholes for cover against enemy fire rather than the coming wind, and keeping careful watch on the city in case Serrurier’s men broke through. Causton said, ‘I hope you’re right about the flooding. If it doesn’t happen all hell will break loose. Favel abandoned his guns — he couldn’t bring these out and the refugees, too.’

Wyatt said, ‘Mabel is going to hit us head-on. There’ll be floods.’

‘There’d better be. From a military point of view Serrurier is right on top. I’ll bet he’s crowing.’

‘He won’t if he looks behind him — out to sea.’

Dawson came back carrying a thin piece of sheet metal under his arm. ‘No spades; but this might do it.’

Causton and Wyatt deepened the drainage trench and scooped out another while Dawson watched them. Wyatt looked up. ‘How are your hands?’

‘Okay,’ said Dawson. ‘A doctor fixed them up.’

‘What are you hanging round here for?’ asked Wyatt. ‘You should get away up the Negrito while you have the chance.’

Dawson shook his head. ‘Have you seen those people? I’ve never seen a more beaten, dispirited crowd. I’m scared that if I joined them I’d get to feeling like that. Anyway, maybe I can help out here, somehow.’

‘What do you think you can do?’ asked Causton. ‘You can’t use your hands, so you can’t fire a gun or dig a hole. I don’t see the point of it.’

Dawson shrugged. ‘I’m not running any more,’ he said stubbornly. ‘I’ve been running like hell for a long time, a lot of years. Well, I’m stopping right here on top of this ridge.’

Causton looked across at Wyatt and raised his eyebrows, then smiled faintly, but he merely said, ‘I think that’s all we can do here. Let’s go up and see what trouble is coming.’

The last of the people of St Pierre had passed by on their way up into the Negrito Valley, but the road in the far distance was speckled with trudging figures making their way to high ground. The verdant greenness of the sugar-cane fields looked like a raging sea as the strengthening wind blew waves across the springy canes. Only the soldiers were left, and very few of those in the thin line of trenches scored across the ridge, but there would soon be more as the embattled army in St Pierre retreated on this position.

Wyatt strode to the top of the ridge and dropped flat near a rebel soldier, who turned and grinned at him. He said, ‘What is happening, soldier?’

The man’s grin widened. ‘There,’ he said, and stabbed out a finger. ‘They come soon — maybe ten minutes.’ He checked the breech of his rifle and laid some clips of ammunition before him.

Wyatt looked down the bare slope of the ridge towards the city. The sound of firing was very close and an occasional stray bullet whistled overhead. Soon he saw movement at the bottom of the slope and a group of men began to trudge up the hill, unhurriedly but making good time. From behind him an officer called out an order and the three men grouped round a machine-gun a dozen yards away got busy and swivelled the gun in the direction of the officer’s pointing finger.

The men climbing the ridge reached the top and passed over. They were carrying a mortar which they assembled quickly on the reverse slope. Causton watched them and said critically, ‘Not many mortar bombs left.’

More men were climbing the ridge now, moving steadily in disciplined retreat and covered by their comrades still fighting the confused battle among the houses below. Causton guessed he was witnessing the last jump in the controlled and planned leap-frogging movement which had brought Favel’s defending force across St Pierre, and he was impressed by the steady bearing of the men. This was no rout in undisciplined panic like the debacle he had been involved in earlier, but an orderly withdrawal in the face of the enemy, one of the most difficult of military operations.

Wyatt, after casting a brief glance at the retreating men, had lifted his eyes to the south. The horizon was dark, nearly black, lit only by the dim flickering of distant lightning embedded in thick cloud, and the nearer nimbostratus was a sickly yellow, seemingly illuminated from the inside. The wind was backing to the west and was now much stronger. He estimated it to be a force seven verging on force eight — about forty miles an hour and gusting up to fifty miles an hour. It was nothing to worry anyone who did not know what was coming and was merely a gale such as San Fernandez had known many times. Probably Rocambeau, if he was still in command, would welcome it as bringing rain to extinguish the many fires in the city.

The retreating soldiers were now streaming over the ridge and were marshalled by their non-coms into the firing line and issued with more ammunition. They lay on the crest of the ridge in the shallow foxholes that had been dug for them and again set their faces towards the oncoming enemy.

Causton nudged Wyatt. ‘Those houses down there — how high are they above sea-level?’

Wyatt considered. The ridge was not very high and the slope to the city was long. He said, ‘If this ridge is on the eighty-foot contour, then they shouldn’t be more than fifty feet up.’

‘Then the tidal wave should wash as high as that, then?’

‘It will,’ said Wyatt. ‘It will probably wash half-way up the slope.’

Causton pulled at his lower lip. ‘I think the idea here is to pin the Government troops against those houses. They’re three hundred yards away and the troops will have to attack uphill and across open ground. Maybe Favel will be able to do it, after all. But it’ll be tricky disengaging the last of his men.’

Dawson said, ‘I hope you’re right, Wyatt. I hope this tidal wave of yours doesn’t come boiling over this ridge. It would drown the lot of us.’ He shook his head and grinned in wonder. ‘Christ, what a position to be in — I must be nuts.’

‘Perhaps we’re all light-headed,’ said Causton. ‘We’re seeing something that’s never been tried before — the use of a hurricane to smash an army. What a hell of a story this will be when — and if — I get out of here.’

‘It has been done before,’ said Wyatt. ‘Favel quoted a precedent — when Moses crossed the Red Sea with the Egyptians after him.’

‘That’s right,’ said Causton. ‘I hadn’t thought of that one. It’s a damned good—’ He pointed suddenly. ‘Look, something’s happening down there.’

A long line of men had emerged on to the slope, flitting about and on the move all the time, stopping only briefly to fire back at the houses. The machine-gun near-by cleared its throat in a coughing burst, then settled down to a steady chatter, and all the men along the ridge began to shoot, giving covering fire to the last of the rebel army retreating towards them. They had the advantage of height, little though it was, and could fire over the heads of their own men.

There was a sharp crack from behind as the mortar went off, and seconds later the bomb burst just short of the nearest house. There were more explosions among the houses, and from the rear came a louder report and the whistle of a shell as one of the few remaining guns fired. Again Causton heard that unearthly twittering in the air about him and pulled down his head below the level of the ridge. ‘The bastards haven’t any politesse,’ he said. ‘They’re shooting back.’

The last of Favel’s men came pouring over the ridge, to stumble and collapse in the shelter of the reverse slope. They had left some of their number behind — Wyatt could see three crumpled heaps half-way up the slope, and he thought of the sacrifices these men must have made to hold back the Government army until the city had been evacuated. The men rested and got back their breath and then, after a drink of water and a quick snack which was waiting for them, they rejoined the line.

Meanwhile there was a pause. Desultory and sporadic firing came from the houses, which had little or no effect, and the rebels did not fire at all under strict instructions from their officers — there was little enough ammunition left to waste any of it. It was obvious that the Government general was regrouping in the cover of the city for the assault on the ridge.

In spite of the rapidly cooling air Causton sweated gently. He said, ‘I hope to God we can hold them. When the attack comes it’s going to be a big one. Where’s that damned hurricane of yours, Wyatt?’

Wyatt’s eyes were on the horizon. ‘It’s coming,’ he said calmly. ‘The wind is rising all the time. There are the rain clouds coming up — the nimbostratus and the fractonimbus. The fighting will stop pretty soon. No one can fight a battle in a hurricane.’

The wind was now fifty miles an hour, gusting to sixty, and the smoke clouds over St Pierre had been broken down into a diffused haze driving before the wind. This made it difficult to see the sea, but he managed to see the flecks of white out there which indicated even higher winds.

‘Here they come,’ said Causton, and flattened himself out as the shooting from the houses suddenly increased to a crescendo. A wave of soldiers in light blue uniforms emerged at the foot of the slope and began to advance, the individual men zigzagging and changing direction abruptly, sometimes dropping on one knee to fire. They came on quickly and when they had advanced a hundred yards another wave broke from the houses to buttress the assault.

‘Jesus!’ said Dawson in a choked voice. ‘There must be a couple of thousand of them down there. Why the hell don’t we shoot?’

Not a shot came from the top of the ridge as the flood of blue-clad men surged up the slope. The wind was now strong enough to hamper them and Wyatt could see the fluttering of their clothing, and twice the black dot of a uniform cap as it was blown away. Some of the men lost their footing and, taken off balance, were pushed by the gusting wind, but still they came on, scuttling at the crouch and continually climbing higher.

It was not until the first of them were half-way up that a Very light soared up from the top of the ridge, to burst in red stars over the slope. Immediately pandemonium broke loose as the rebels opened up a concentrated fire. The rifles cracked, the machine-guns hammered, and from behind came the deeper cough of the few guns and mortars.

The oncoming wave of men shivered abruptly and then stopped dead. Causton saw a swathe of them cut down like wheat before the scythe as a defending machine-gun swivelled and chopped them with a moving blade of bullets, and all over that open ground men were falling, either dead, wounded or desperately seeking cover where there was none. He noted that half of Favel’s machine-guns were firing on fixed lines so that the attackers were caught in a net stitched in the air with bullets — they would die if they advanced and they would die if they ran because in either event they would run right into the line of fire of the angled machine-guns.

Mortar bombs and shells dropped among the trapped men — Favel was firing his last ammunition with extravagant prodigality, staking everything on the coming hurricane. The earth shook and fountained with darkly blossoming trees and the clouds of smoke and dust were snatched by the wind and blown away. A pitifully thin fire came from below, perhaps there were few to shoot or perhaps those alive were too shattered to care.

For five minutes that seemed an eternity the uproar went on and then, suddenly, as though on command, the line of attackers broke and ebbed away, leaving a wrack of bodies behind to mark the highest level of the assault, a bare hundred yards from the crest of the ridge. And as they ran back in panic, so they still died, hit by rifle bullets, cut in two by the murderous machine-guns and blown to pieces by the mortar bombs. When all was still again the ground was littered with the shattered wreckage of what had been men.

‘Oh, my God!’ breathed Dawson. His face was pale and sickly and he let out his breath with a shuddering sigh. ‘They must have lost a quarter of their men.’

Causton stirred. ‘Serrurier must have taken over,’ he said quietly. ‘Rocambeau would never have made a damn’-fool frontal attack like that — not at this stage of the game.’ He turned and looked back at the mortar team just behind. ‘These boys have shot their bolt — they have no ammunition left. I don’t know if we can stand another attack.’

‘There’ll be no more attacks,’ said Wyatt with calm certitude. ‘As far as the fighting goes this war is over.’ He looked down the slope at the tumbled heaps of corpses. ‘I wish I could have said that half an hour ago, but it doesn’t really make any difference. They’ll all die now.’ He withdrew from the ridge and walked away towards the foxhole.

Down in St Pierre thousands of men would be killed in the next few hours because he had told Favel of the approaching hurricane, and the guilt weighed heavily upon him. But he could not see what else he could have done.

And there was something else. He could not even look after the safety of a single girl. He did not know where Julie was — whether she was dead or alive or captured by Rocambeau’s men. He had not properly seen her in his preoccupation with the hurricane, but now he saw her whole, and he found the tears running down his cheeks — not tears of self-pity, or even tears for Julie, but tears of blind rage at his stupidity and impotent futility.

Wyatt was very young for his years.

Causton listened to the fire-fight still crackling away to the left. ‘I hope he’s right. When Favel was faced with a similar problem he outflanked the position.’ He jerked his head towards the distant sound of battle. ‘If Serrurier breaks through along there he’ll come along the ridge rolling up these rebels like a carpet.’

‘I think Wyatt’s right, though,’ said Dawson. ‘Look out to sea.’

The city was lost in a writhing grey mist through which the fires burned redly, and the horizon was black. Streamers of low cloud fled overhead like wraiths in the blustering wind which had sharply increased in violence and was already raising its voice in a devil’s yell. Lightning flickered briefly over the sea and a single drop of rain fell on Causton’s hand. He looked up. ‘It does look a bit dirty. God help sailors on a night like this.’

‘God help Serrurier and his army,’ said Dawson, staring down at St Pierre.

Causton looked back to where Wyatt was sitting at the edge of the foxhole. ‘He’s taking it badly — he thinks he’s failed. He hasn’t yet realized that perfection doesn’t exist, the damned young fool. But he’ll learn that life is a matter of horse-trading — a bit of bad for a lot of good.’

‘I hope he never does learn,’ said Dawson in a low voice. ‘I learned that lesson and it never did me any good.’ He looked Causton in the eye and, after a moment, Causton looked away.

Wyatt was miserable. He hunched his shoulders against the driving wind and wondered where he could have gone wrong. Down in St. Pierre thousands of men would be killed in the next few hours because he had told Favel of the approaching hurricane, and the guilt weighed heavily upon him. But he could not see what else he could have done.

And there was something else. He could not even look after the safety of a single girl. He did not know where Julie was — whether she was dead or alive or captured by Rocambeau’s men. If she had been captured and brought into the city she was as good as dead, and it would be his fault. And if she was lying dead back there along the coast road it was his fault again for advising a wrong place of safety.

He did not know how he was going to face himself when this was all over, for he knew he had lost someone of inestimable value — someone to be loved, to be cherished. He had not properly seen Julie in his preoccupation with the hurricane, but now he saw her whole, and he found the tears running down his cheeks — not tears of self-pity, or even tears for Julie, but tears of blind rage at his stupidity and impotent futility.

Wyatt was very young for his years.

II

Rawsthorne was not a young man and two days of exertion and life in the open had told on him. He could not move fast over the hilly ground — his lungs had long since lost their elasticity and his legs their driving power. The breath in his throat rasped painfully as he tried to keep up a good pace and the muscles of his thighs ached abominably.

But he was in better shape than Mrs Warmington, whom the years of cream cakes and lack of exercise had softened to a doughy flesh. She panted and floundered behind him, her too generous curves bouncing with the effort, and all the time she moaned her misery in a wailing undertone, an obbligato to the keening of the rising wind.

In spite of her wounds, Julie was the fittest of the three. Although her legs were stiff and sore because of the bayonet jabs, her muscles were hard and tough and her breath came evenly as she followed Mrs Warmington. The brisk sets of hard-played tennis now paid off and she had no difficulty in this rough scramble over the hills.

It was Rawsthorne who had made the plan. ‘It’s no use going further west to escape the army,’ he said. ‘The ground is low about St Michel — and we certainly can’t stay here because Rocambeau might be beaten back again. We’ll have to cut across the back of his army and go north over the hills — perhaps as far as the Negrito.’

‘How far is that?’ asked Mrs Warmington uneasily.

‘Not far,’ said Rawsthorne reassuringly. ‘We’ll have to walk about eight miles before we’re looking into the Negrito Valley.’ He did not say that those eight miles were over rough country, nor that the country would probably be alive with deserters.

Because Rawsthorne had doubts about his ability to climb the quarry cliff — and private, unexpressed doubts about Mrs Warmington’s expertise as a climber — they went down the track towards the main road, moving stealthily and keeping an eye open for trouble. They did not want to meet the guard who had disappeared in that direction. They left the track at the point where they had originally climbed up to the banana plantation, and Julie got a lump in her throat when she saw the imprint of Eumenides’s shoe still visible in the dust.

The plantation seemed deserted, but they went with caution all the same, slipping through the rows of plants as quietly as they could. Rawsthorne led them to the hollow where they had dug the foxholes in the hope of finding a remnant of food and, more important, water. But there was nothing at all, just four empty holes and a litter of cans and bottles.

Julie looked at the hole that had been filled in and felt a great sorrow as she thought of the Greek. First we dig ’em, then we die in ’em. Eumenides had fulfilled the prophecy.

Rawsthorne said, ‘If it wasn’t for the war I would recommend that we stay here.’ He cocked his head on one side. ‘Do you think the fighting is going away or not?’

Julie listened to the guns and shook her head. ‘It’s difficult to say.’

‘Yes, it is,’ said Rawsthorne. ‘If Rocambeau is defeated again he’ll be thrown back through here and we’ll be back where we started.’

Mrs Warmington surveyed the hollow and shuddered. ‘Let’s get away from this horrible place,’ she said in a trembling voice. ‘It frightens me.’

And well it might, thought Julie; you killed a man here.

‘We’ll go north,’ said Rawsthorne. ‘Into this little valley and over the next ridge. We must be very careful, though; there may be desperate men about.’

So they went through the plantation, across the service road and, carefully avoiding the convict barracks, pushed on up the ridge on the other side. At first Rawsthorne kept up a cracking pace, but he did not have the stamina for it and gradually his pace slowed so that even Mrs Warmington could keep up with him. The going was not difficult while they were on cultivated ground and in spite of their slower pace they made good time.

At the top of the first ridge they left the banana plantations and entered pineapple fields, where all was well as long as they walked between the rows and avoided the sharp, spiky leaves. But then they came to sugar-cane and, finding the thicket too hard to push through, had to cast about to find a road leading in the right direction. It was a narrow dusty track between the high green canes, which rustled and crackled under the press of the breeze. In spite of the breeze and the high feathery clouds which veiled and haloed the sun it was still very hot, and Julie fell into a daze as she mechanically plodded behind Mrs Warmington.

They saw no one and seemed to be travelling through an empty land. The track dipped and rose but climbed higher all the time, and Julie, when she looked back, saw huts in the distance, but no smoke arose from these small settlements nor was there any sign of life. Where the tracks came out of the cane-fields they came upon more huts, and as soon as he saw them Rawsthorne held up his hand. ‘We must be careful,’ he whispered. ‘Better safe than sorry. Wait here.’

Mrs Warmington sat down on the spot and clutched her feet. ‘These shoes are crippling me,’ she said.

‘Hush!’ said Julie, looking at the huts through the cane. ‘There may be soldiers here — deserters.’

Mrs Warmington said no more, and Julie thought in astonishment: She is capable of being taught, after all. Then Rawsthorne came back. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘There isn’t a soul here.’

They emerged from the cane and moved among the huts, looking about. Mrs Warmington stared at the crude rammed earth walls and the straw roofs and sniffed. ‘Pigsties, that’s all these are,’ she announced. ‘They’re not even fit to keep pigs in.’

Rawsthorne said, ‘I wonder if there’s any water here. I could do with some.’

‘Let’s look,’ said Julie, and went into one of the huts. It was sparsely furnished and very primitive, but also very clean. She went into a small cubicle-like room which had obviously been a pantry, to find it like Mother Hubbard’s cupboard — swept bare. Going into another hut, she found it the same and when she came out in the central clearing she found that Rawsthorne had had no luck either.

‘These people have run away,’ he said. ‘They’ve either taken all their valuables with them or buried them.’ He held up a bottle. ‘I found some rum, but I wouldn’t recommend it as a thirst-quencher. Still, it may come in useful.’

‘Do you think they’ve run away from the war?’ asked Julie. ‘Or the hurricane — like that old man near St Michel?’

Rawsthorne rubbed his cheek and it made a scratchy sound. ‘That would be difficult to say. Off-hand, I’d say because of the war — it doesn’t really matter.’

‘These people must have got their water from somewhere,’ said Julie. ‘What about from down there?’ She indicated a path that ran away downhill along the edge of the cane-field. ‘Shall we see?’

Rawsthorne hesitated. ‘I don’t think we should hang about here — it’s too dangerous. I think we should push on.’

From the moment they entered the scrub the going was harder. The ground was poor and stony and the tormented trees clung to the hillside in a frozen frenzy of exposed roots over which they stumbled and fell continually. The hillside was steeper here and what little soil there had been had long since been washed to the bottom lands where the fertile plantations were. Underfoot was rock and dust and a sparse sprinkling of tough grass clinging in stubborn clumps wherever the stunted trees did not cut off the sun.

They came to the top of a ridge to find themselves confronted by yet another which was even higher and steeper. Julie looked down into the little depression. ‘I wonder if there’s a stream down there.’

They found a watercourse in the valley but it was dry with not a drop of moisture in it, so they pushed on again. Mrs Warmington was now becoming very exhausted; she had long since lost her ebullience and her propensity for giving instructions had degenerated into an aptitude for grumbling. Julie prodded her relentlessly and without mercy, never allowing herself to forget the things this woman had done, and Rawsthorne ignored her complaints — he had enough to do in dragging his own ageing body up this terrible dusty hill.

When they got to the top they found the ground levelling into a plateau and it became less difficult. There was a thin covering of dubious soil and the vegetation was a little lusher. They found another small gathering of huts in a clearing cut out of the scrub — this was deserted too, and again they found no water. Rawsthorne looked about at the small patch of maize and cane, and said, ‘I suppose they rely on rainfall. Well, they’re going to get a lot of it presently — look back there.’

The southern sky was dark with cloud and the sun was veiled in a thicker grey. It was perceptibly cooler and the breeze had increased to a definite wind. In the distance, seemingly very far away, they could still hear the thudding of the guns, and to Julie it seemed very much less impressive, although whether this was the effect of distance or whether there was less firing she had no way of knowing.

Rawsthorne was perturbed by the oncoming weather. ‘We can’t stop now. All we have to do is to get over that.’ He pointed to an even higher ridge straight ahead. ‘On the other side of that is the Negrito.’

‘Oh, God!’ said Mrs Warmington. ‘I can’t do it — I just can’t do it.’

‘You must,’ said Rawsthorne. ‘We have to get on a northern slope, and it’s on the other side. Come on.’

Julie prodded Mrs Warmington to her feet and they left the huts. She looked at her watch — it was four-thirty in the afternoon.

By five-thirty they had crossed the plateau and were halfway up the ridge, and the wind had strengthened to a gale. It seemed to be darkening much earlier than usual — the clouds were now thick overhead but no rain had fallen as yet. The wind plucked at them as they scrambled up, buffeting them mercilessly, and more than once one or other of them lost his footing and slid down in a miniature landslide of dust and small stones. The wind whipped the branches of the stunted trees, transforming them into dangerous flails, and the dry leaves were swept away along the ridge on the wings of the gale.

It seemed an eternity before they got to the top, and even then they could not see down into the Negrito. ‘We must... get down... other side,’ shouted Rawsthorne against the wind. ‘We mustn’t... stay...’ He choked as the wind caught him in the mouth, and staggered forward in a crouch.

Julie followed, kicking Mrs Warmington before her, and they stumbled across the top of the hill, exposed to the raging violence of the growing hurricane. There was a thick, clabbery yellow light about them which seemed almost tangible, and the dust swirled up from the barren earth in streaming clouds. Julie could taste it as she ran, and felt the grittiness between her teeth.

At last they began to descend and could see the floor of the Negrito Valley a thousand feet below dimly illuminated in that unwholesome light. As soon as they dropped below the crest of the hill there was some relief from the wind and Rawsthorne stopped, looking down in amazement. ‘What the devil’s happening down there?’

At first Julie could not see what he meant, but then she saw that the lower slopes were alive with movement and that thin columns of people were moving up from the valley. ‘All those people,’ she said in wonder. ‘Where did they come from?’

Rawsthorne gave an abrupt laugh. ‘There’s only one place they could have come from — St Pierre. Someone must have got them out.’ He frowned. ‘But the battle is still going on-I think. Can you hear the guns?’

‘No,’ said Julie. ‘But we wouldn’t — not in this wind.’

‘I wonder...’ mused Rawsthorne. ‘I wonder if...’ He did not finish his sentence but Julie caught the implication and her heart lifted. All the people down there must have left St Pierre long before there was any indication that there was going to be a hurricane, and as far as she knew, there was only one man who believed the hurricane was on its way — an undeviating, obstinate, stubborn, thick-headed man — David Wyatt. He’s alive, she thought, and found an unaccountable lump in her throat. Thank God, he’s alive!

‘I don’t think we’d better go right down,’ said Rawsthorne. ‘Isn’t that a ravine over there?’

There was a cleft in the hillside, an erosion scored deep by weather and water which would give shelter from the wind on three sides. They crossed the hillside diagonally and clambered down the steep sides of the ravine. Here the blast of wind was even less although they could hear it howl above their heads on the open hill, and they found a little hollow carved beneath a large rock, almost a cave, in which they could sit.

It was here that Rawsthorne finally collapsed. He had only been held together by his will to get the women to safety, and now, having done what he had set out to do, his body rebelled against the punishment it had been forced to take. Julie looked at his grey face and slack lips in alarm. ‘Are you all right, Mr Rawsthorne?’

‘I’ll be all right, my child.’ He managed a pallid smile and moved his hand weakly. ‘In my pocket... a bottle... rum. Think we all... deserve... drink.’

She found the rum, uncorked the bottle and held it to his lips. The raw spirit seemed to do him good for some colour came back to his cheeks, or so she thought, for it was difficult to see in the fading light. She turned to Mrs Warmington, who was equally prostrated, and forced some of the rum through her clenched teeth.

She was about to have some herself when there was an ear-splitting crash and a dazzle of vivid blue light, followed by the steady rolling of thunder. She rubbed her eyes and then heard the rain, the heavy drops smacking the dusty ground. Wriggling out of the little shelter she let it pour on her face and opened her mouth to let the drops fall in. Thirstily she soaked up the rain, through her mouth and through her skin, and felt her shirt sticking wetly to her body. The water did her more good than the rum would ever do.

III

The wind roared across St Pierre, fanning the flames of the burning buildings so that the fires jumped broad streets and it seemed as though the whole city would be engulfed in an unquenchable furnace.

Then the rain came and quenched it in fifteen minutes.

It rained over two inches in the first hour, a bitter, painful downpour, the heavy drops driven by the wind and bursting like shrapnel where they hit. Causton had never been hurt by rain before: he had never thought that a water drop could be so big, nor that it could hit with such paralysing force. At first he mistook it for hail, but then he saw the splashes exploding on the ground before the foxhole, and each drop seemed to be as much as would fill a cup. He blinked and shook the hair from his eyes, and then a drop hit him on the side of the face with frightening force and he ducked to the bottom of the hole.

Dawson moaned in pain and turned over on his side, holding his bandaged hands under his body to shield them. No one heard his sudden cry, not even Causton who crouched next to him, because the noise of the wind had risen to a savage howl drowning all other sounds.

Wyatt listened to the wind with professional and knowledgeable interest. He estimated that the wind-speed had suddenly risen to force twelve, the highest level on the Beaufort Scale. Old Admiral Beaufort had designed the scale for the use of sailing-ship captains and had been sensible about it — his force twelve was the wind-speed at which, in his opinion, no reasonable seaman would be found at sea if he could help it. Force twelve is sixty-five knots or seventy-four miles an hour, and the Admiral was not concerned about wind-speeds greater than that because to a sailing captain caught in extremis it would not matter either. There are no degrees in sudden death.

But times have changed since Admiral Beaufort and Wyatt, who had helped to change them, knew it very well. His concern here was not for the action of the wind on a sailing ship but on an island, on the buildings of the towns. A force twelve wind exerts a pressure of seventeen pounds on each square foot, over three tons on the sides of an average house. A reasonably well-built house could withstand that pressure, but this hurricane was not going to be reasonable.

The highest estimated wind-speed in Mabel’s gusts had been 170 miles an hour, producing pressures of well over a hundred pounds a square foot. Enough to pick a man off his feet and hurl him through the air as far as the wind cared to take him. Enough to lean on the side of a house and cave it in. Enough to uproot a strong tree, to rip the surface soil from a field, to destroy a plantation, to level a shanty town to the raw earth from which it had sprung.

Wyatt, therefore, listened to the raging of the wind with unusual interest.

Meanwhile, he held his head down and sat with Causton and Dawson in a hole full of water. The two drains spouted like fire hoses at full pressure, yet the hole never emptied. It was like sitting in the middle of a river. All around them streams of water gushed down the slope of the ridge, inches deep, carving courses in the soft earth. Wyatt knew that would not last long — as the wind-speed increased it would become strong enough to lift up that surface water and make it airborne again in a driving mist of fine spray. That was one thing — no one he had heard of had died of thirst in a hurricane.

This rain, falling in millions of tons, was the engine which drove the monster. On every square mile over which the hurricane passed it would drop, on average, half a million tons of water, thus releasing vast quantities of heat to power the circular winds. It was a great turbine — three hundred miles in diameter and with almost unimaginable power.

Causton’s thoughts were very different. For the first time in his life he was really frightened. In his work he covered the activities of men, and man, the political animal, he thought he understood. His beat was the world and he found himself in trouble-spots where students rioted in the streets of big cities and where bush wars flared in the green jungles. Other men covered the earthquakes, the tidal waves, the avalanches — the natural disasters.

He had always known that if he got into trouble he could somehow talk his way out of it because he was dealing with men and men could be reasoned with. Now, for the first time in his life, he found himself in trouble where talking was futile. One could no more reason with a hurricane than with a Bengal tiger; in fact, it was worse — one could at least shoot the tiger.

He had listened with vague interest to Wyatt’s lecture on hurricanes back at Cap Sarrat Base, but he had been more curious about Wyatt than about the subject under discussion. Now he wished he had listened more closely and taken a keener interest. He nudged Wyatt, and shouted, ‘How long will this go on?’

The dark shape of Wyatt turned towards him and he felt warm breath in his ear. ‘What did you say?’

He put his mouth next to Wyatt’s ear, and bellowed, ‘How long will this go on?’

Wyatt turned again. ‘About eight hours — then we’ll have a short rest.’

‘Then what happens?’

‘Another ten hours, but coming from the opposite direction.’

Causton was shocked at the length of time he would have to undergo this ordeal. He had been thinking in terms of three or four hours only. He shouted, ‘Will it get worse?’

It was difficult to detect any emotion in Wyatt’s answering shout, but he thought he heard a cold humour. ‘It hasn’t really started yet.’

Causton crouched deeper in the hole with the rain flailing his head and thought in despair: How can it get worse?

The sun had set and it was pitchy black, the impenetrable darkness broken only by the lightning flashes which were becoming more frequent. Any thunder there might have been was lost in the general uproar of the gale, which, to Wyatt’s ear, was taking on a sharper edge — the wind-speed was still increasing, although it was impossible to tell without instruments any reasonably exact speed. One thing was certain, though — it was pushed well over the further edge of the Beaufort Scale.

Wyatt thought with grim amusement of Causton’s question: will it get worse? The man had no conception of the forces of nature. One could explode an atomic bomb in the middle of this hurricane and the puny added energy would be lost — swallowed up in the greater cataclysm. And this was not too bad. True, Mabel was a bad bitch, but there had been worse — and there had been far greater wind-speeds recorded.

He closed his mind to the howling of the wind. Now what was it — oh, yes — two hundred and thirty-one miles an hour recorded at Mount Washington before the instrument smashed — that was the record reading. And then there were the theoretical speeds of the tornadoes. No chance of recording those, of course — the very fast winds in excess of six hundred miles an hour — but it took a fast wind to drive a straw through an inch-thick plank of wood.

And yet tornadoes were small. Comparing a tornado with a hurricane was like comparing a fighter plane with a bomber — the fighter is faster, but the bomber has more total power. And a hurricane has immeasurably more power than any tornado, more power than any other wind system on earth. He remembered the really bad one that crossed the Atlantic when he had been a student in England back in 1953. It had been the very devil in the west Atlantic, but then it had crossed and passed to the north of England, choking up the waters of the North Sea very much as Mabel was doing down there in Santego Bay. The dykes of Holland had been overwhelmed and the waters had surged over East Anglia, bringing the worst weather disaster Europe had known for hundreds of years. The hurricane was the devil among winds.

Dawson held his hands to his chest. He was soaked to the skin and felt that he would never be dry again. Had he not liked game fishing, he thought that he would have spent the rest of his life in some nice desert which never knew a wind like this — say, Death Valley. But he did like fishing and these were the waters for it and he knew that if he survived this experience he would come back. On the other hand — why go away at all? Why not settle in San Fernandez? There was nothing to keep him in New York now and he might as well live where he liked.

He grinned tightly as he thought that even in this he would be continuing the programme mapped out for him by his press agent, Wiseman, who had plotted mightily to cut Hemingway’s mantle to fit Dawson’s different figure. Hadn’t Hemingway lived in Cuba? To hell with that! It was what he wanted to do and he would do it.

Curiously enough, he was not frightened. The unexpected courage he had found in facing up to Roseau and his thugs followed by the catharsis of his confession to Wyatt had released something within him, some fount of manhood that had been blocked and diverted to corrupt ends. He should have been frightened because this was the most frightening thing that had ever happened to him, but he was not and the knowledge filled him with strength.

Smeared with viscous mud, he lay in a water-filled hole with the wind and the rain lashing him cruelly and was very content.

The hurricane achieved its greatest strength just after midnight. The very noise itself was a fearsome thing, a malignant terrifying howl of raw power that seared the mind. The rain had slackened and there were no large drops, just an atomized mist driving level with the ground at over a hundred miles an hour, and, as Wyatt had predicted, the flooding ground water had been lifted in the wind’s rage.

Lightning now flashed continuously, illuminating the ridge in a blue glare, and once, when Wyatt lifted his eyes, he saw the dim outlines of the mountains, the Massif des Saints. They would resist the terrible wind; standing there rooted deep in the bowels of the earth they were a match for the hurricane which would batter its life away against them. Perhaps this slight barrier would take the vicious edge off Mabel and she would go on her way across the Caribbean only to die of the mortal wound she had received. Perhaps. But that would not help the agony of San Fernandez.

Again in a lightning flash he saw something huge and flat skim overhead like a spinning playing card. It struck the ground not five yards away from the foxhole and then took off again in sharply upward flight. He did not know what it was.

They lay in their hole, hugging to the thick, viscous mud at the bottom, deafened by the maniacal shriek of the storm, sodden to the skin and becoming colder as the wind evaporated the moisture from their clothing, and with their minds shattered by the intensity of the forces playing about them. Once Causton inadvertently lifted his arm above ground level and the wind caught his elbow and threw his arm forward with such power that he thought it was broken, and if the arm had been thrown against the shoulder joint instead of with it, it very well might have been.

Even Wyatt, who had a greater understanding of what was happening than the others, was astonished at this violence. Hitherto, when he had flown into the depths of hurricanes, he had felt a certain internal pride, not at his own bravery but at the intrepidity and technical expertise of mankind who could devise means of riding the whirlwind. But to encounter a hurricane without even the thin Duralumin walls of an aircraft to enfold a shrinking and vulnerable body was something else again. This was the first hurricane he had experienced from the ground and he would be a better meteorologist for it — if he lived through it, which he doubted.

Gradually they fell into a stupor. The brain — the mind — can only take so much battering and then it automatically raises its defences. Over the hours the incredible noise became so much a part of their environment that they ceased to hear it, their tensed bodies relaxed when the adrenalin stopped being pumped into the bloodstream and, beaten into tiredness, they fell into an uneasy doze, their limbs flaccid and sprawled in the mud.

At three in the morning the wind began to ease slightly and Wyatt, his expert ear attuned to the noise even in his unquiet inertness, noticed the change immediately. The rain had stopped completely and there was only the cruel wind left to hurt them, and even the wind was pausing and hesitating, sometimes gusting a little harder as though regretting a slight check, yet always dying a little more.

At four o’clock he stirred and looked at his watch, rubbing away the slimy mud from the dial so that he could see the luminous figures. It was still pitch dark and there was less lightning, but now he could hear the thunder rolling among the clouds, which meant the wind was not as intense. He stirred his limbs and tentatively thrust his hand above ground-level. The wind pushed hard at it but not so much that he could not resist and he concluded that the wind-strength was now just back on the Beaufort Scale — a nice, comfortable storm.

Once roused, his mind was active again. He had an intense curiosity about what was happening on the other side of the ridge, and the itch to know got the better of him. He tested the strength of the wind again and thought it was not too bad, so he turned over and eased himself out of the foxhole on his belly and began to crawl up the slope. The wind plucked at him as he inched his way through the mud and it was worse than he thought it would be. There was a great difference between sitting in a hole and being caught in the open, and he knew that but for the foxhole they would not have survived. However, driven by the need to know, he persevered and, although it took him fifteen minutes to traverse the twenty yards to the top of the ridge, he made it safely and tumbled into water two feet deep in a foxhole that had been dug to protect against a storm of steel rather than a storm of air.

He rested for a few minutes in this shelter, glad to be out of the worst of the wind, then lifted his head and peered into the darkness, his hands cupped blinkerwise about his eyes. At first he saw nothing, but in a momentary lull before a gust he heard something that sounded very much like the sea and the splash of waves. He blinked and stared again and, in the glare of a lightning flash, he saw a terrifying sight.

Not more than two hundred yards away was a storm-driven sea with short and ugly waves, the tops sheered off by the fierce wind to blow horizontally across the waste of water. An eddy of wind blew spray into his face and he licked his lips and tasted salt water.

St Pierre had been totally engulfed.