DESMOND BAGLEY

Wyatt’s Hurricane AND Bahama Crisis

COPYRIGHT

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Wyatt’s Hurricane first published in Great Britain by Collins 1966 Bahama Crisis first published in Great Britain by Collins 1980

Copyright © Brockhurst Publications 1966, 1980, 1981

Desmond Bagley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of these works

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780007304783

Ebook Edition © 2013 AUGUST ISBN: 9780007347667

Version: 2018-05-24

PRAISE

‘I’ve read all Bagley’s books and he’s marvellous, the best.’

ALISTAIR MACLEAN

‘Sizzling adventure.’

Evening Standard

‘Bagley has become a master of the genre – a thriller writer of intelligence and originality.’

Sunday Times

‘Compulsively readable.’

Guardian

‘From word one, you’re off. Bagley’s one of the best.’

The Times

‘The best adventure stories I have read for years.’

Daily Mirror

‘Bagley has no equal at this sort of thing.’

Sunday Mirror

‘Tense, heroic, chastening … a thumping good story.’

Sunday Express

‘The detail is immaculately researched – the action has the skill to grab your heart or your bowels.’

Daily Mirror

‘Bagley in top form.’

Evening Standard

‘Bagley is a master story-teller.’

Daily Mirror

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

Wyatt’s Hurricane

Dedication

Epigraph

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Bahama Crisis

Dedication

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Epilogue

Desmond Bagley

About the Author

By the Same Author

About the Publisher

WYATT’S HURRICANE

DEDICATION

This one is for Jimmy Brown

EPIGRAPH

With the blast of thy nostrils the waters were gathered together, the floods stood upright as a heap, and the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea.

The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; my lust shall be satisfied upon them; I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them.

Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them, they sank as lead in the mighty waters.

EXODUS: ch. 15, vv. 8–10

ONE

The Super-Constellation flew south-east in fair weather, leaving behind the arc of green islands scattered across the crinkled sea, the island chain known as the Lesser Antilles. Ahead, somewhere over the hard line of the Atlantic horizon, was her destination – a rendezvous with trouble somewhere north of the Equator and in that part of the Atlantic which is squeezed between North Africa and South America.

The pilot, Lieutenant-Commander Hansen, did not really know the exact position of contact nor when he would get there – he merely flew on orders from a civilian seated behind him – but he had flown on many similar missions and knew what was expected of him, so he relaxed in his seat and left the flying to Morgan, his co-pilot. The Lieutenant-Commander had over twelve years’ service in the United States Navy and so was paid $660 a month. He was grossly underpaid for the job he was doing.

The aircraft, one of the most graceful ever designed, had once proudly flown the North Atlantic commercial route until edged out by the faster jets. So she had been put in mothballs until the Navy had need of her and now she wore United States Navy insignia. She looked more battered than seemed proper in a Navy plane – the leading edge of her wings was pitted and dented and the mascot of a winged cloud painted on her nose was worn and abraded – but she had flown more of these missions than her pilot and so the wear and tear was understandable.

Hansen looked at the sky over the horizon and saw the first faint traces of cirrus flecking the pale blue. He flicked a switch and said, ‘I think she’s coming up now, Dave. Any change of orders?’

A voice crackled in his earphones. ‘I’ll check on the display.’

Hansen folded his arms across his stomach and stared ahead at the gathering high clouds. Some Navy men might have resented taking instructions from a civilian, especially from one who was not even an American, but Hansen knew better than that; in this particular job status and nationality did not matter a damn and all one needed to know was that the men you flew with were competent and would not get you killed – if they could help it.

Behind the flight deck was the large compartment where once the first-class passengers sipped their bourbon and joshed the hostesses. Now it was crammed with instruments and men; consoles of telemetering devices were banked fore and aft, jutting into promontories and forming islands so that there was very little room for the three men cramped into the maze of electronic equipment.

David Wyatt turned on his swivel stool and cracked his knee sharply against the edge of the big radar console. He grimaced, reflecting that he would never learn, and rubbed his knee with one hand while he switched on the set. The big screen came to life and shed an eerie green glow around him, and he observed it with professional interest. After making a few notes, he rummaged in a satchel for some papers and then got up and made his way to the flight deck.

He tapped Hansen on the shoulder and gave the thumbs-up sign, and then looked ahead. The silky tendrils of the high-flying cirrus were now well overhead, giving place to the lower flat sheets of cirrostratus on the horizon, and he knew that just over the edge of the swelling earth there would be the heavy and menacing nimbostratus – the rain-bearers. He looked at Hansen. ‘This is it,’ he said, and smiled.

Hansen grunted in his throat. ‘No need to look so goddam happy.’

Wyatt pushed a thin sheaf of photographs at him. ‘This is what it looks like from upstairs.’

Hansen scanned the grained and streaky photographs which had been telemetered to earth from a weather satellite. ‘These from Tiros IX?’

‘That’s right.’

‘They’re improving – these are okay,’ said Hansen. He checked the size of the swirl of white against the scale on the edge of the photograph. ‘This one’s not so big; thank God for that.’

‘It’s not the size that counts,’ said Wyatt. ‘It’s the pressure gradient – you know that. That’s what we’re here for.’

‘Any change in operating procedure?’

Wyatt shook his head. ‘The usual thing – we go in counter-clockwise with the wind, edging in all the time. Then, when we get to the south-west quadrant, we turn for the centre.’

Hansen scratched his cheek. ‘Better make sure you get all your measurements first time round. I don’t want to do this again.’ He cocked his head aft. ‘I hope your instrumentation works better than last time.’

Wyatt grimaced. ‘So do I.’ He waved cheerily and went back aft to check on the big radar display. Everything was normal with no anomalies – just the usual dangerous situation ahead. He glanced at the two men under his command. Both were Navy men, skilled specialists who knew everything there was to know about the equipment in their charge, and both had flown on these missions before and knew what to expect. Already they were checking their webbing straps to see there would be no chafe when unexpected strain was thrown on them.

Wyatt went to his own place and strapped himself into the seat. As he snapped down the lever which prevented the seat turning he at last admitted to himself that he was frightened. He always felt scared at this stage of the operation – more scared, he was sure, than any other man aboard. Because he knew more about hurricanes than even Hansen; hurricanes were his job, his life study, and he knew the ravening strength of the winds which were soon to attack the plane in an effort to destroy it. And there was something else, something newly added. From the moment he had seen the white smear on the satellite photographs back at Cap Sarrat he had sensed that this was going to be a bad one. It was not something he could analyse, something he could lay on paper in the cold symbols and formulae of meteorological science, but something he felt deep in his being.

So this time he was even more frightened than usual.

He shrugged and applied himself to his work as the first small buffet of wind hit the plane. The green trace on the radar screen matched well with the satellite photographs and he switched on the recorder which would put all that data on to a coiled strip of plastic magnetic tape to be correlated in the master computer with all the other information that was soon to come pouring in.

Hansen stared ahead at the blackness confronting the plane. The oily black nimbostratus clouds heaved tumultuously, driven by the wind, the formations continually building up and shredding. He grinned tightly at Morgan. ‘Let’s get on with it,’ he said, and gently turned to starboard. Flying in still air at this particular throttle-setting the Super-Constellation should have cruised at 220 knots, and so his air-speed indicator showed, but he was willing to bet that their ground-speed was nearer 270 knots with this wind behind them.

That was the devil in this job; instruments did not read true and there was no hope of getting a valid ground-sighting because even if the clouds broke – which they never did – merely to see a featureless stretch of ocean would be useless.

Suddenly the plane dropped like a stone – caught in a down-draught – and he fought with the controls while watching the altimeter needle spin like a top. He got her on to an even keel once more and set her into a climb to regain his altitude and, almost before he knew what was happening, the plane was caught in an up-draught just as fierce and he had to push the control column forward to avoid being spewed from the top of the wind system.

Through the toughened glass he saw rain and hail being driven upwards, illuminated by the blue glare of lightning. Looking back, he saw a coruscating flash spreading tree-wise from the wingtip and knew they had been struck. He also knew that it did not matter; there would be a mere pinhole in the metal to be filled in by the ground staff and that was all – except for the fact that the plane and everything in it was charged up with several thousand volts of electricity which would have to be dissipated when landing.

Carefully he edged the Constellation deeper into the storm, flying a spiral course and finding the stronger winds. The lightning was now almost continuous, the whipcrack of the close discharges drowning out the noise of the engines. He switched on his throat mike and shouted to the flight engineer, ‘Meeker, everything okay?’

There was a long pause before Meeker replied. ‘Ever … ng fine.’ The words were half drowned in static.

Hansen shouted, ‘Keep things that way,’ and started to do some mental arithmetic. From the satellite photograph he had judged the diameter of the hurricane at 300 miles, which would give a circumference of about 950 miles. To get to the south-west quadrant where the winds were least strong and where it was safest to turn inwards to the centre he would have to fly a third of the way round – say, 230 miles. His air-speed indicator was now fluctuating too much to be of any use, but from past experience he judged his ground-speed to be a little in excess of 300 knots – say, 350 miles an hour. They had been in the storm nearly half an hour, so that left another half-hour before the turning-point.

Sweat beaded his forehead.

In the instrument compartment Wyatt felt that he was being beaten black and blue and he knew that when he got back to Cap Sarrat and stripped he would find weals where his harness had bitten into him. The stark functional lighting dimmed and flared as lightning flashes hit the plane and momentarily overloaded the circuits, and he hoped that the instrumentation held up under the beating.

He cast a glance at the other two men. Smith was hunched in his seat, expertly rolling as the plane lurched and occasionally resetting a knob. He was all right. Jablon-sky’s face had a greenish tinge and, as Wyatt looked, he turned and was violently sick. But he recovered quickly and applied himself to his job, and Wyatt smiled briefly.

He looked at the clock set into the panel before him and began to calculate. When they turned in towards the centre of the hurricane they would have to fly a little over a hundred miles to get to the ‘eye’, that mysterious region of calm in the midst of a wilderness of raging air. There would be fierce crosswinds and the ride would be rough and Wyatt estimated it would take nearly three-quarters of an hour. But then they would be able to idle and catch their breaths before plunging into the fray again. Hansen would circle for fifteen minutes in that wondrous stillness while Wyatt did his work, and they would all rub the soreness from their battered bodies and gird themselves for the flight out.

From the moment they turned in to the centre all instruments would be working, recording air pressure, humidity, temperature and all the other variables that go to make up the biggest wind on earth. And on the way through the hurricane they would drop what Wyatt called to himself their ‘bomb load’ – marvellously complex packages of instruments jettisoned into the storm, some to be tossed for an hour or so in the wind before touching down, some to plunge down to float on the raging sea, others that would sink to a predetermined depth beneath the waves. But all would be sending radio signals to be caught by the complex of receiving instrumentation in the plane and recorded on tape.

He steadied himself in the seat and began to dictate into his throat mike which was hooked up to a small recording machine. He hoped he would be able to disentangle his own voice from the storm noises when he replayed the tape back at base.

Half an hour later Hansen turned in towards the centre, buzzing Wyatt as he did so. Immediately he felt a difference in the quality of the wind’s attack on the plane; there was a new set of noises added to the cacophony and the controls reacted differently under his hands. The Constellation became more difficult to control in the cross-winds which he knew were gusting at perhaps 130 miles an hour; she plunged and bucked and his arms began to ache with the constant corrective movements he was forced to apply. The gyro-compass had long since toppled out of action and the card of the magnetic compass was swinging violently in the bowl.

Wyatt and his crew were very busy. Deafened by the murderous sound and shaken like dice in a cup, they still managed to get on with their work. The instrument capsules were dropped with precision at regular intervals and the information which they immediately began to radio back was stored on the inch-wide, thirty-two track tapes which Smith and Jablonsky hovered over solicitously. In the intervals between dropping the capsules Wyatt continued his running commentary on to his private tape; he knew this data was subjective and not to be used for serious analysis, but he liked to have it for his private information and to compare later with the numerical findings.

It was with relief that he heard the racket end with almost shattering abruptness and knew they had penetrated to the eye of the hurricane. The plane stopped bucking and seemed to float through the air and, after the noise of the storm, the roar of the engines seemed to be the most peaceful sound he had ever heard. Stiffly he unbuckled his straps and said, ‘How are things going?’

Smith waggled his hand. ‘Average score. No humidity readings from number four; no air temperature from number six; no sea temperature from number seven.’ He grimaced.

‘Not a cheep of anything from number three, and none of the sinkers worked at all.’

‘Damn those sinkers!’ said Wyatt feelingly. ‘I always said that system was too bloody complicated. How about you, Jablonsky? What about direct readings?’

‘Everything’s okay with me,’ said Jablonsky.

‘Keep at it,’ said Wyatt. ‘I’m going to see the skipper.’ He made his way forward to the flight deck to find Hansen massaging his arms while Morgan flew the plane in a tight circle. He smiled faintly.

‘This one’s a bastard,’ said Hansen. ‘Too rough for this mother’s son. How about you?’

‘The usual crop of malfunctions – only to be expected. But none of the sinkers worked at all.’

‘Have they ever?’

Wyatt smiled ruefully. ‘It’s asking a bit much, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘We drop a very complicated package into the sea in the middle of a hurricane so that it will settle to a predetermined depth. It broadcasts by sonar a signal which is supposed to be picked up by an equally complicated floating package, turned into a radio wave and picked up by us. There’s one too many links in that chain. I’ll write a report when I get back – we’re tossing too much money into the sea for too little return.’

‘If we get back,’ said Hansen. ‘The worst is yet to come. I’ve never known winds so strong in the south-west quadrant, and it’ll be a damn’ sight worse heading north.’

‘We can scrub the rest of it, if you like,’ offered Wyatt. ‘We can go out the way we came in.’

‘If I could do it I would,’ said Hansen bluntly. ‘But we haven’t the gas to go all the way round again. So we’ll bull our way out by the shortest route and you can drop the other half of the cargo as planned – but it’ll be a hell of a rough ride.’ He looked up. ‘This one is really bad, Dave.’

‘I know,’ said Wyatt soberly. ‘Give me a buzz when you’re ready to move on.’ He returned to the instrument section.

It was only five minutes before the buzzer went and Wyatt knew that Hansen was really nervous because he usually idled for much longer in the eye. He hastily fastened his straps and tensed his muscles for the wrath to come. Hansen had been right – this was a really bad one, it was small, tight and vicious. He would be interested to know what the pressure gradient was that could whip up such high winds.

If what had gone before was purgatory, then this was pure unadulterated hell. The whole fabric of the Constellation creaked and groaned in anguish at the battering it was receiving; the skin sprang leaks in a dozen places and for a time Wyatt was fearful that it was all too much, that the wings would be torn off in spite of the special strengthening and the fuselage would smash into the boiling sea. He was plagued by a stream of water that cascaded down his neck, but managed to get rid of the rest of the capsules with the same well-timed precision.

For nearly an hour Hansen battled with the big wind and, just when he thought he could bear it no longer, the plane was thrown out of the clouds, spat forth as a man spits out an orange pip. He signalled for Morgan to take over and sagged back in his seat completely exhausted.

As the buffeting lessened Wyatt took stock. Half of Jablonsky’s equipment had packed up, the tell-tale dials recording zero. Fortunately the tapes had kept working so all was not lost. Smith’s tale was even sorrier – only three of a round dozen capsules had returned signals, and those had suddenly ceased half-way through the flight when the recorder had been torn bodily from its mounting with a sputter of sparks and the tapes had stopped.

‘Never mind,’ said Wyatt philosophically. ‘We got through.’

Jablonsky mopped water from the top of his console. ‘That was too goddam rough. Another one like that and I’ll take a ground job.’

Smith grunted. ‘You and me both.’

Wyatt grinned at them. ‘You’re not likely to get another like that in a hurry,’ he said. ‘It was my worst in twenty-three missions.’

He went up to the flight deck and Jablonsky looked after him. ‘Twenty-three missions! The guy must be nuts. Ten is my limit – only two more to go.’

Smith rubbed his chin reflectively. ‘Maybe he’s got the death wish – you know, psychology and all that. Or maybe he’s a hurricane lover. But he’s got guts, that’s for sure – I’ve never seen a guy look so unconcerned.’

On the flight deck Hansen said heavily, ‘I hope you got everything you wanted. I’d hate to go through that again.’

‘We’ll have enough,’ said Wyatt. ‘But I’ll be able to tell for certain when we get home. When will that be?’

‘Three hours,’ said Hansen.

There was a sudden change in the even roar and a spurt of black smoke streaked from the port outer engine. Hansen’s hand went like a flash to the throttles and then he feathered the airscrew. ‘Meeker,’ he roared. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Dunno,’ said Meeker. ‘But I reckon she’s packed in for the rest of the trip. Oil pressure’s right down.’ He paused. ‘I had some bother with her a little while back but I reckoned you didn’t feel like hearing about it just then.’

Hansen blew out his cheeks and let forth a long sigh. ‘Jesus!’ he said reverently and with no intention to swear. He looked up at Wyatt. ‘Make it nearly four hours.’

Wyatt nodded weakly and leaned against the bulkhead. He could feel the knots in his stomach relaxing and was aware of the involuntary trembling of his whole body now that it was over.

II

Wyatt sat at his desk, at ease in body if not in mind. It was still early morning and the sun had not developed the power it would later in the day, so all was still fresh and new. Wyatt felt good. On his return the previous afternoon he had seen his precious tapes delivered to the computer boys and then had indulged in the blessed relief of a hot bath which had soaked away all the soreness from his battered body. And that evening he had had a couple of beers with Hansen.

Now, in the fresh light of morning, he felt rested and eager to begin his work, although, as he drew the closely packed tables of figures towards him, he did not relish the facts he knew he would find. He worked steadily all morning, converting the cold figures into stark lines on a chart – a skeleton of reality, an abstraction of a hurricane. When he had finished he looked at the chart with blank eyes, then carefully pinned it on to a large board on the wall of his office.

He had just started to fill in a form when the phone rang, and his heart seemed to turn over as he heard the well-remembered voice. ‘Julie!’ he exclaimed. ‘What the devil are you doing here?’

The warmth of her voice triumphed over electronics. ‘A week’s vacation,’ she said. ‘I was in Puerto Rico and a friend gave me a lift over in his plane.’

‘Where are you now?’

‘I’ve just checked into the Imperiale – I’m staying here and, boy, what a dump!’

‘It’s the best we’ve got until Conrad Hilton moves in – and if he has any sense, he won’t,’ said Wyatt. ‘I’m sorry about that; you can’t very well come to the Base.’

‘It’s okay,’ said Julie. ‘When do I see you?’

‘Oh, hell!’ said Wyatt in exasperation. ‘I’ll be tied up all day, I’m afraid. It’ll have to be tonight. What about dinner?’

‘That’s fine,’ she said, and Wyatt thought he detected a shade of disappointment. ‘Maybe we can go on to the Maraca Club – if it’s still running.’

‘It’s still on its feet, although how Eumenides does it is a mystery.’ Wyatt had his eye on the clock. ‘Look, Julie, I’ve got a hell of a lot to do if I’m to take the evening off; things are pretty busy in my line just now.’

Julie laughed. ‘All right; no telephonic gossip. It’ll be better face to face. See you tonight.’

She rang off and Wyatt replaced the handset slowly, then swivelled his chair towards the window where he could look over Santego Bay towards St Pierre. Julie Marlowe, he thought in astonishment, well, well! He could just distinguish the Imperiale in the clutter of buildings that made St Pierre, and a smile touched his lips.

He had not known her long, not really. She was an air hostess on a line covering the Caribbean from Florida and he had been introduced to her by a civilian pilot, a friend of Hansen’s. It had been good while it lasted – San Fernandez had been on her regular route and he had seen her twice a week. They had had three months of fun which had come to a sudden end when the airline had decided that the government of San Fernandez, President Serrurier in particular, was making life too difficult, so they dropped St Pierre from their schedule.

Wyatt pondered. That had been two years ago – no, nearer three years. He and Julie had corresponded regularly at first, but with the passage of time their letters had become sparser and more widely spaced. Friendship by letter is difficult, especially between a man and a woman, and he had expected at any moment to hear that she was engaged – or married – and that would be the end of it, for all practical purposes.

He jerked his head and looked at the clock, then swung round to the desk and pulled the form towards him. He had nearly finished when Schelling, the senior Navy meteorologist on Cap Sarrat Base, came in. ‘This is the latest from Tiros on your baby,’ he said, and tossed a sheaf of photographs on to the desk.

Wyatt reached for them and Schelling said, ‘Hansen tells me you took quite a beating.’

‘He wasn’t exaggerating. Look at that lot.’ Wyatt waved at the chart on the wall.

Schelling walked over to the board and pursed his lips in a whistle. ‘Are you sure your instrumentation was working properly?’

Wyatt joined him. ‘There’s no reason to doubt it.’ He stretched out a finger. ‘Eight hundred and seventy millibars in the eye – that’s the lowest pressure I’ve encountered anywhere.’

Schelling ran a practised eye over the chart. ‘High pressure on the outside – 1040 millibars.’

‘A pressure gradient of 170 millibars over a little less than 150 miles – that makes for big winds.’ Wyatt indicated the northern area of the hurricane. ‘Theory says that the wind-speeds here should be up to 170 miles an hour. After flying through it I have no reason to doubt it – and neither has Hansen.’

Schelling said, ‘This is a bad one.’

‘It is,’ said Wyatt briefly, and sat down to examine the Tiros photographs with Schelling looking over his shoulder. ‘She seems to have tightened up a bit,’ he said. ‘That’s strange.’

‘Makes it even worse,’ said Schelling gloomily. He put down two photographs side by side. ‘She isn’t moving along very fast, though.’

‘I made the velocity of translation eight miles an hour – about 200 miles a day. We’d better check that, it’s important.’ Wyatt drew a desk calculator and, after checking figures marked on the photographs, began to hammer the keys. ‘That’s about right; a shade under 200 miles in the last twenty-four hours.’

Schelling blew out his cheeks with a soft explosion of relief. ‘Well, that’s not too bad. At that rate it’ll take her another ten days to reach the eastern seaboard of the States, and they usually don’t last longer than a week. That’s if she moves in a straight line – which she won’t. The Coriolis force will move her eastward in the usual parabola and my guess is that she’ll peter out somewhere in the North Atlantic like most of the others.’

‘There are two things wrong with that,’ said Wyatt flatly. ‘There’s nothing to say she won’t speed up. Eight miles an hour is damned slow for a cyclone in this part of the world – the average is fifteen miles an hour – so it’s very probable she’ll last long enough to reach the States. As for the Coriolis effect, there are forces acting on a hurricane which cancel that out very effectively. My guess is that a high-altitude jet stream can do a lot to push a hurricane around, and we know damn’ little about those and when they’ll turn up.’

Schelling began to look unhappy again. ‘The Weather Bureau isn’t going to like this. But we’d better let them know.’

‘That’s another thing,’ said Wyatt, lifting the form from his desk-top. ‘I’m not going to put my name to this latest piece of bureaucratic bumf. Look at that last request –”State duration and future direction of hurricane.” I’m not a fortune-teller and I don’t work with a crystal ball.’

Schelling made an impatient noise with his lips. ‘All they want is a prediction according to standard theory – that will satisfy them.’

‘We don’t have enough theory to fill an eggcup,’ said Wyatt. ‘Not that sort of theory. If we put a prediction on that form then some Weather Bureau clerk will take it as gospel truth – the scientists have said it and therefore it is so – and a lot of people could get killed if the reality doesn’t match with theory. Look at Ione in 1955 – she changed direction seven times in ten days and ended up smack in the mouth of the St Lawrence way up in Canada. She had all the weather boys coming and going and she didn’t do a damn’ thing that accorded with theory. I’m not going to put my name to that form.’

‘All right, I’ll do it,’ said Schelling petulantly. ‘What’s the name of this one?’

Wyatt consulted a list. ‘We’ve been running through them pretty fast this year. The last one was Laura – so this one will be Mabel.’ He looked up. ‘Oh, one more thing. What about the Islands?’

‘The Islands? Oh, we’ll give them the usual warning.’

As Schelling turned and walked out of the office Wyatt looked after him with something approaching disgust in his eyes.

III

That evening Wyatt drove the fifteen miles round Santego Bay to St Pierre, the capital city of San Fernandez. It was not much of a capital, but then, it was not much of an island. As he drove in the fading light he passed the familiar banana and pineapple plantations and the equally familiar natives by the roadside, the men dingy in dirty cotton shirts and blue jeans, the women bright in flowered dresses and flaming headscarves, and all laughing and chattering as usual, white teeth and gleaming black faces shining in the light of the setting sun. As usual, he wondered why they always seemed to be so happy.

They had little to be happy about. Most were ground down by a cruel poverty made endemic by over-population and the misuse of the soil. At one time, in the eighteenth century, San Fernandez had been rich with sugar and coffee, a prize to be fought over by the embattled colonizing powers of Europe. But at an opportune moment, when their masters were otherwise occupied, the slaves had risen and had taken command of their own destinies.

That may have been a good thing – and it may not. True, the slaves were free, but a series of bloody civil wars engendered by ruthless men battling for power drained the economic strength of San Fernandez and population pressure did the rest, leaving an ignorant peasantry eking out a miserable living by farming on postage-stamp plots and doing most of their trade by barter. Wyatt had heard that some of the people in the central hills had never seen a piece of money in their lives.

Things had seemed to improve in the early part of the twentieth century. A stable government had encouraged foreign investment and bananas and pineapples replaced coffee, while the sugar acreage increased enormously. Those were the good days. True, the pay on the American-owned plantations was small, but it was regular and the flow of money to the island was enlivening. It was then that the Hotel Imperiale was built and St Pierre expanded beyond the confines of the Old City.

But San Fernandez seemed to be trapped in the cycle of its own history. After the Second World War came Serrurier, self-styled Black Star of the Antilles, who took power in bloody revolution and kept it by equally bloody government, ruling by his one-way courts, by assassination and by the power of the army. He had no opponents – he had killed them all – and there was but one power on the island – the black fist of Serrurier.

And still the people could laugh.

St Pierre was a shabby town of jerry-built brick, corrugated iron and peeling walls, with an overriding smell that pervaded the whole place compounded of rotting fruit, decaying fish, human and animal ordure, and worse. The stench was everywhere, sometimes eddying strongly in the grimmer parts of town and even evident in the lounge of the Imperiale, that dilapidated evidence of better times.

As Wyatt peered across the badly lit room he knew by the dimness that the town electricity plant was giving trouble again and it was only when Julie waved that he distinguished her in the gloom. He walked across to find her sitting at a table with a man, and he felt a sudden unreasonable depression which lightened when he heard the warmth in her voice.

‘Hello, Dave. I am glad to see you again. This is John Causton – he’s staying here too. He was on my flight from Miami to San Juan and we bumped into each other here as well,’

Wyatt stood uncertainly, waiting for Julie to make her excuses to Causton, but she said nothing, so he drew up another chair and sat down.

Causton said, ‘Miss Marlowe has been telling me all about you – and there’s one thing that puzzles me. What’s an Englishman doing working for the United States Navy?’

Wyatt glanced at Julie, then sized up Causton before answering. He was a short, stocky man with a square face, hair greying at the temples and shrewd brown eyes. He was English himself by his accent, but one could have been fooled by his Palm Beach suit.

‘To begin with, I’m not English,’ said Wyatt deliberately. ‘I’m a West Indian – we’re not all black, you know. I was born on St Kitts, spent my early years on Grenada and was educated in England. As for the United States Navy, I don’t work for them, I work with them – there’s a bit of a difference there. I’m on loan from the Meteorological Office.’

Causton smiled pleasantly. ‘That explains it.’

Wyatt looked at Julie. ‘What about a drink before dinner?’

‘That is a good idea. What goes down well in San Fernandez?’

‘Perhaps Mr Wyatt will show us how to make the wine of the country – Planter’s Punch,’ said Causton. His eyes twinkled.

‘Oh, yes – do,’ exclaimed Julie. ‘I’ve always wanted to drink Planter’s Punch in the proper surroundings.’

‘I think it’s an overrated drink, myself,’ said Wyatt. ‘I prefer Scotch. But if you want Planter’s Punch, you shall have it.’ He called a waiter and gave the order in the bastard French that was the island patois, and soon the ingredients were on the table.

Causton produced a notebook from his breast pocket. ‘I’ll take notes, if I may. It may come in useful.’

‘No need,’ said Wyatt. ‘There’s a little rhyme for it which, once learned, is never forgotten. It goes like this:

One of sour,

Two of sweet,

Three of strong

And four of weak.

‘It doesn’t quite scan, but it’s near enough. The sour is the juice of fresh limes, the sweet is sugar syrup, the strong is rum – Martinique rum is best – and the weak is iced water. The rhyme gives the proportions.’

As he spoke he was busy measuring the ingredients and mixing them in the big silver bowl in the middle of the table. His hands worked mechanically and he was watching Julie. She had not changed apart from becoming more attractive, but perhaps that was merely because absence had made the heart fonder. He glanced at Causton and wondered where he came in.

‘If you go down to Martinique,’ he said, ‘you can mix your own Planter’s Punch in any bar. There’s so much rum in Martinique that they don’t charge you for it – only for the limes and the syrup.’

Causton sniffed. ‘Smells interesting.’

Wyatt smiled. ‘Rum does pong a bit.’

‘Why have we never done this before, Dave?’ asked Julie. She looked interestedly at the bowl.

‘I’ve never been asked before.’ Wyatt gave one final stir. ‘That’s it. Some people put a lot of salad in it like a fruit cup, but 1 don’t like drinks I have to eat.’ He lifted out a dipperful. Julie?’

She held out her glass and he filled it. He filled the other glasses then said, ‘Welcome to the Caribbean, Mr Causton.’

‘It’s wonderful,’ said Julie. ‘So smooth.’

‘Smooth and powerful,’ said Wyatt. ‘You wouldn’t need many of these to be biting the leg of the table.’

‘This should get the evening off to a good start,’ said Julie. ‘Even the Maraca Club should look good.’ She turned to Causton. ‘Now there’s an idea – why don’t you come with us?’

‘Thank you very much,’ said Causton. ‘I was wondering what to do with myself tonight. I was hoping that Mr Wyatt, as an old island hand, could give me a few pointers on sightseeing on San Fernandez.’

Wyatt looked blankly at Julie, then said politely, ‘I’d be happy to.’ He felt depressed. He had hoped that he had been the attraction on San Fernandez, but apparently Julie was playing the field. But why the hell had she to come to San Fernandez to do it?

It turned out that Causton was foreign correspondent for a big London daily and over dinner he entertained them with a hilarious account of some of his experiences. Then they went on to the Maraca, which was the best in the way of a night-club that St Pierre had to offer. It was run by a Greek, Eumenides Papegaikos, who provided an exiguous South American atmosphere with the minimum of service at the highest price he could charge; but apart from the Officers’ Club at Cap Sarrat Base it was the only substitute for a civilized evening, and one did get bored with the Base.

As they entered the smoke-filled, dimly-lit room someone waved, and Wyatt waved back as he recognized Hansen, who was whooping it up with his crew. At the far end of the room a loud-voiced American was bellowing, and even at that distance it was easy to hear that he was retailing, blow by blow, his current exploits as a game fisherman. They found a table, and as Causton ordered drinks in perfect and fluent French which the waiter could not understand, Wyatt claimed Julie for a dance.

They had always danced well together but this time there seemed to be a stiffness and a tension between them. It was not the fault of the orchestra, poor though it was, for while the tune was weird, the rhythm was perfect. They danced in silence for a while, then Julie looked up and said softly, ‘Hello, Dave. Seen any good hurricanes lately?’

‘See one, you’ve seen them all,’ he said lightly. ‘And you?’

‘About the same. One flight is very like another. Same places, same air, same passengers. I sometimes swear that the air traveller is a different breed from the rest of us common humanity; like Dawson – that man over there.’

Wyatt listened to the raucous voice spinning its interminable fishing yarn. ‘You know him?’

‘Don’t you?’ she said in surprise. ‘That’s Dawson, the writer – Big Jim Dawson. Everyone’s heard of him. He’s one of the regulars on my flight, and a damn’ nuisance he is, too.’

‘I’ve heard of him,’ said Wyatt. Julie was right – there could not have been a corner of the world where the name of Big Jim Dawson was not known. He was supposed to be a pretty good writer, although Wyatt did not feel himself equipped to judge; at any rate, the critics appeared to think so.

He looked down at Julie and said, ‘You don’t appear to find Causton a nuisance.’

‘I like him. He’s one of these polite, imperturbable Englishmen we’re always reading about – you know, the quiet kind with hidden depths.’

‘Is he one of your regulars?’

‘I met him for the first time on my last flight. I certainly didn’t expect to find him here in San Fernandez.’

‘You certainly went out of your way to make him feel at home,’

‘That was just hospitality – looking after a stranger in a strange land.’ Julie looked up with a mischievous glint in her eye. ‘Why, Mr Wyatt, I do believe you’re jealous.’

‘I might be,’ said Wyatt bluntly. ‘If I had anything to be jealous about.’

Julie dropped her eyes and went a little pale. They danced in stiff silence until the melody was finished, then turned to go back to their table, but Julie was whirled away by the exuberant Hansen. ‘Julie Marlowe! What are you doing in this dump? I’m stealing her, Davy Boy, but I’ll return her intact.’ He swept her on to the floor in a caricatured rumba, and Wyatt returned glumly to Causton.

‘Powerful stuff,’ said Causton, holding a bottle to the light. He waved it. ‘Have one?’

Wyatt nodded. He watched Causton fill his glass, and said abruptly, ‘Here on business?’

‘Good lord, no!’ said Causton. ‘I was due for a week’s holiday, and since I was in New York, I decided to come down here.’

Wyatt glanced at Causton’s shrewd eyes and wondered how far that was true. He said, ‘There’s not much here for a holiday; you’d have been better off in the Bermudas.’

‘Maybe,’ said Causton non-committally. ‘Tell me something about San Fernandez. Does it have a history?’

Wyatt smiled sourly. ‘The same as any other Caribbean island – but a bit more so. First it was Spanish, then English, and finally French. The French made the deepest impression – you can see that in the language – although you do find the natives referring to St Pierre and San Pedro and Peter’s Port, and the language is the most mixed-up you’ve heard.’

Causton nodded ruefully, thinking of his recent difficulties with the waiter.

Wyatt said, ‘When Toussaint and Cristophe threw the French out of Haiti at the beginning of the 1800s, the locals here did the same, though it hasn’t had the same publicity.’

‘Um,’ said Causton. ‘How did an American base get here?’

‘That happened at the turn of this century,’ said Wyatt. ‘Round about the time the Americans were flexing their muscles. They found they were strong enough to make the Monroe Doctrine stick, and they’d just got over a couple of wars which proved it. There was a lot of talk about “Manifest Destiny” and the Yanks thought they had a big brotherly right to supervise other people’s business in this part of the world. San Fernandez was in pretty much of a mess in 1905 with riots and bloody revolution, so the Marines were sent ashore. The island was American administered until 1917 and then the Americans pulled out – but they hung on to Cap Sarrat.’

‘Didn’t something of the sort happen in Haiti as well?’

‘It’s happened in most of the islands – Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic’

Causton grinned. ‘It’s happened more than once in the Dominican Republic.’ He sipped his drink. ‘I suppose Cap Sarrat is held under some kind of treaty?’

‘I suppose you could call it that,’ agreed Wyatt. ‘The Americans leased the Cap in 1906 for one thousand gold dollars a year – not a bad sum for those days – but depreciation doesn’t work in favour of San Fernandez. President Serrurier now gets $1693.’ Wyatt paused. ‘And twelve cents,’ he added as an afterthought.

Causton chuckled. ‘Not a bad bit of trading on the part of the Americans – a bit sharp, though.’

‘They did the same in Cuba with Guantanamo Base,’ said Wyatt. ‘Castro gets twice as much – but I think he’d rather have Guantanamo and no Americans.’

‘I’ll bet he would.’

‘The Navy is trying to build up Cap Sarrat as a substitute for Guantanamo in case Castro gets uppity and takes it from them. I suppose there is a possibility that it might happen.’

‘There is,’ said Causton. ‘I don’t think he could just take it by force, but a bit of moral blackmail might do it, given the right political circumstances.’

‘Anyway, here is Cap Sarrat,’ said Wyatt. ‘But it’s not nearly as good as Guantanamo. The anchorage in Santego Bay is shallow – all it will take is a light cruiser – and the base facilities will take twenty years and a couple of hundred million dollars to even approach Guantanamo. It’s very well equipped as an air base, though; that’s why we use it as a hurricane research centre.’

‘Miss Marlowe was telling me about that –’ began Causton, but he was interrupted by the return of Hansen and Julie and he took the opportunity of asking Julie to dance.

‘Aren’t you going to ask me to have a drink?’ demanded Hansen.

‘Help yourself,’ said Wyatt. He saw Schelling come into the room with another officer. ‘Tell me, Harry; how did Schelling come to make Commander in your Navy?’

‘Dunno,’ said Hansen, sitting down. ‘Must be because he’s a good meteorologist, because he’s an officer like a bull’s got tits.’

‘Not so good, eh?’

‘Hell, one thing an officer’s got to do is to lead men, and Schelling couldn’t be a Den Mother for a troop of Girl Scouts. He must have got through on the specialist side.’

‘Let me tell you something,’ said Wyatt, and told Hansen about his conversation that morning with Schelling. He ended up by saying, ‘He thinks that meteorology is an exact science and that what the textbooks say is so. People like that frighten me.’

Hansen laughed. ‘Dave, you’ve come across a type of officer that’s not uncommon in the good old USN. The Pentagon is swarming with them. He goes by the book for one reason and one reason only – because if he goes by the book he can never be proved wrong, and an officer who is never wrong is regarded as a good, safe man to have around.’

‘Safe!’ Wyatt almost lost his voice. ‘In his job he’s about as safe as a rattlesnake.The man has lives in his hands.’

‘Most Navy officers have men’s lives in their hands at one time or another,’ said Hansen. ‘Look, Dave, let me tell you the way to handle guys like Schelling. He’s got a closed mind, and you can’t go through him – he’s too solid. So you go round him.’

‘It’s a bit difficult for me,’ said Wyatt. ‘I have no status. I’m not a Navy man – I’m not even an American. He’s the chap who reports to the Weather Bureau, and he’s the chap they’ll believe.’

‘You’re getting pretty steamed up about this, aren’t you? What’s on your mind?’

‘I’m damned if I know,’ admitted Wyatt. ‘It’s just that I’ve got a funny feeling that things are going to go wrong.’

‘You’re worried about Mabel?’

‘I think it’s Mabel – I’m not too sure.’

‘I was worried about Mabel when I was rumbling about in her guts,’ said Hansen. ‘But I’m pretty relaxed about her now.’

Wyatt said, ‘Harry, I was born out here and I’ve seen some pretty funny things. I remember once, when I was a kid, we had news that a hurricane was coming but that we’d be all right, it would miss Grenada by two hundred miles. So nobody worried except the people up in the hills, who never got the warning anyway. There’s a lot of Carib Indian in those people and they’ve had their roots down in the Caribbean for thousands of years. They battened down the hatches and dug themselves in. When that hurricane came up to Grenada it made a right-angle swerve and pretty near sank the island. Now how did those hill people know the hurricane was going to swerve like that?’

‘They had a funny feeling,’ said Hansen. ‘And they had the sense to act on it. It’s happened to me. I was once flying in a cloud when I got that feeling, so I pushed the stick forward a bit and lost some height. Damned if a civilian ship – one of those corporation planes – didn’t occupy the air space I’d been in. He missed me by a gnat’s whisker.’

Wyatt shrugged. ‘As a scientist I’m supposed to go by the things I can measure, not by feelings. I can’t show my feelings to Schelling.’

‘To hell with Schelling,’ said Hansen. ‘Dave, I don’t think there’s a competent research scientist alive who hasn’t gone ahead on a hunch. I still say you should bypass Schelling. What about seeing the Commodore?’

‘I’ll see how Mabel behaves tomorrow,’ said Wyatt. ‘I want to see if she’s a really bad girl.’

‘Don’t forget your feelings about her,’ said Hansen.

Julie’s cool voice spoke from behind Wyatt. ‘Do you really have feelings for this bad girl, Mabel?’

Hansen laughed and began to get up, but Julie waved him down. ‘I’m having my feet danced off, and I haven’t had a drink yet. Let’s sit this one out.’ She looked at Wyatt. ‘Who’s Mabel?’

Hansen chuckled. ‘One of Dave’s girls. He’s got a string of them. Dave, remember Isobel last year? You certainly had fun and games with her.’

Wyatt said, ‘She roughed you up a bit, if I remember rightly.’

‘Ah, but I escaped from her clutches.’

Causton snapped his fingers and said with sudden perception, ‘You’re talking about hurricanes, aren’t you?’

Julie said with asperity, ‘Why must they give girls’ names to hurricanes?’

‘They’re easy to remember,’ said Wyatt with a straight face. ‘And so hard to forget. I believe the Association of Women’s Clubs of America put in an objection to the Weather Bureau, but they were overruled. One round won in the battle of the sexes.’

‘I’d be interested to see your work,’ said Causton. ‘From a professional point of view, that is.’

‘I thought you were on holiday.’

‘Newspapermen are never really on holiday – and news is where you find it.’

Wyatt discovered that he rather liked Causton. He said, ‘I don’t see why you shouldn’t come up to the Base.’

Hansen grinned. ‘Schelling won’t object; he’s a sucker for publicity – of the right kind.’

‘I’d try not to write any unkind words,’ said Causton. ‘When could I come?’

‘What about tomorrow at eleven?’ said Wyatt. He turned to Julie. ‘Are you interested in my hurricanes? Why don’t you come too?’ He spoke impersonally.

‘Thank you very much,’ she said, equally impersonally.

‘That’s fixed, then,’ said Causton. ‘I’ll bring Miss Marlowe with me – I’m hiring a car.’ He turned to Hansen. ‘Do you have any trouble with the island government at the Base?’

Hansen’s eyes sharpened momentarily, then he said lazily, ‘In what way?’

‘I gather that Americans aren’t entirely popular here. I also understand that Serrurier is a rough lad who plays rough games and he’s not too particular about the methods he uses. In fact, some of the stories I’ve heard give me the creeps – and I’m not a particularly shivery man.’

Hansen said shortly, ‘We don’t interfere with them and they don’t interfere with us – it’s a sort of unspoken agreement. The boys on the Base are pretty firmly disciplined about it. There have been a few incidents and the Commodore cracked down hard.’

‘What kind of –’ Causton began, but a booming voice drowned his question. ‘Say, weren’t you the hostess on my plane to Puerto Rico?’

Wyatt looked up, shadowed by the bull-like figure of Dawson. He glanced at Julie, whose face was transformed by a bright, professional smile. ‘That’s right, Mr Dawson.’

‘I didn’t expect to find you here,’ roared Dawson. He seemed incapable of speaking in a normal, quiet tone, but that could have been because he was a little drunk. ‘What say you an’ me have a drink?’ He gestured largely. ‘Let’s all have a drink.’

Causton said quietly, ‘I’m in the chair, Mr Dawson. Will you have a drink with me?’

Dawson bent and looked at Causton, squinting slightly. ‘Don’t I know you from somewhere?’

‘I believe we met – in London.’

Dawson straightened and moved around so he could get a good view of Causton. He pondered rather stupidly for a moment, then snapped his fingers. ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘I know you. You are one of those smart-aleck reporters who roasted me when The Fire Game was published in England. I never forget a face, you know. You were one of the guys who came an’ drank my liquor, then stuck a knife in my back.’

‘I don’t believe I had a drink that morning,’ observed Causton equably.

Dawson exhaled noisily. ‘I don’t think I will have a drink with you, Mr Whatever-your-name-is. I’m particular of the company I keep.’ He swayed on his feet and his eyes flickered towards Julie. ‘Not like some people.’

Both Wyatt and Hansen came to their feet, but Causton said sharply, ‘Sit down, you two; don’t be damn’ fools.’

‘Aw, to hell with it,’ mumbled Dawson, passing a big hand over his face. He blundered away, knocking over a chair and heading for the lavatories.

‘Not a nice man,’ said Causton wryly. ‘I’m sorry about that.’

Wyatt picked up the fallen chair. ‘I thought you were a foreign correspondent?’

‘I am,’ said Causton. ‘But I was in London a couple of years ago when half the staff was down with influenza, and I helped out on local stuff for a while.’ He smiled. ‘I’m not a literary critic, so I wrote a story on the man, not the writer. Dawson didn’t like it one little bit.’

‘I don’t like Dawson one little bit,’ said Hansen. ‘He sure is the Ugly American.’

‘The funny thing about him is that he’s a good writer,’ said Causton. ‘I like his stuff, anyway; and I’m told that his critical reputation is very high. The trouble is that he thinks that the mantle of Papa Hemingway has fallen on his shoulders – but I don’t think it’s a very good fit.’

Wyatt looked at Julie. ‘How much of a nuisance was he?’ he asked softly.

‘Air hostesses are taught to look after themselves,’ she said lightly, but he noticed she did not smile.

The incident seemed to cast a pall over the evening. Julie did not want to dance any more so they left quite early. After taking Julie and Causton back to the Imperiale, Wyatt gave Hansen a lift back to the Base.

They were held up almost immediately in the Place de la Libération Noire. A convoy of military trucks rumbled across their path followed by a battalion of marching infantry. The troops were sweating under their heavy packs and their black faces shone like shoe-leather in the street lighting.

Hansen said, ‘The natives are restless tonight; those boys are in war trim. Something must be happening.’

Wyatt looked around. The big square, usually crowded even at this time of night, was bare except for groups of police and the unmistakable plainclothes men of Serrurier’s security force. The cheerful babble of sound that pervaded this quarter was replaced by the tramp of marching men. All the cafés were closed and shuttered and the square looked dark and grim.

‘Something’s up,’ he agreed. ‘We had this before – six months ago. I never did find out why.’

‘Serrurier always was a nervous type,’ said Hansen. ‘Frightened of shadows. They say he hasn’t been out of the Presidential Palace for over a year.’

‘He’s probably having another nightmare,’ said Wyatt.

The column of marching men came to an end and he let in the clutch and drove round the square, past the impossibly heroic bronze statue of Serrurier and on to the road that led to the Base. All the way to Cap Sarrat he thought of Julie and the way she had behaved.

He also thought a little of Mabel.

TWO

Causton was up early next morning, and after a token breakfast he checked a couple of addresses in his notebook, then went into the town. When he arrived back at the Imperiale to pick up Julie he was very thoughtful and inclined to be absent-minded, so there was little conversation as they drove to Cap Sarrat in the car he had hired. They were halted briefly at the gates of the Base, but a telephone call from the guardroom soon released them, and a marine led them to Wyatt’s office.

Julie looked curiously at the charts on the walls and at the battered desk and the scuffed chairs. ‘You don’t go in for frills.’

‘This is a working office,’ said Wyatt. ‘Please sit down.’

Causton examined a wall chart with some misgivings. ‘I’m always baffled by boffins,’ he complained. ‘They usually make the simplest things sound hellishly complicated. Have mercy on us poor laymen.’

Wyatt laughed, but spoke seriously. ‘It’s the other way round, you know. Our job is to try to define simply what are really very complex phenomena.’

‘Try to stick to words of one syllable,’ pleaded Causton. ‘I hear you went to look at a hurricane at first hand the other day. It was more than a thousand miles from here – how did you know it was there?’

‘That’s simple to explain. In the old days we didn’t know a hurricane had formed until it was reported by a ship or from an island – but these days we’re catching them earlier.’ Wyatt spread some photographs on the desk. ‘We get photographs from satellites – either from the latest of the Tiros series or from the newer Nimbus polar orbit satellites.’

Julie looked at the photographs uncomprehendingly and Wyatt interpreted. ‘This tells us all we need to know. It gives us the time the photograph was taken – here, in this corner. This scale down the edge gives the size of what we’re looking at – this particular hurricane is about three hundred miles across. And these marks indicate latitude and longitude – so we know exactly where it is. It’s simple, really.’

Causton flicked the photograph. ‘Is this the hurricane you’re concerned with now?’

‘That’s right,’ said Wyatt. ‘That’s Mabel. I’ve just finished working out her present position and her course. She’s a little less than six hundred miles south-east of here, moving north-west on a course that agrees with theory at a little more than ten miles an hour.’

‘I thought hurricanes were faster than that,’ said Julie in surprise.

‘Oh, that’s not the wind-speed; that’s the speed at which the hurricane as a whole is moving over the earth’s surface. The wind-speeds inside this hurricane are particularly high – in excess of 170 miles an hour.’

Causton had been thinking deeply. ‘I don’t think I like the sound of this. You say this hurricane is south-east of here, and it’s moving north-west. That sounds as though it’s heading directly for us.’

‘It is,’ said Wyatt. ‘But fortunately hurricanes don’t move in straight lines; they move in curves.’ He paused, then took a large flat book from a near-by table. ‘We plot the paths of all hurricanes, of course, and try to make sense of them. Sometimes we succeed. Let me see – 1955 gives an interesting variety.’

He opened the book, turned the leaves, then stopped at a chart of the Western Atlantic. ‘Here’s 1955. Flora and Edith are textbook examples – they come in from the southeast then curve to the north-east in a parabola. This path is dictated by several things. In the early stages the hurricane is really trying to go due north but is forced west because of the earth’s rotation. In the latter stages it is forced back east again because it comes under the influence of the North Atlantic wind system.’

Causton looked closely at the chart. ‘What about this one?’

Wyatt grinned. ‘I thought you’d spot Alice. She went south and ended up in North Brazil – we still don’t know why. Then there’s Janet and Hilda – they didn’t curve back according to theory and went clear across the Yucatan and into North Mexico and Texas. They killed a lot of people.’

Causton grunted. ‘It seems to me there’s something wrong with your theory. What about this wiggly one?’

‘Ione? I was talking about her only yesterday. It’s true she wriggled like a snake, but if you smooth her course you’ll see that she fits the theoretical pattern. But we still don’t know exactly what makes a hurricane change course sharply like that. I have an idea it may be because it’s influenced in some way by a high-altitude jet stream, but that’s difficult to tie in because a hurricane is very shallow – it doesn’t extend more than a few thousand feet up. That’s why contact with land destroys it – it will batter itself to death against a ridge, but it does a lot of damage in the process.’

Julie looked at the lines crawling across the chart. ‘They’re like big animals, aren’t they? You’d swear that Ione wanted to destroy Cape Hatteras, then turned away because she didn’t like the land.’

‘I wish they were intelligent,’ said Wyatt. ‘Then we might have a bit of luck in predicting what they’re going to do next.’

Causton had his notebook out. ‘Next thing – what causes hurricanes?’

Wyatt leaned back in his chair. ‘You need a warm sea and still air, and you will find those conditions in the doldrums in the late summer. The warm air rises, heavy and humid, full of water vapour. Its place is taken by air rushing in from the sides, and, because of the earth’s rotation, this moving air is given a twist so that the whole system begins to revolve.’

He sketched it on a scrap pad. ‘The warm air that is rising meets cooler air and releases its water vapour in the form of rain. Now, it has taken a lot of energy for the air to have lifted that water vapour in the first place, and this energy is now released as heat. This increases the rate of ascent of the air – the whole thing becomes a kind of vicious circle. More water is released and thus more heat, and the whole thing goes faster and faster and becomes much bigger. As much as a million tons of air may be rising each second.’

He drew arrows on the scrap pad, spiralling inwards. ‘Because the wind system is revolving, centrifugal force tends to throw the air outwards, and so the pressure in the centre becomes very low, thus forming the eye of the hurricane. But the pressure on the outside is very high and something must give somewhere. So the wind moves faster and faster in an attempt to fill that low pressure area, but the faster it moves the more the centrifugal force throws it outwards. And so we have these very fast circular winds and a fully fledged hurricane is born.’

He drew another arrow, this one moving in a straight line. ‘Once established, the hurricane begins to move forward, like a spinning top that moves along the ground. This brings it in contact with more warm sea and air and the process becomes self-sustaining. A hurricane is a vast heat engine, the biggest and most powerful dynamic system on earth.’ He nodded to the chart on the wall. ‘Mabel, there, has more power in her than a thousand hydrogen bombs.’

‘You sound as though you’ve fallen in love with hurricanes,’ said Julie softly.

‘Nonsense!’ Wyatt said sharply. ‘I hate them. All West Indians hate them.’

‘Have you had a hurricane here – in San Fernandez?’ asked Causton.

‘Not in my time.’ said Wyatt. ‘The last one to hit San Fernandez was in 1910. It flattened St Pierre and killed 6,000 people.’

‘One hurricane in nearly sixty years,’ mused Causton. ‘Tell me – I ask out of personal interest – what is the likelihood of your friend Mabel coming this way?’

Wyatt smiled. ‘It could happen, but it’s not very likely.’

‘Um,’ said Causton. He looked at the wall chart. ‘Still, I’d say that Serrurier is a much more destructive force than any of your hurricanes. At the last count he’s caused the death of more than 20,000 people on this island. A hurricane might be pleasanter if it could get rid of him.’

‘Possibly,’ said Wyatt. ‘But that’s out of my province. I’m strictly non-political.’ He began to talk again about his work until he saw their interest was flagging and they were becoming bored with his technicalities, and then he suggested they adjourn for lunch.

They lunched in the Officers’ Mess, where Hansen, who was to join them, was late and apologetic. ‘Sorry, folks, but I’ve been busy.’ He sat down and said to Wyatt, ‘Someone’s got a case of jitters – all unserviceable aircraft to be made ready for flight on the double. They fixed up my Connie pretty fast; I did the ground tests this morning and I’ll be taking her up this afternoon to test that new engine.’ He groaned in mock pain. ‘And I was looking forward to a week’s rest.’

Causton was interested. ‘Is it anything serious?’

Hansen shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t say so – Brooksie isn’t the nervous type.’

‘Brooksie?’

‘Commodore Brooks – Base Commander.’

Wyatt turned to Julie and said in a low voice, ‘What are you doing for the rest of the day?’

‘Nothing much – why?’

‘I’m tired of office work.’ he said. ‘What about our going over to St Michel? You used to like that little beach we found, and it’s a good day for swimming.’

‘That sounds a good idea,’ she agreed. ‘I’d like that.’

‘We’ll leave after lunch.’

‘How’s Mabel?’ asked Hansen across the table.

‘Nothing to report.’ said Wyatt. ‘She’s behaving herself. She just missed Grenada as predicted. She’s speeded up a bit, though; Schelling wasn’t too happy about that.’

‘Not with the prediction he made.’ Hansen nodded. ‘Still, he’ll have covered himself – you can trust him for that.’

Causton dabbed at the corner of his mouth with his napkin. ‘To change the subject – have any of you heard of a man called Favel?’

‘Julio Favel?’ said Hansen blankly. ‘Sure – he’s dead.’

‘Is he now!’

‘Serrurier’s men caught up with him in the hills last year. There was a running battle – Favel wasn’t going to be taken alive – and he was killed. It was in the local papers at the time.’ He quirked an eyebrow at Causton. ‘What’s the interest?’

‘The rumour is going about that Favel is still alive,’ said Causton. ‘I heard it this morning.’

Hansen looked at Wyatt, and Wyatt said, ‘That explains Serrurier’s nightmare last night.’ Causton lifted his eyebrows, and Wyatt said, ‘There was a lot of troop movement in the town last night.’

‘So I saw,’ said Causton. ‘Who was Favel?’

‘Come off it,’ said Wyatt. ‘You’re a newspaperman – you know as well as I do.’

Causton grinned. ‘I like to get other people’s views,’ he said without a trace of apology. ‘The objective view, you know; as a scientist you should appreciate that.’

Julie said in bewilderment, ‘Who was this Favel?’

Causton said, ‘A thorn in the side of Serrurier. Serrurier, being the head of government, calls him a bandit; Favel preferred to call himself a patriot. I think the balance is probably on Favel’s side. He was hiding in the hills doing quite a bit of damage to Serrurier before he was reported killed. Since then there has been nothing – until now.’

‘I don’t believe he’s alive,’ said Hansen. ‘We’d have heard about it before now.’

‘He might have been intelligent enough to capitalize on the report of his death – to lie low and accumulate strength unworried by Serrurier.’

‘Or he might have been ill,’ said Wyatt.

‘True,’ said Causton. ‘That might be it.’ He turned to Hansen. ‘What do you think?’

‘All I know is what I read in the newspapers,’ said Hansen. ‘And my French isn’t too good – not the kind of French these people write.’ He leaned forward. ‘Look, Mr Causton; we’re under military discipline here at Cap Sarrat, and the orders are not to interfere in local affairs – not even to appear interested. If we don’t keep our noses clean we’re in trouble. If we survive Serrurier’s strong-arm boys, then Commodore Brooks takes our hides off. There have been a few cases, you know, mostly among the enlisted men, and they’ve got shipped back to the States with a big black demerit to spend a year or two in the stockade. I was going to tell you this last night when that guy Dawson busted in.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Causton. ‘I apologize. I didn’t realize the difficulties you people must have here.’

‘That’s all right,’ said Hansen. ‘You weren’t to know. But I might as well tell you that one thing that is specifically discouraged is talking too freely to visiting newsmen.’

‘Nobody likes us,’ said Causton plaintively.

‘Sure,’ said Hansen. ‘Everyone has something to hide – but our reasons are different. We’re trying to avoid stirring up any trouble. You know as well as I do – where you find a newsman you find trouble.’

‘I rather think it’s the other way round,’ said Causton gently. ‘Where you find trouble you find a newsman – the trouble comes first.’ He changed the subject abruptly. ‘Speaking of Dawson, I find that he’s staying at the Imperiale. When Miss Marlowe and I left this morning he was nursing a hangover and breakfasting lightly off one raw egg and the juice of a whisky bottle.’

Wyatt said, ‘You’re not really on holiday, are you, Causton?’

Causton sighed. ‘My boss thinks I am. Coming here was a bit of private enterprise on my part. I heard rumours and rumours of rumours. For instance, arms traffic to this part of the world has been running high lately. The stuff hasn’t been going to Cuba or South America as far as I can find out, but it’s being absorbed somewhere. I put it to my boss, but he didn’t agree with my reasoning, or, as he put it, my non-reasoning. However, I have great faith in myself so I took a busman’s holiday and here I am.’

‘And have you found what you’re looking for?’

‘You know, I really fear I have.’

II

Wyatt drove slowly through the suburbs of St Pierre, hampered by the throngs in the streets. The usual half-naked small boys diced with death before the wheels of his car, shrieking with laughter as he blew his horn; the bullock carts and sagging trucks created their usual traffic jams, and the chatter of the crowds was deafening – the situation was normal and Wyatt relaxed as he got out of the town and was able to increase speed.

The road to St Michel wound up from St Pierre through the lush Negrito Valley, bordered with banana, pineapple and sugar plantations and overlooked by the frowning heights of the Massif des Saints. ‘It seems that last night’s disturbance was a false alarm,’ said Wyatt. ‘In spite of what Causton said this morning.’

‘I don’t know if I really like Causton, after all,’ said Julie pensively. ‘Newspaper reporters remind me of vultures, somehow.’

‘I have a fellow feeling for him,’ said Wyatt. ‘He makes a living out of disaster – so do I.’

She was shocked. ‘It’s not the same at all. At least you are trying to minimize disaster.’

‘So is he, according to his lights. I’ve read some of his stuff and it’s very good; full of compassion at the damn’ silliness of the human race. I think he was truly sorry to find out he was right about the situation here – if he is right, of course. I hope to God he isn’t.’

She made an impatient movement with her shoulders. ‘Let’s forget about him, shall we? Let’s forget about him and Serrurier and – what’s-his-name – Favel.’

He slowed to avoid a wandering bullock cart loaded with rocks and jerked his head back at the armed soldier by the road. ‘It’s not so easy to forget Serrurier with that sort of thing going on.’

Julie looked back. ‘What is it?’

‘The corvé – forced labour on the roads. All the peasants must do it. It’s a hangover from pre-revolutionary France which Serrurier makes pay most handsomely. It has never stopped on San Fernandez.’ He nodded to the side of the road. ‘It’s the same with these plantations; they were once owned by foreign companies – American and French mostly. Serrurier nationalized the lot by expropriation when he came to power. He runs them as his own private preserve with convict labour – and it doesn’t take much to become a convict on this island, so he’s never short of workers. They’re becoming run down now.’

She said in a low voice, ‘How can you bear to live here – in the middle of all this unhappiness?’

‘My work is here, Julie. What I do here helps to save lives all over the Caribbean and in America, and this is the best place to do it. I can’t do anything about Serrurier; if I tried I’d be killed, gaoled or deported and that would do no one any good. So, like Hansen and everyone else, I stick close to the Base and concentrate on my own job.’

He paused to negotiate a bad bend. ‘Not that I like it, of course.’

‘So you wouldn’t consider moving out – say, to a research job in the States?’

‘I’m doing my best work here,’ said Wyatt. ‘Besides, I’m a West Indian – this is my home, poor as it is.’

He drove for several miles and at last pulled off the road on to the verge. ‘Remember this?’

‘I couldn’t forget it,’ she said, and left the car to look at the panorama spread before her. In the distance was the sea, a gleaming plate of beaten silver. Immediately below were the winding loops of the dusty road they had just ascended and between the road and the sea was the magnificent Negrito Valley leading down to Santego Bay with Cap Sarrat on the far side and St Pierre, a miniature city, nestling in the curve of the bay.

Wyatt did not look at the view – he found Julie a more satisfying sight as she stood on the edge of the precipitous drop with the trade wind blowing her skirt and moulding the dress to her body. She pointed across the valley to where the sun reflected from falling water. ‘What’s that?’

‘La Cascade de l’Argent – it’s on the P’tit Negrito.’ He walked across and joined her. ‘The P’tit Negrito joins the Gran’ Negrito down in the valley. You can’t see the confluence from here.’

She took a deep breath. ‘It’s one of the most wonderful sights I’ve ever seen. I wondered if you’d show it to me again.’

‘Always willing to oblige,’ he said. ‘Is this why you came back to San Fernandez?’

She laughed uncertainly. ‘One of the reasons.’

He nodded. ‘It’s a good reason. I hope the others are as good.’

Her voice was muffled because she had dropped her head. ‘I hope so, too.’

‘Aren’t you sure?’

She lifted her head and looked him straight in the eye. ‘No, Dave, I’m not sure. I’m not sure at all.’

He put his hands on her shoulders and drew her to him. ‘A pity,’ he said, and kissed her. She came, unresisting, into his arms and her lips parted under his. He felt her arms go about him closer, until at last she broke away.

‘I don’t know about that,’ she said. ‘I’m still not sure – but I’m not sure about being not sure.’

He said, ‘How would you like to live here – on San Fernandez?’

Julie looked at him warily. ‘Is that a proposition?’

‘I suppose you could call it a proposal,’ Wyatt said, rubbing the side of his jaw. ‘I couldn’t go on living at the Base, not with you giving up the exotic life of an air hostess, so we’d have to find a house. How would you like to live somewhere up here?’

‘Oh, Dave, I’d like that very much,’ she cried, and they were both incoherent for a considerable time.

After a while Wyatt said, ‘I don’t understand why you were so standoffish; you clung on to Causton like a blood brother last night.’

‘Damn you, Dave Wyatt,’ Julie retorted. ‘I was scared. I was chasing a man and women aren’t supposed to do that. I got cold feet at the last minute and was frightened of making a fool of myself.’

‘So you did come here to see me?’

She ruffled his hair. ‘You don’t see much in people, do you, Dave? You’re so wrapped up in your hurricanes and formulas. Of course I came to see you.’ She picked up his hand and examined the fingers one by one. ‘I’ve been out with lots of guys and sometimes I’ve wondered if this time it was the one – women do think that way, you know. And every time you got in the way of my thinking, so I knew I had to come back to straighten it out. I had to have you in my heart altogether or I had to get you out of my system completely – if I could. And you kept writing those deadpan letters of yours which made me want to scream.’

He grinned. ‘I was never very good at writing passion. But I see I’ve been properly caught by a designing woman, so let’s celebrate.’ He walked over to the car. ‘I filled a Thermos with your favourite tipple – Planter’s Punch. I departed from the strict formula in the interests of sobriety and the time of day – this has less rum and more lime. It’s quite refreshing.’

They sat overlooking the Negrito and sampled the punch. Julie said, ‘I don’t know much about you, Dave. You said last night that you were born in St Kitts – where’s that?’

Wyatt waved. ‘An island over to the south-east. It’s really St Christopher, but it’s been called St Kitts for the last four hundred years. Christophe, the Black Emperor of Haiti, took his name from St Kitts – he was a runaway slave. It’s quite a place.’

‘Has your family always lived there?’

‘We weren’t aborigines, you know, but there have been Wyatts on St Kitts since the early sixteen hundreds. They were planters, fishermen – sometimes pirates, so I’m told – a motley crowd.’ He sipped the punch. ‘I’m the last Wyatt of St Kitts.’

‘That’s a shame. What happened?’

‘A hurricane in the middle of the last century nearly did for the island. Three-quarters of the Wyatts were killed; in fact, three-quarters of the population were wiped out. Then came the period of depression in the Caribbean – competition from Brazilian coffee, East African sugar and so on, and the few Wyatts that were left moved out. My parents hung on until just after I was born, then they moved down to Grenada where I grew up.’

‘Where’s Grenada?’

‘South along the chain of islands, north of Trinidad. Just north of Grenada are the Grenadines, a string of little islands which are as close to a tropical paradise as you’ll find in the Caribbean. I’ll take you down there some day. We lived on one of those until I was ten. Then I went to England.’

‘Your parents sent you to school there, then?’

He shook his head. ‘No, they were killed. There was another hurricane. I went to live with an aunt in England; she brought me up and saw to my schooling.’

Julie said gently, ‘Is that why you hate hurricanes?’

‘I suppose it is. We’ve got to get down to controlling the damn’ things some time, and I thought I’d do my bit. We can’t do much yet beyond organizing early warning systems and so on, but the time will come when we’ll be able to stop a hurricane in its tracks, powerful though it is. There’s quite a bit of work being done on that.’ He smiled at her. ‘Now you know all about David Wyatt.’

‘Not all, but there’s plenty of time for the rest,’ she said contentedly.

‘What about your life story?’

‘That will have to wait, too,’ she said, pushing away his questing hand and jumping up. ‘What about that swim you promised?’

They got into the car and Julie stared up at the viridian-green hills of the Massif des Saints. Wyatt said, ‘That’s bad country – infertile, pathless, disease-ridden. It’s where Favel held out until he was killed. An army could get lost up there – in fact, several have.’

‘Oh! When was this?’

‘The first time was when Bonaparte tried to crush the Slave Revolt. The main effort was in Haiti, of course, but as a side-issue Le Clerc sent a regiment to San Fernandez to stifle the slave rebellion here. The regiment landed without difficulty and marched inland with no great opposition. Then it marched up there – and never came out.’

‘What happened to it?’

Wyatt shrugged. ‘Ambushes – snipers – fever – exhaustion. White men couldn’t live up there, but the blacks could. But it swallowed another army – a black one this time – not very long ago. Serrurier tried to bring Favel to open battle by sending in three battalions of the army. They never came out, either; they were on Favel’s home ground.’

Julie looked up at the sun-soaked hills and shivered. ‘The more I hear of the history of San Fernandez, the more it terrifies me.’

Wyatt said, ‘We West Indians laugh when you Americans and the Europeans think the Antilles are a tropical paradise. Why do you suppose New York is flooded with Puerto Ricans and London with Jamaicans? They are the true centres of paradise today. The Caribbean is rotten with poverty and strife and not only San Fernandez, although it’s just about as bad here as it can get.’ He broke off and laughed embarrassedly. ‘I was forgetting you said you would come here to live – I’m not giving the place much of a build-up, am I?’ He was silent for a few minutes, then said thoughtfully, ‘What you said about doing research in the States makes sense, after all.’

‘No, Dave,’ said Julie quietly. ‘I wouldn’t do that to you. I wouldn’t begin our lives together by breaking up your job – it wouldn’t be any good for either of us. We’ll make our home here in San Fernandez and we’ll be very happy.’ She smiled. ‘And how long do I have to wait before I have my swim?’

Wyatt started the car and drove off again. The country changed as they went higher to go over the shoulder of the mountains, plantations giving way to thick tangled green scrub broken only by an occasional clearing occupied by a ramshackle hut. Once a long snake slithered through the dust in front of the slowly moving car and Julie gave a sharp cry of disgust.

‘This is a faint shadow of what it’s like up in the mountains,’ observed Wyatt. ‘But there are no roads up there.’

Suddenly he pulled the car to a halt and stared at a hut by the side of the road. Julie also looked at it but could see nothing unusual – it was merely another of the windowless shacks made of rammed earth and with a roughly thatched roof. Near the hut a man was pounding a stake into the hard ground.

Wyatt said, ‘Excuse me, Julie – I’d like to talk to that man.’

He got out of the car and walked over to the hut to look at the roof. It was covered by a network of cords made from the local sisal. From the net hung longer cords, three of which were attached to stakes driven into the ground. He went round the hut twice, then looked thoughtfully at the man who had not ceased his slow pounding with the big hammer. Formulating his phrases carefully in the barbarous French these people used, he said, ‘Man, what are you doing?’

The man looked up, his black face shiny with sweat. He was old, but how old Wyatt could not tell – it was difficult with these people. He looked to be about seventy years of age, but was probably about fifty. ‘Blanc, I make my house safe.’

Wyatt produced a pack of cigarettes and flicked one out. ‘It is hard work making your house safe,’ he said carefully.

The man balanced the hammer on its head and took the cigarette which Wyatt offered. He bent his head to the match and, sucking the smoke into his lungs, said, ‘Very hard work, blanc, but it must be done.’ He examined the cigarette. ‘American – very good.’

Wyatt lit his own cigarette and turned to survey the hut. ‘The roof must not come off,’ he agreed. ‘A house with no roof is like a man with no woman – incomplete. Do you have a woman?’

The man nodded and puffed on his cigarette.

‘I do not see her,’ Wyatt persisted.

The man blew a cloud of smoke into the air, then looked at Wyatt with blood-flecked brown eyes. ‘She has gone visiting, blanc.’

‘With all the children?’ said Wyatt quietly.

‘Yes, blanc.’

‘And you fasten the roof of your house.’ Wyatt tapped his foot. ‘You must fear greatly.’

The man’s eyes slid away and he shuffled his feet. ‘It is a time to be afraid. No man can fight what is to come.’

‘The big wind?’ asked Wyatt softly.

The man looked up in surprise. ‘Of course, blanc, what else?’ He struck his hands together smartly and let them fly up into the air. ‘When the big wind comes – li tomber boum’

Wyatt nodded. ‘Of course. You do right to make sure of the roof of your house.’ He paused. ‘How do you know that the wind comes?’

The man’s bare feet scuffled in the hot dust and he looked away. ‘I know,’ he mumbled. ‘I know.’

Wyatt knew better than to persist in that line of questioning – he had tried before. He said, ‘When does the wind come?’

The man looked at the cloudless blue sky, then stopped and picked up a handful of dust which he dribbled from his fingers. ‘Two days,’ he said. ‘Maybe three days. Not longer.’

Wyatt was startled by the accuracy of this prediction. If Mabel were to strike San Fernandez at all then those were the time limits, and yet how could this ignorant old man know? He said matter-of-factly, ‘You have sent your woman and children away.’

‘There is a cave in the hills,’ the man said. ‘When I finish this, I go too.’

Wyatt looked at the hut. ‘When you go, leave the door open,’ he said. ‘The wind does not like closed doors.’

‘Of course,’ agreed the man. ‘A closed door is inhospitable.’ He looked at Wyatt with a glint of humour in his eyes. ‘There may be another wind, blanc, perhaps worse than the hurricane. Favel is coming down from the mountains.’

‘But Favel is dead.’

The man shrugged. ‘Favel is coming down from the mountains,’ he repeated, and swung the hammer again at the top of the stake.

Wyatt walked back to the car and got into the driving seat.

‘What was all that about?’ asked Julie.

‘He says there’s a big wind coming so he’s tying down the roof of his house. When the big wind comes – li tomber boum.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘A very free translation is that everything is going to come down with a hell of a smash.’ Wyatt looked across at the hut and at the man toiling patiently in the hot sun. ‘He knows enough to leave his door open, too – but I doubt if I could tell you why.’ He turned to Julie. ‘I’m sorry, Julie, but I’d like to get back to the Base. There’s something I must check.’

‘Of course,’ said Julie. ‘You must do what you must.’

He turned the car round in the clearing and they went down the road. Julie said, ‘Harry Hansen told me you were worried about Mabel. Has this anything to do with it?’

He said, ‘It’s against all reason, of course. It’s against everything I’ve been taught, but I think we’re going to get slammed. I think Mabel is going to hit San Fernandez.’ He laughed wryly. ‘Now I’ve got to convince Schelling.’

‘Don’t you think he’ll believe you?’

‘What evidence can I give him? A sinking feeling in my guts? An ignorant old man tying on his roof? Schelling wants hard facts – pressure gradients, adiabatic rates – figures he can measure and check in the textbooks. I doubt if I’ll be able to do it. But I’ve got to. St Pierre is in no better condition to resist a hurricane than it was in 1910. You’ve seen the shanty town that’s sprung up outside – how long do you suppose those shacks would resist a big wind? And the population has gone up – it’s now 60,000. A hurricane hitting now would be a disaster too frightening to contemplate.’

Unconsciously he had increased pressure on the accelerator and he slithered round a corner with tyres squealing in protest. Julie said, ‘You won’t make things better by getting yourself killed going down this hill.’

He slowed down. ‘Sorry, Julie; I suppose I’m a bit worked up.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s the fact that I’m helpless that worries me.’

She said thoughtfully, ‘Couldn’t you fake your figures or something so that Commodore Brooks would have to take notice? If the hurricane didn’t come you’d be ruined professionally – but I think you’d be willing to take that chance.’

‘If I thought it would work I’d do it,’ said Wyatt grimly. ‘But Schelling would see through it; he may be stupid but he’s not a damn’ fool and he knows his job from that angle. It can’t be done that way.’

‘Then what are you going to do?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I don’t know.’

III

He dropped Julie at the Imperiale and headed back to the Base at top speed. He saw many soldiers in the streets of St Pierre but the fact did not impinge on his consciousness because he was busy thinking out a way to handle Schelling. When he arrived at the main gate of the Base he had still not thought of a way.

He was stopped at the gateway by a marine in full battle kit who gestured with a submachine-gun. ‘Out, buddy!’

‘What the devil’s going on?’

The marine’s lips tightened. ‘I said, “out”.’

Wyatt opened the door and got out of the car, noticing that the marine backed away from him. He looked up and saw that the towers by the gateway were fully manned and that the ugly snouts of machine-guns covered his car.

The marine said, ‘Who are you, buster?’

‘I’m in the Meteorological Section,’ said Wyatt. ‘What damned nonsense is all this?’

‘Prove it,’ said the marine flatly. He lifted the gun sharply as Wyatt made to put his hand to his breast pocket. ‘Whatever you’re pulling out, do it real slow.’

Slowly Wyatt pulled out his wallet and offered it. ‘You’ll find identification inside.’

The marine made no attempt to come closer. ‘Throw it down.’

Wyatt tossed the wallet to the ground, and the marine said, ‘Now back off.’ Wyatt slowly backed away and the marine stepped forward and picked up the wallet, keeping a wary eye on him. He flicked it open and examined the contents, then waved to the men in the tower. He held out the wallet and said, ‘You seem to be in the clear, Mr Wyatt.’

‘What the hell’s going on?’ asked Wyatt angrily.

The marine cradled the submachine-gun in his arms and stepped closer. ‘The brass have decided to hold security exercises, Mr Wyatt. I gotta go through the motions – the Lieutenant is watching me.’

Wyatt snorted and got into his car. The marine leaned against the door and said, ‘I wouldn’t go too fast through the gate, Mr Wyatt; those guns up there are loaded for real.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Someone’s gonna get killed on this exercise for sure.’

‘It won’t be me,’ Wyatt promised.

The marine grinned and for the first time an expression of enthusiasm showed. ‘Maybe the Lieutenant will get shot in the butt.’ He drew back and waved Wyatt on.

As Wyatt drove through the Base to his office he saw that it was an armed camp. All the gun emplacements were manned and all the men in full battle kit. Trucks roared through the streets and, near the Met. Office, a rank of armoured cars were standing by with engines ticking over. For a moment he thought of what the old man had said – Favel is coming down from the mountains. He shook his head irritably.

The first thing he did in his office was to pick up the telephone and ring the clearing office. ‘What’s the latest on Mabel?’

‘Who? Oh – Mabel! We’ve got the latest shots from Tiros; they came in half an hour ago.’

‘Shoot them across to me.’

‘Sorry, we can’t,’ said the tinny voice. ‘All the messengers are tied up in this exercise.’

‘I’ll come across myself,’ said Wyatt, and slammed down the phone, fuming at the delay. He drove to the clearing office, picked up the photographs and drove back, then settled down at his desk to examine them.

After nearly an hour he had come to no firm conclusion. Mabel was moving along a little faster – eleven miles an hour – and was on her predicted course. She would approach San Fernandez no nearer than to give the island a flick of her tail – a few hours of strong breezes and heavy rain. That was what theory said.

He pondered what to do next. He had no great faith in the theory that Schelling swore by. He had seen too many hurricanes swerve on unpredictable courses, too many islands swept bare when theory said the hurricane should pass them by. And he was West Indian – just as much West Indian as the old black man up near St Michel who was guarding his house against the big wind. They had a common feeling about this hurricane; a distrust which evidenced itself in deep uneasiness. Wyatt’s people had been in the Islands a mere four hundred years, but the black man had Carib Indian in his ancestry who had worshipped at the shrine of Hunraken, the Storm God. He had enough faith in his feelings to take positive steps, and Wyatt felt he could do no less, despite the fact that he could not prove this thing in the way he had been trained.

He felt despondent as he went to see Schelling.

Schelling was apparently busy, but then, he always was apparently busy. He raised his head as Wyatt entered his office, and said, ‘I thought you had a free afternoon.’

‘I came back to check on Mabel,’ said Wyatt. ‘She’s speeded up.’

‘Oh!’ said Schelling. He put down his pen and pushed the form-pad away. ‘What’s her speed now?’

‘She’s covered a hundred miles in the last nine hours – about eleven miles an hour. She started at eight – remember?’ Wyatt thought this was the way to get at Schelling – to communicate some unease to him, to make him remember that his prediction sent to the Weather Bureau was now at variance with the facts. He said deliberately, ‘At her present speed she’ll hit the Atlantic Coast in about six days; but I think she’ll speed up even more. Her present speed is still under the average.’

Schelling looked down at the desk-top thoughtfully. ‘And how’s her course?’

This was the tricky one. ‘As predicted,’ said Wyatt carefully. ‘She could change, of course – many have.’

‘We’d better cover ourselves,’ said Schelling. ‘I’ll send a signal to the Weather Bureau; they’ll sit on it for a couple of days and then announce the Hurricane Watch in the South-Eastern States. Of course, a lot will depend on what she does in the next two days, but they’ll know we’re on the ball down here.’

Wyatt sat down uninvited. He said, ‘What about the Islands?’

‘They’ll get the warning,’ said Schelling. ‘Just as usual. Where exactly is Mabel now?’

‘She slipped in between Grenada and Tobago,’ said Wyatt. ‘She gave them a bad time according to the reports I’ve just been reading, but nothing too serious. She’s just north of Los Testigos right now.’ He paused. ‘If she keeps on her present course she’ll go across Yucatan and into Mexico and Texas just like Janet and Hilda did in 1955.’

‘She won’t do that,’ said Schelling irritably. ‘She’ll curve to the north.’

‘Janet and Hilda didn’t,’ pointed out Wyatt. ‘And supposing she does curve to the north as she’s supposed to do. She only has to swing a little more than theory predicts and we’ll have her right on our doorstep.’

Schelling looked up. ‘Are you seriously trying to tell me that Mabel might hit San Fernandez?’

‘That’s right,’ said Wyatt. ‘Have you issued a local warning?’

Schelling’s eyes flickered. ‘No, I haven’t. I don’t think it necessary.’

‘You don’t think it necessary? I would have thought the example of 1910 would have made it very necessary.’

Schelling snorted. ‘You know what the government of this comic opera island is like. We tell them – they do precisely nothing. They’ve never found it necessary to establish a hurricane warning system – that would be money right out of Serrurier’s own pocket. Can you see him doing it? If I warn them, what difference would it make?’

‘You’d get it on record,’ said Wyatt, playing on Schelling’s weakness.

‘There is that,’ said Schelling thoughtfully. Then he shrugged. ‘It’s always been difficult to know whom to report to. We have told Descaix, the Minister for Island Affairs, in the past, but Serrurier has now taken that job on himself – and telling Serrurier anything is never easy, you know that.’

‘When did this happen?’

‘He fired Descaix yesterday – you know what that means. Descaix is either dead or in Rambeau Castle wishing he were dead.’

Wyatt frowned. So Descaix, the chief of the Security Force, was gone – swept away in one of Serrurier’s sudden passions of house-cleaning. But Descaix had been his right arm; something very serious must have happened for him to have fallen from power. Favel is coming dawn from the mountains. Wyatt shook the thought from him – what had this to do with the violence of hurricanes?

‘You’d better tell Serrurier, then,’ he said.

Schelling smiled thinly. ‘I doubt if Serrurier is in any mood to listen to anything he doesn’t want to hear right now.’ He tapped on the desk. ‘But I’ll tell someone in the Palace – just for the record.’

‘You’ve told Commodore Brooks, of course,’ said Wyatt idly.

‘Er … he knows about Mabel… yes.’

‘He knows all about Mabel?’ asked Wyatt sharply. ‘The type of hurricane she is?’

‘I’ve given him the usual routine reports,’ said Schelling stiffly. He leaned forward. ‘Look here, Wyatt, you seem to have an obsession about this particular hurricane. Now, if you have anything to say about it – and I want facts – lay it on the line right now. If you haven’t any concrete evidence, then for God’s sake shut up and get on with your job.’

‘You’ve given Brooks “routine” reports,’ repeated Wyatt softly. ‘Schelling, I want to see the Commodore.’

‘Commodore Brooks – like Serrurier – has no time at the present to listen to weather forecasts.’

Wyatt stood up. ‘I’m going to see Commodore Brooks,’ he said obstinately.

Schelling was shocked. ‘You mean you’d go over my head?’

‘I’m going to see Brooks,’ repeated Wyatt grimly. ‘With you or without you.’

He waited for the affronted outburst and for a moment he thought Schelling was going to explode, but he merely said abruptly, ‘Very well, I’ll arrange an appointment with the Commodore. You’d better wait in your office until you’re called – it may take some time.’ He smiled grimly. ‘You’re not going to make yourself popular, you know.’

‘I haven’t entered a popularity contest,’ said Wyatt evenly. He turned and walked out of Schelling’s office, puzzled as to why Schelling should have given in so easily. Then he chuckled bleakly. The reports that Schelling had given Brooks must have been very skimpy, and Schelling couldn’t afford to let him see Brooks without getting in his version first. He was probably with Brooks now, spinning him the yarn.

The call did not come for over an hour and a half and he spent the time compiling some interesting statistics for Commodore Brooks – a weak staff to lean on but all he had, apart from the powerful feeling in his gut that disaster was impending. Brooks would not be interested in his emotions and intuitions.

Brooks’s office was the calm centre of a storm. Wyatt had to wait for a few minutes in one of the outer offices and saw the organized chaos that afflicts even the most efficient organization in a crisis, and he wondered if this was just another exercise. But Brooks’s office, when he finally got there, was calm and peaceful; Brooks’s desk was clean, a vast expanse of polished teak unmarred by a single paper, and the Commodore sat behind it, trim and neat, regarding Wyatt with a stony, but neutral, stare. Schelling stood to one side, his hands behind his back as though he had just been ordered to the stand-easy position.

Brooks said in a level voice, ‘I have just heard that there is a technical disputation going on among the Meteorological Staff. Perhaps you will give me your views, Mr Wyatt.’

‘We’ve got a hurricane, sir,’ said Wyatt. ‘A really bad one. I think there’s a strong possibility she may hit San Fernandez. Commander Schelling, I think, disagrees.’

‘I have just heard Commander Schelling’s views,’ said Brooks, confirming the suspicions Wyatt had been entertaining. ‘What I would like to hear are your findings. I would point out, however, that pending the facts you are about to give me, I consider the possibility of a hurricane hitting this island to be very remote. The last one, I believe, was in 1910.’

It was evident that he had been given a quick briefing by Schelling.

Wyatt said, ‘That’s right, sir. The death-roll on that occasion was 6,000.’

Brooks’s eyebrows rose. ‘As many as that?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Continue, Mr Wyatt.’

Wyatt gave a quick résumé of events since Mabel had been discovered and probed. He said, ‘All the evidence shows that Mabel is a particularly bad piece of weather; the pressure gradient is exceptional and the winds generated are remarkably strong. Lieutenant-Commander Hansen said it was the worst weather he had ever flown in.’

Brooks inclined his head. ‘Granted that it is a bad hurricane, what evidence have you got that it is going to hit this island? I believe you said that there is a “strong possibility”; I would want more than that, Mr Wyatt – I would want something more in the nature of a probability.’

‘I’ve produced some figures,’ said Wyatt, laying a sheaf of papers on the immaculate desk. ‘I believe that Commander Schelling is relying on standard theory when he states that Mabel will not come here. He is, quite properly, taking into account the forces that we know act on tropical revolving storms. My contention is that we don’t know enough to take chances.’

He spread the papers on the desk. ‘I have taken an abstract of information from my records of all the hurricanes of which I have had personal knowledge during the four years I have been here – that would be about three-quarters of those occurring in the Caribbean in that time. I have checked the number of times a hurricane has departed from the path which strict theory dictates and I find that forty-five per cent of the hurricanes have done so, in major and minor ways. To be quite honest about it I prepared another sheet presenting the same information, but confining the study to hurricanes conforming to the characteristics of Mabel. That is, of the same age, emanating from the same area, and so on. I find there is a thirty per cent chance of Mabel diverging from the theoretical path enough to hit San Fernandez.’

He slid the papers across the desk but Brooks pushed them back. ‘I believe you, Mr Wyatt,’ he said quietly. ‘Commander, what do you say to this?’

Schelling said, ‘I think statistics presented in this way can be misused – misinterpreted. I am quite prepared to believe Mr Wyatt’s figures, but not his reasoning. He says there is a thirty per cent chance of Mabel diverging from her path, and I accept it, but that is not to say that if she diverges she will hit San Fernandez. After all, she could go the other way.’

‘Mr Wyatt?’

Wyatt nodded. ‘That’s right, of course; but I don’t like it.’

Brooks put his hands together. ‘What it boils down to is this: the risk of Mabel hitting us is somewhere between vanishing point and thirty per cent., but even assuming that the worst happens, it’s still only a thirty per cent risk. Would that be putting it fairly, Mr Wyatt?’

Wyatt swallowed. ‘Yes, sir. But I would like to point out one or two things that I think are pertinent. There was a hurricane that hit Galveston in 1900 and another that hit here in 1910; the high death-roll in each case was due to the same phenomena – floods.’

‘From the high rainfall?’

‘No, sir; from the construction of a hurricane and from geographical peculiarities.’

He stopped for a moment and Brooks, said, ‘Go on, Mr Wyatt. I’m sure the Commander will correct you if you happen to err in your facts.’

Wyatt said, ‘The air pressure in the centre of a hurricane drops a lot; this release of pressure on the surface of the sea induces the water to lift in a hump, perhaps ten feet in a normal hurricane. Mabel is not a normal hurricane; her internal air pressure is very low and I would expect the sea level at her centre to rise to twenty feet above normal – perhaps as much as twenty-five feet.’

He turned and pointed through the window. ‘If Mabel hits us she’ll be coming from due south right into the bay. It’s a shallow bay and we know what happens when a tidal wave hits shallow water – it builds up. You can expect flood waters to a height of over fifty feet in Santego Bay. The highest point on Cap Sarrat is, I believe, forty-five feet. You’d get a solid wall of water right over this Base. They had to rebuild the Base in 1910 – luckily there wasn’t much to rebuild because the Base hadn’t really got going then.’

He looked at Brooks, who said softly, ‘Go on, Mr Wyatt. I can see you haven’t finished yet.’

‘I haven’t, sir. There’s St Pierre. In 1910 half the population was wiped out – if that happened now you could count on thirty thousand deaths. Most of the town is no higher than Cap Sarrat, and they’re no more prepared for a hurricane and floods than they were in 1910.’

Brooks twitched his eyes towards Schelling. ‘Well, Commander, can you find fault with anything Mr Wyatt has said?’

Schelling said unwillingly, ‘He’s quite correct – theoretically. But all this depends on the accuracy of the readings brought back from Mabel by Mr Wyatt and Lieutenant-Commander Hansen.’

Brooks nodded. ‘Yes, I think we ought to have another look at Mabel. Commander, will you see to it? I want a plane sent off right away with the best pilot you’ve got.’

Wyatt said immediately, ‘Not Hansen – he’s had enough of Mabel.’

‘I agree,’ said Schelling just as quickly. ‘I want a different flight crew and a different technical staff.’

Wyatt stiffened. ‘That remark is a reflection on my professional integrity,’ he said coldly.

Brooks slammed the palm of his hand on the desk with the noise of a pistol shot. ‘It is nothing of the kind,’ he rasped. ‘There’s a difference of opinion between the doctors and I want a third opinion. Is that quite clear?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Wyatt.

‘Commander, what are you waiting around for? Get that flight organized.’ Brooks watched Schelling leave, and as Wyatt visibly hesitated he said, ‘Stay here, Mr Wyatt, I want to talk to you.’ He tented his fingers and regarded Wyatt closely. ‘What would you have me do, Mr Wyatt? What would you do in my position?’

‘I’d get my ships out to sea,’ said Wyatt promptly, ‘loaded with all the Base personnel. I’d fly all aircraft to Puerto Rico. I’d do my damnedest to convince President Serrurier of the gravity of the situation. You should also evacuate all American nationals, and as many foreign nationals as you can.’

‘You make it sound easy,’ observed Brooks.

‘You have two days.’

Brooks sighed. ‘It would be easy if that’s all there were to it. But a military emergency has arisen. I believe a civil war is going to break out between insurgents from the mountains and the government. That’s why this Base is now in an official state of emergency and all American personnel confined to Base. In fact, I have just signed a directive asking all American nationals to come to Cap Sarrat for safety.’

‘Favel is coming down from the mountains,’ said Wyatt involuntarily.

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s what I heard. Favel is coming down from the mountains.’

Brooks nodded. ‘That may well be. He may not be dead. President Serrurier has accused the American Government of supplying the rebels with arms. He’s a pretty hard man to talk to right now, and I doubt if he’d listen to me chitchatting about the weather.’

‘Did the American Government supply the rebels with arms?’ asked Wyatt deliberately.

Brooks bristled and jerked. ‘Definitely not! It has been our declared policy, explicitly and implicitly, not to interfere with local affairs on San Fernandez. I have strict instructions from my superiors on that matter.’ He looked down at the backs of his hands and growled, ‘When they sent in the Marines in that affair of the Dominican Republic it set back our South American diplomatic efforts ten years – we don’t want that to happen again.’

He suddenly seemed to be aware that he was being indiscreet and tapped his fingers on the desk. ‘With regard to the evacuation of this Base: I have decided to stay. The chance of a hurricane striking this island is, on your own evidence, only thirty per cent at the worst. That sort of a risk I can live with, and I feel I cannot abandon this Base when there is a threat of war on this island.’ He smiled gently. ‘I don’t usually expound this way to my subordinates – still less to foreign nationals – but I wish to do the right thing for all concerned, and I also wish to use you. I wish you to deliver a letter to Mr Rawsthorne, the British Consul in St Pierre, in which I am advising him of the position I am taking and inviting any British nationals on San Fernandez to take advantage of the security of this Base. It will be ready in fifteen minutes.’

‘I’ll take the letter,’ said Wyatt.

Brooks nodded. ‘About this hurricane – Serrurier may listen to the British. Perhaps you can do something through Rawsthorne.’

‘I’ll try,’ said Wyatt.

‘Another thing,’ said Brooks. ‘In any large organization methods become rigid and channels narrow. There arises a tendency on the part of individuals to hesitate in pressing unpleasant issues. Awkward corners spoil the set of the common coat we wear. I am indebted to you for bringing this matter to my attention.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

Brooks’s voice was tinged with irony. ‘Commander Schelling is a reliable officer – I know precisely what to expect of him. I trust you will not feel any difficulty in working with him in the future.’

‘I don’t think I will.’

‘Thank you, Mr Wyatt; that will be all. I’ll have the letter for Mr Rawsthorne delivered to your office.’

As Wyatt went back to his own office he felt deep admiration for Brooks. The man was on the horns of a dilemma and had elected to take a calculated risk. To abandon the Base and leave it to the anti-American Serrurier would certainly incur the wrath of his superiors – once Serrurier was in it would be difficult, if not impossible, to get him out. On the other hand, the hurricane was a very real danger and Boards of Inquiry have never been noted for mercy towards naval officers who have pleaded natural disasters as a mitigation. The Base could be lost either way, and Brooks had to make a cold-blooded and necessary decision.

Unhappily, Wyatt felt that Brooks had made the wrong decision.

IV

Under an hour later he was driving through the streets of St Pierre heading towards the dock area where Rawsthorne had his home and his office. The streets were unusually quiet in the fading light and the market, usually a brawl of activity, was closed. There were no soldiers about, but many police moved about in compact squads of four. Not that they had much to do, because the entire town seemed to have gone into hiding behind locked doors and bolted shutters.

Rawsthorne’s place was also locked up solid and was only distinguishable from the others by the limp Union Jack which someone had hung from an upper window. Wyatt hammered on the door and it was a long time before a tentative voice said, ‘Who’s that?’

‘My name’s Wyatt – I’m English. Let me in.’

Bolts slid aside and the door opened a crack, then swung wider. ‘Come in, come in, man! This is no time to be on the streets.’

Wyatt had met Rawsthorne once when he visited the Base. He was a short, stout man who could have been type-cast as Pickwick, and was one of the two English merchants on San Fernandez. His official duties as British Consul gave him the minimum of trouble since there was only a scattering of British on the island, and his principal consular efforts were directed to bailing the occasional drunken seaman out of gaol and half-hearted attempts to distribute the literature on Cotswold villages and Morris dancing which was sent to him by the British Council in an effort to promote the British Way of Life.

He now put his head on one side and peered at Wyatt in the gloom of the narrow entrance. ‘Don’t I know you?’

‘We met at Cap Sarrat,’ said Wyatt. ‘I work there.’

‘Of course; you’re the weatherman on loan from the Meteorological Office – I remember.’

‘I’ve got a letter from Commodore Brooks.’ Wyatt produced the envelope.

‘Come into my office,’ said Rawsthorne, and led him into a musty, Dickensian room dark with nineteenth-century furniture. A portrait of the Queen gazed across at the Duke of Edinburgh hung on the opposite wall. Rawsthorne slit open the envelope and said, ‘I wonder why Commodore Brooks didn’t telephone as he usually does.’

Wyatt smiled crookedly. ‘He trusts the security of the Base but not that of the outside telephone lines.’

‘Very wise,’ said Rawsthorne, and peered at the letter. After a while he said, ‘That’s most handsome of the Commodore to offer us the hospitality of the Base – not that there are many of us.’ He tapped the letter. ‘He tells me that you have qualms about a hurricane. My dear sir, we haven’t had a hurricane here since 1910.’

‘So everyone insists on telling me,’ said Wyatt bitterly. ‘Mr Rawsthorne, have you ever broken your arm?’

Rawsthorne was taken aback. He spluttered a little, then said, ‘As a matter of fact, I have – when I was a boy.’

‘That was a long time ago.’

‘Nearly fifty years – but I don’t see …’

Wyatt said, ‘Does the fact that it is nearly fifty years since you broke your arm mean that you couldn’t break it again tomorrow?’

Rawsthorne was silent for a moment. ‘You have made your point, young man. I take it you are serious about this hurricane?’

‘I am,’ said Wyatt with all the conviction he could muster.

‘Commodore Brooks is a very honest man,’ said Rawsthorne. ‘He tells me here that, if you are right, the Base will not be the safest place on San Fernandez. He advises me to take that into account in any decision I might make.’ He looked at Wyatt keenly. ‘I think you had better tell me all about your hurricane.’

So Wyatt went through it again, with Rawsthorne showing a niggling appreciation of detail and asking some unexpectedly penetrating questions. When Wyatt ran dry he said, ‘So what we have is this – there is a thirty per cent chance at worst of this hurricane – so grotesquely named Mabel – coming here. That is on your figures. Then there is your over-powering conviction that it will come, and I do not think we should neglect that. No, indeed! I have a very great regard for intuition. So what do we do now, Mr Wyatt?’

‘Commodore Brooks suggested that we might see Serrurier. He thought he might accept it from a British source when he wouldn’t take it from an American.’

Rawsthorne nodded. ‘That might very well be the case.’ But he shook his head. ‘It will be difficult seeing him, you know. He is not the easiest man to see at the best of times, and in the present circumstances …’

‘We can try,’ said Wyatt stubbornly.

‘Indeed we can,’ Rawsthorne said briskly. ‘And we must.’ He looked at Wyatt with brightly intelligent eyes. ‘You are a very convincing young man, Mr Wyatt. Let us go immediately. What decisions I make regarding the safety of British nationals must inevitably depend on what Serrurier will do.’

The Presidential Palace was ringed with troops. Fully two battalions were camped in the grounds and the darkness was a-twinkle with their camp-fires. Twice the car was stopped and each time Rawsthorne talked their way through. At last they came to the final hurdle – the guard-room at the main entrance.

‘I wish to see M. Hippolyte, the Chief of Protocol,’ Rawsthorne announced to the young officer who barred their way.

‘But does M. Hippolyte want to see you?’ asked the officer insolently, teeth flashing in his black face.

‘I am the British Consul,’ said Rawsthorne firmly. ‘And if I do not see M. Hippolyte immediately he will be very displeased.’ He paused, then added as though in afterthought, ‘So will President Serrurier.’

The grin disappeared from the officer’s face at the mention of Serrurier and he hesitated uncertainly. ‘Wait here,’ he said harshly and went inside the palace.

Wyatt eyed the heavily armed troops who surrounded them, and said to Rawsthorne, ‘Why Hippolyte?’

‘He’s our best bet of getting to see Serrurier. He’s big enough to have Serrurier’s ear and small enough for me to frighten – just as I frightened that insolent young pup.’

The ‘insolent young pup’ came back. ‘All right; you can see M. Hippolyte.’ He made a curt gesture to the soldiers. ‘Search them.’

Wyatt found himself pawed by ungentle black hands. He submitted to the indignity and was then roughly pushed forward through the doorway with Rawsthorne clattering at his heels. ‘I’ll make Hippolyte suffer for this,’ said Rawsthorne through his teeth. ‘I’ll give him protocol.’ He glanced up at Wyatt. ‘He speaks English so I can really get my insults home.’

‘Forget it,’ said Wyatt tightly. ‘Our object is to see Serrurier.’

Hippolyte’s office was large with a lofty ceiling and elaborate mouldings. Hippolyte himself rose to greet them from behind a beautiful eighteenth-century desk and came forward with outstretched hands. ‘Ah, Mr Rawsthorne; what brings you here at a time like this – and at such a late hour?’ His voice was pure Oxford.

Rawsthorne swallowed the insults he was itching to deliver and said stiffly, ‘I wish to see President Serrurier.’

Hippolyte’s face fell. ‘I am afraid that is impossible. You must know, Mr Rawsthorne, that you come at a most in-opportune time.’

Rawsthorne drew himself up to the most of his insignificant height and Wyatt could almost see him clothing himself in the full awe of British majesty. ‘I am here to deliver an official message from Her Britannic Majesty’s Government,’ he said pompously. ‘The message is to be delivered to President Serrurier in person. I rather think he will be somewhat annoyed if he does not get it.’

Hippolyte’s expression became less pleasant. ‘President Serrurier is … in conference. He cannot be disturbed.’

‘Am I to report back to my Government that President Serrurier does not wish to receive their message?’

Hippolyte sweated slightly. ‘I would not go so far as to say that, Mr Rawsthorne.’

‘Neither would I,’ said Rawsthorne with a pleasant smile. ‘But I would say that the President should be allowed to make up his own mind on this issue. I shouldn’t think he would like other people acting in his name – not at all. Why don’t you ask him if he’s willing to see me?’

‘Perhaps that would be best,’ agreed Hippolyte unwillingly. ‘Could you tell me at least the … er … subject-matter of your communication?’

‘I could not,’ said Rawsthorne severely. ‘It’s a Matter of State.’

‘All right,’ said Hippolyte. ‘I will ask the President. If you would wait here …’ His voice tailed off and he backed out of the room.

Wyatt glanced at Rawsthorne. ‘Laying it on a bit thick, aren’t you?’

Rawsthorne mopped his brow. ‘If this gets back to Whitehall I’ll be out of a job – but it’s the only way to handle Hippolyte. The man’s in a muck sweat – you saw that. He’s afraid to break in on Serrurier and he’s even more afraid of what might happen if he doesn’t. That’s the trouble with the tyranny of one-man rule; the dictator surrounds himself with bags of jelly like Hippolyte.’

‘Do you think he’ll see us?’

‘I should think so,’ said Rawsthorne. ‘I think I’ve roused his curiosity.’

Hippolyte came back fifteen minutes later. ‘The President will see you. Please come this way.’

They followed him along an ornate corridor for what seemed a full half mile before he stopped outside a door. ‘The President is naturally … disturbed about the present critical situation,’ he said. ‘Please do not take it amiss if he is a little … er … short-tempered, let us say.’

Rawsthorne guessed that Hippolyte had recently felt the edge of Serrurier’s temper and decided to twist the knife. ‘He’ll be even more short-tempered when I tell him how we were treated on our arrival here,’ he said shortly. ‘Never have I heard of the official representative of a foreign power being searched like a common criminal.’

Hippolyte’s sweat-shiny face paled to a dirty grey and he began to say something, but Rawsthorne ignored him, pushed open the door and walked into the room with Wyatt close behind. It was a huge room, sparsely furnished, but in the same over-ornate style as the rest of the palace. A trestle-table had been set up at the far end round which a number of uniformed men were grouped. An argument seemed to be in progress, for a small man with his back to them pounded on the table and shouted, ‘You will find them, General; find them and smash them.’

Rawsthorne said out of the corner of his mouth, ‘That’s Serrurier – with the Army Staff – Deruelles, Lescuyer, Rocambeau.’

One of the soldiers muttered something to Serrurier and he swung round. ‘Ah, Rawsthorne, you wanted to tell me something?’

‘Come on,’ said Rawsthorne, and strode up the length of the room.

Serrurier leaned on the edge of the table which was covered with maps. He was a small, almost insignificant man with hunched shoulders and hollow chest. He had brown chimpanzee eyes which seemed to plead for understanding, as though he could not comprehend why anyone should hate or even dislike him. But his voice was harsh with the timbre of a man who understood power and how to command it.

He rubbed his chin and said, ‘You come at a strange time. Who is the ti blanc?’

‘A British scientist, Your Excellency.’

Serrurier shrugged and visibly wiped Wyatt from the list of people he would care to know. ‘And what does the British Government want with me – or from me?’

‘I have been instructed to bring you something,’ said Rawsthorne.

Serrurier grunted. ‘What?’

‘Valuable information, Your Excellency. Mr Wyatt is a weather expert – he brings news of an approaching hurricane – a dangerous one.’

Serrurier’s jaw dropped. ‘You come here at this time to talk about the weather?’ he asked incredulously. ‘At a time when war is imminent you wish to waste my time with weather forecasting?’ He picked up a map from the table and crumpled it in a black fist, shaking it under Raws-thorne’s nose. ‘I thought you were bringing news of Favel. Favel! Favel – do you understand? He is all that I am interested in.’

‘Your Excellency –’ began Rawsthorne.

Serrurier said in a grating voice, ‘We do not have hurricanes in San Fernandez – everyone knows that.’

‘You had one in 1910,’ said Wyatt.

‘We do not have hurricanes in San Fernandez,’ repeated Serrurier, staring at Wyatt. He suddenly lost his temper. ‘Hippolyte! Hippolyte, where the devil are you? Show these fools out.’

‘But Your Excellency –’ began Rawsthorne again.

‘We do not have hurricanes in San Fernandez,’ screamed Serrurier. ‘Are you deaf, Rawsthorne? Hippolyte, get them out of my sight.’ He leaned against the table, breathing heavily. ‘And, Hippolyte, I’ll deal with you later,’ he added menacingly.

Wyatt found Hippolyte plucking pleadingly at his coat, and glanced at Rawsthorne. ‘Come on,’ said Rawsthorne bleakly. ‘We’ve delivered our message as well as we’re able.’

He walked with steady dignity down the long room, and after a moment’s hesitation Wyatt followed, hearing Serrurier’s hysterical scream as he left. ‘Do you understand, Mr British Scientist? We do not have hurricanes in San Fernandez!’

Outside, Hippolyte became vindictive. He considered Rawsthorne had made a fool of him and he feared the retribution of Serrurier. He called a squad of soldiers and Wyatt and Rawsthorne found themselves brutally hustled from the palace to be literally thrown out of the front door.

Rawsthorne examined a tear in his coat. ‘I thought it might be like that,’ he said. ‘But we had to try.’

‘He’s mad,’ said Wyatt blankly. ‘He’s stark staring, raving mad.’

‘Of course,’ said Rawsthorne calmly. ‘Didn’t you know? Lord Acton once said that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Serrurier is thoroughly corrupted in the worst possible way – that’s why everyone is so afraid of him. I was beginning to wonder if we’d get out of there.’

Wyatt shook his head as though to clear cobwebs out of his brain. ‘He said, “We do not have hurricanes in San Fernandez,” as though he has forbidden them by presidential decree.’ There was a baffled look on his face.

‘Let’s get away from here,’ said Rawsthorne with an eye on the surrounding soldiers. ‘Where’s the car?’

‘Over there,’ said Wyatt. ‘I’ll take you back to your place – then I must call at the Imperiale.’

There was a low rumble in the distance coming from the mountains. Rawsthorne cocked his head on one side. ‘Thunder,’ he said. ‘Is your hurricane upon us already?’

Wyatt looked up at the moon floating in the cloudless sky. ‘That’s not thunder,’ he said. ‘I wonder if Serrurier has found Favel – or vice versa.’ He looked at Rawsthorne. ‘That’s gunfire.’

THREE

It was quite late in the evening when Wyatt pulled up his car outside the Imperiale. He had had a rough time; the street lighting had failed or been deliberately extinguished (he thought that perhaps the power-station staff had decamped) and three times he had been halted by the suspicious police, his being one of the few cars on the move in the quiet city. There was a sporadic crackle of rifle fire, sometimes isolated shots and sometimes minor fusillades, echoing through the streets. The police and the soldiers were nervous and likely to shoot at anything that moved. And behind everything was the steady rumble of artillery fire from the mountains, now sounding very distinctly on the heavy night air.

His thoughts were confused as he got out of the car. He did not know whether he would be glad or sorry to find Julie at the Imperiale. If she had gone to Cap Sarrat Base then all decision was taken out of his hands, but if she was still in the hotel then he would have to make the awkward choice. Cap Sarrat, in his opinion, was not safe, but neither was getting mixed up in a civil war between shooting armies. Could he, on an unsupported hunch, honestly advise anyone – and especially Julie – not to go to Cap Sarrat?

He looked up at the darkened hotel and shrugged mentally – he would soon find out what he had to do. He was about to lock the car when he paused in thought, then he opened up the engine and removed the rotor-arm of the distributor. At least the car would be there when he needed it.

The foyer of the Imperiale was in darkness, but he saw a faint glow from the American Bar. He walked across and halted as a chair clattered behind him. He whirled, and said, ‘Who’s that?’ There was a faint scrape of sound and a shadow flitted across a window; then a door banged and there was silence.

He waited a few seconds, then went on. A voice called from the American Bar, ‘Who’s that out there?’

‘Wyatt.’

Julie rushed into his arms as he stepped into the bar. ‘Oh, Dave, I’m glad you’re here. Have you brought transport from the Base?’

‘I’ve got transport,’ he said. ‘But I’ve not come directly from the Base. Someone was supposed to pick you up, I know that.’

‘They came,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t here – none of us were.’

He became aware he was in the centre of a small group. Dawson was there, and Papegaikos of the Maraca Club and a middle-aged woman whom he did not know. Behind, at the bar, the bar-tender clanged the cash register open.

‘I was here,’ said the woman. ‘I was asleep in my room and nobody came to wake me.’ She spoke aggressively in an affronted tone.

‘I don’t think you know Mrs Warmington,’ Julie said.

Wyatt nodded an acknowledgement, and said, ‘So you’re left stranded.’

‘Not exactly,’ said Julie. ‘When Mr Dawson and I came back and found everyone gone we sat around a bit wondering what to do, then the phone rang in the manager’s office. It was someone at the Base checking up; he said he’d send a truck for us – then the phone cut off in the middle of a sentence.’

‘Serrurier’s men probably cut the lines to the Base,’ said Wyatt. ‘It’s a bit dicey out there – they’re as nervous as cats. When was this?’

‘Nearly two hours ago.’

Wyatt did not like the sound of that but he made no comment – there was no point in scaring anybody. He smiled at Papegaikos. ‘Hello, Eumenides, I didn’t know you favoured the Imperiale.’

The sallow Greek smiled glumly. ‘I was tol’ to come ‘ere if I wan’ to go to the Base.’

Dawson said bluffly, ‘That truck should be here any time now and we’ll be out of here.’ He waved a glass at Wyatt. ‘I guess you could do with a drink.’

‘It would come in handy,’ said Wyatt. ‘I’ve had a hard day.’

Dawson turned. ‘Hey, you! Where d’you think you’re going?’ He bounded forward and seized the small man who was sidling out of the bar. The bartender wriggled frantically, but Dawson held him with one huge paw and pulled him back behind the bar. He looked over at Wyatt and grinned. ‘Whaddya know, he’s cleaned out the cash drawer, too.’

‘Let him go,’ said Wyatt tiredly. ‘It’s no business of ours. All the staff will leave – there was one sneaking out when I came in.’

Dawson shrugged and opened his fist and the bartender scuttled out. ‘What the hell! I like self-service bars better.’

Mrs Warmington said briskly, ‘Well, now that you’re here with a car we can leave for the Base.’

Wyatt sighed. ‘I don’t know if that’s wise. We may not get through. Serrurier’s crowd is trigger-happy; they’re likely to shoot first and ask questions afterwards – and even if they do ask questions we’re liable to get shot.’

Dawson thrust a drink into his hand. ‘Hell, we’re Americans; we’ve got no quarrel with Serrurier.’

‘We know that, and Commodore Brooks knows it – but Serrurier doesn’t. He’s convinced that the Americans have supplied the rebels with guns – the guns you can hear now – and he probably thinks that Brooks is just biding his time before he comes out of the Base to stab him in the back.’

He took a gulp of the drink and choked; Dawson had a heavy hand with the whisky. He swallowed hard, and said, ‘My guess is that Serrurier has a pretty strong detachment of the army surrounding the Base right now – that’s why your transport hasn’t turned up.’

Everyone looked at him in silence. At last Mrs Warmington said, ‘Why, I know Commodore Brooks wouldn’t leave us here, not even if he had to order the Marines to come and get us.’

‘Commodore Brooks has more to think of than the plight of a few Americans in St Pierre,’ said Wyatt coldly. ‘The safety of the Base comes first.’

Dawson said intently, ‘What makes you think the Base isn’t safe, anyway?’

‘There’s trouble coming,’ said Wyatt. ‘Not the war, but –’

‘Anyone home?’ someone shouted from the foyer, and Julie said, ‘That’s Mr Causton.’

Causton came into the bar. He was limping slightly, there was a large tear in his jacket and his face was very dirty with a cut and a smear of blood on the right cheek. ‘Damn’ silly of me,’ he said. ‘I ran out of recording tapes, so I came back to get some more.’ He surveyed the small group. ‘I thought you’d all be at the Base by now.’

‘Communications have been cut,’ said Wyatt, and explained what had happened.

‘You’ve lost your chance,’ said Causton grimly. ‘The Government has quarantined the Base – there’s a cordon round it.’ He knew them all except Mrs Warmington, and regarded Dawson with a sardonic gleam in his eye. ‘Ah, yes, Mr Dawson; this should be just up your street. Plenty of material here for a book, eh?’

Dawson said, ‘Sure, it’ll make a good book.’ He did not sound very enthusiastic.

‘I could do with a hefty drink,’ said Causton. He looked at Wyatt. ‘That your car outside? A copper was looking at it when I came in.’

‘It’s quite safe,’ said Wyatt. ‘What have you been up to?’

‘Doing my job,’ said Causton matter-of-factly. ‘All hell’s breaking loose out there. Ah, thank you,’ he said gratefully, as Papegaikos handed him a drink. He sank half of it in a gulp, then said to Wyatt, ‘You know this island. Supposing you were a rebel in the mountains and you had a large consignment of arms coming in a ship – quite a big ship. You’d want a nice quiet place to land it, wouldn’t you? With easy transport to the mountains, too. Where would such a spot be?’

Wyatt pondered. ‘Somewhere on the north coast, certainly; it’s pretty wild country over there. I’d go for the Campo de las Perlas – somewhere round there.’

‘Give the man a coconut,’ said Causton. ‘At least one shipload of arms was landed there within the last month – maybe more. Serrurier’s intelligence slipped up on that one – or maybe they were too late. Oh, and Favel is alive, after all.’ He patted his pockets helplessly. ‘Anyone got a cigarette?’

Julie offered her packet. ‘How did you get that blood on your face?’

Causton put his hand to his cheek, then looked with surprise at the blood on his fingertips. ‘I was trying to get in to see Serrurier,’ he said. ‘The guards were a bit rough – one of them didn’t take his ring off, or maybe it was a knuckleduster.’

‘I saw Serrurier,’ said Wyatt quietly.

‘Did you, by God!’ exclaimed Causton. ‘I wish I’d known; I could have come with you. There are a few questions I’d like to ask him.’

Wyatt laughed mirthlessly. ‘Serrurier isn’t the kind of man you question. He’s a raving maniac. I think this little lot has finally driven him round the bend.’

‘What did you want with him?’

‘I wanted to tell him that a hurricane is going to hit this island in two days’ time. He threw us out and banished the hurricane by decree.’

‘Christ!’ said Causton. ‘As though we don’t have enough to put up with. Are you serious about this?’

‘I am.’

Mrs Warmington gave a shrill squeak. ‘We should get to the Base,’ she said angrily. ‘We’ll be safe on the Base.’

Wyatt looked at her for a moment, then said to Causton in a low voice, ‘I’d like to talk to you for a minute.’

Causton took one look at Wyatt’s serious face, then finished his drink. ‘I have to go up to my room for the tapes; you’d better come with me.’

He got up from the chair stiffly, and Wyatt said to Julie, ‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ then followed him into the foyer. Causton produced a flashlight and they climbed the stairs to the first floor. Wyatt said, ‘I’m pretty worried about things.’

‘This hurricane?’

‘That’s right,’ said Wyatt, and told Causton about it in a few swift sentences, not detailing his qualms, but treating the hurricane as a foregone conclusion. He said, ‘Somehow I feel a responsibility for the people downstairs. I think Julie won’t crack, but I’m not too sure about the other woman. She’s older and she’s nervous.’

‘She’ll run you ragged if you let her,’ said Causton. ‘She looks the bossy kind to me.’

‘And then there’s Eumenides – he’s an unknown quantity but I don’t know that I’d like to depend on him. Dawson is different, of course.’

Causton’s flashlight flickered about his room. ‘Is he? Put not your faith in brother Dawson – that’s a word to the wise.’

‘Oh,’ said Wyatt. ‘Anyway, I’m in a hell of a jam. I’ll have to shepherd this lot to safety somehow, and that means leaving town.’

A cane chair creaked as Causton sat down. ‘Now let me get this straight. You say we’re going to be hit by a hurricane. When?’

‘Two days,’ said Wyatt. ‘Say half a day either way.’

‘And when it comes, the Base is going to be destroyed.’

‘For all practical purposes – yes.’

‘And so is St Pierre.’

‘That’s right.’

‘So you want to take off for the hills, herding along these people downstairs. That’s heading smack into trouble, you know.’

‘It needn’t be,’ said Wyatt. ‘We need to get about a hundred feet above sea-level and on the northern side of a ridge – a place like that shouldn’t be too difficult to find just outside St Pierre. Perhaps up the Negrito on the way to St Michel.’

‘I wouldn’t do that,’ said Causton definitely. ‘Favel will be coming down the Negrito. From the sound of those guns he’s already in the upper reaches of the valley.’

‘How do we know those are Favel’s guns?’ said Wyatt suddenly. ‘Serrurier has plenty of artillery of his own.’

Causton sounded pained. ‘I’ve done my homework. Serrurier was caught flat-footed. The main part of his artillery was causing a devil of a traffic jam just north of the town not two hours ago. If Favel hurries up he’ll capture the lot. Listen to it – he’s certainly pouring it on.’

‘That shipment of arms you were talking about must have been a big one.’

‘Maybe – but my guess is that he’s staking everything on one stroke. If he doesn’t come right through and capture St Pierre he’s lost his chips.’

‘If he does, he’ll lose his army,’ said Wyatt forcibly.

‘God, I hadn’t thought of that.’ Causton looked thoughtful. ‘This is going to be damned interesting. Do you suppose he knows about this hurricane?’

‘I shouldn’t think so,’ said Wyatt. ‘Look, Causton, we’re wasting time. I’ve got to get these people to safety. Will you help? You seem to know more of what’s going on out there than anybody.’

‘Of course I will, old boy. But, remember, I’ve got my own job to do. I’ll back you up in anything you say, and I’ll come with you and see them settled out of harm’s way. But after that I’ll have to push off and go about my master’s business – my editor would never forgive me if I wasn’t in the right place at the right time.’ He chuckled. ‘I dare say I’ll get a good story out of Big Jim Dawson, so it will be worth it.’

They went back to the bar and Causton called out, ‘Wyatt’s got something very important to tell you all, so gather round. Where’s Dawson?’

‘He was here not long ago,’ said Julie. ‘He must have gone out.’

‘Never mind,’ said Causton. ‘I’ll tell him myself – I’ll look forward to doing that. All right, Mr Wyatt; get cracking.’ He sat down and began to thread a spool of tape into the miniature recorder he took from his pocket.

Wyatt was getting very tired of repeating his story. He no longer attempted to justify his reasons but gave it to them straight, and when he had finished there was a dead silence. The Greek showed no alteration of expression – perhaps he had not understood; Julie was pale, but her chin came up; Mrs Warmington was white with two red spots burning in her cheeks. She was suddenly voluble. ‘This is ridiculous,’ she exploded. ‘No American Navy Base can be destroyed. I demand that you take me to Cap Sarrat immediately.’

‘You can demand until you’re blue in the face,’ said Wyatt baldly. ‘I’m going nowhere near Cap Sarrat.’ He turned to Julie. ‘We’ve got to get out of St Pierre and on to high ground, and that may be difficult. But I’ve got the car and we can all cram into it. And we’ve got to take supplies – food, water, medical kit and so on. We should find plenty of food in the kitchens here, and we can take soda- and mineral-water from the bar.’

Mrs Warmington choked in fury. ‘How far is it to the Base?’ she demanded, breathing hard.

‘Fifteen miles,’ said Causton. ‘Right round the bay. And there’s an army between here and the Base.’ He shook his head regretfully. ‘I wouldn’t try it, Mrs Warmington; I really wouldn’t.’

‘I don’t know what’s the matter with you all,’ she snapped. ‘These natives wouldn’t touch us – the Government knows better than to interfere with Americans. I say we should get to the Base before those rebels come down from the hills.’

Papegaikos, standing behind her, gripped her shoulder. ‘I t’ink it better you keep your mout’ shut,’ he said. His voice was soft but his grip was hard, and Mrs Warmington winced. ‘I t’ink you are fool woman.’ He looked across at Wyatt. ‘Go on.’

‘I was saying we should load up the car with food and water and get out of here,’ said Wyatt wearily.

‘How long must we reckon on?’ asked Julie practically.

‘At least four days – better make it a week. This place will be a shambles after Mabel has passed.’

‘We’ll eat before we go,’ she said. ‘I think we’re all hungry. I’ll see what there is in the kitchen – will sandwiches do?’

‘If there are enough of them,’ said Wyatt with a smile.

Mrs Warmington sat up straight. ‘Well, I think you’re all crazy, but I’m not going to stay here by myself so I guess I’ll have to come along. Come, child, let’s make those sandwiches.’ She took a candle and swept Julie into the inner recesses of the hotel.

Wyatt looked across at Causton who was putting away his tape-recorder. ‘What about guns?’ he said. ‘We might need them.’

‘My dear boy,’ said Causton, ‘there are more than enough guns out there already. If we’re stopped and searched by Serrurier’s men and they find a gun we’ll be shot on the spot. I’ve been in some tough places in my time and I’ve never carried a gun – I owe my life to that fact.’

‘That makes sense,’ said Wyatt slowly. He looked at the Greek standing by the bar. ‘Are you carrying a gun, Eumenides?’

Papegaikos touched his breast and nodded. He said, ‘I keep it.’

‘Then you’re not coming with us,’ said Wyatt deliberately. ‘You can make your own way – on foot.’

The Greek put his hand inside his jacket and produced the gun, a stubby revolver. ‘You t’ink you are boss?’ he asked with a smile, balancing the gun in his hand.

‘Yes, I am,’ said Wyatt firmly. ‘You don’t know a damn’ thing about what a hurricane can do. You don’t know the best place to shelter nor how to go about finding it. I do – I’m the expert – and that makes me boss.’

Papegaikos came to a fast decision. He put the gun down gently on the bar counter and walked away from it, and Wyatt blew out his cheeks with a sigh of relief. Causton chuckled. ‘You’ll do, Wyatt,’ he said. ‘You’re really the boss now – if you don’t let that Warmington woman get on top of you. I hope you don’t regret taking on the job.’

Presently Julie came from the kitchen with a plate of sandwiches. ‘This will do for a start. There’s more coming.’ She jerked her head. ‘We’re going to have trouble with that one,’ she said darkly.

Wyatt suppressed a groan. ‘What’s the matter now?’

‘She’s an organizer – you know, the type who gives the orders. She’s been running me ragged in there, and she hasn’t done a damned thing herself.’

‘Just ignore her,’ advised Causton. ‘She’ll give up if no one takes notice of her.’

‘I’ll do that,’ said Julie. She vanished from the bar again.

‘Let’s organize the water,’ said Wyatt.

He walked towards the bar but stopped when Causton said, ‘Wait! Listen!’ He strained his ears and heard a whirring sound. ‘Someone’s trying to start your car,’ said Causton.

‘I’ll check on that,’ said Wyatt and strode into the foyer. He went through the revolving door and saw a dim figure in the driving seat of his car and heard the whine of the starter. When he peered through the window he saw it was Dawson. He jerked the door open and said, ‘What the devil are you doing?’

Dawson started and turned his head with a jerk. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said in relief. ‘I thought it was that other guy.’

‘Who was that?’

‘One of those cops. He was trying to start the car, but gave up and went away. I thought I’d check it, so I came out. It still won’t start.’

‘You’d better get out and come back into the hotel,’ said Wyatt. ‘I thought that might happen so I put the rotor-arm in my pocket.’

He stood aside and let Dawson step out. Dawson said, ‘Pretty smart, aren’t you, Wyatt?’

‘No sense in losing the car,’ said Wyatt. He looked past Dawson and stiffened. ‘Take it easy,’ he said in a low voice. ‘That copper is coming back – with reinforcements.’

‘We’d better get into the hotel pretty damn’ fast,’ said Dawson.

‘Stay where you are and keep your mouth shut,’ said Wyatt quickly. ‘They might think we’re on the run and follow us in – we don’t want to involve the others in anything.’

Dawson tensed and then relaxed, and Wyatt watched the four policemen coming towards them. They did not seem in too much of a hurry and momentarily he wondered about that. They drew abreast and one of them turned. ‘Blanc, what are you doing?’

‘I thought a thief was stealing my car.’

The policeman gestured. ‘This man?’

Wyatt shook his head. ‘No, another man. This is my friend.’

‘Where do you live?’

Wyatt nodded towards the hotel. ‘The Imperiale.’

‘A rich man,’ the policeman commented. ‘And your friend?’

‘Also in the hotel.’

Dawson tugged at Wyatt’s sleeve. ‘What the hell’s going on?’

‘What does your friend say?’ asked the policeman.

‘He does not understand this language,’ said Wyatt. ‘He was asking me what you were saying.’

The policeman laughed. ‘We ask the same things, then.’ He stared at them. ‘It is not a good time to be on the streets, blanc. You would do well to stay in your rich hotel.’

He turned away and Wyatt breathed softly in relief, but one of the other men muttered something and he turned back. ‘What is your country?’ he asked.

‘You would call me English,’ said Wyatt. ‘But I come from Grenada. My friend is American.’

‘An American!’ The policeman spat on the ground. ‘But you are English – do you know an Englishman called Manning?’

Wyatt shook his head. ‘No.’ The name rang a faint bell but he could not connect it.

‘Or Fuller?’

Something clicked. Wyatt said, ‘I think I’ve heard of them. Don’t they live on the North Coast?’

‘Have you ever met them?’

‘I’ve never seen them in my life,’ said Wyatt truthfully.

One of the other policemen stepped forward and pointed at Wyatt. ‘This man works for the Americans at Cap Sarrat.’

‘Ah, Englishman; you told me you lived in the hotel. Why did you lie?’

‘I didn’t lie,’ said Wyatt. ‘I moved in there tonight; it’s impossible to get to Cap Sarrat – you know that.’

The man seemed unconvinced. ‘And you still say you do not know the men, Fuller and Manning?’

‘I don’t know them,’ said Wyatt patiently.

The policeman said abruptly, ‘I’m sorry, blanc, but I must search you.’ He gestured to his colleagues who stepped forward quickly.

‘Hey!’ said Dawson in alarm. ‘What are these idiots doing?’

‘Just keep still,’ said Wyatt through his teeth. ‘They want to search us. Let them do it – the sooner it’s over the better.’

For the second time that day he suffered the indignity of a rough search, but this time it was more thorough. The palace guards had been looking for weapons but these men were interested in more than that. All Wyatt’s pockets were stripped and the contents handed to the senior policeman.

He looked with interest through Wyatt’s wallet, checking very thoroughly. ‘It is true you work at Cap Sarrat,’ he said. ‘You have an American pass. What military work do you do there?’

‘None,’ said Wyatt. ‘I’m a civilian scientist sent by the British Government. My work is with the weather.’

The policeman smiled. ‘Or perhaps you are an American spy?’

‘Nonsense!’

‘Your friend is American. We must search him, too.’

Hands were laid on Dawson and he struggled. ‘Take your filthy hands off me, you goddam black bastard,’ he shouted. The words meant nothing to the man searching him, but the tone of voice certainly did. A revolver jumped into his hand as though by magic and Dawson found himself staring into the muzzle.

‘You damn’ fool,’ said Wyatt. ‘Keep still and let them search you. They’ll turn us loose when they don’t find anything.’

He almost regretted saying that when the policeman searching Dawson gave a cry of triumph and pulled an automatic from a holster concealed beneath Dawson’s jacket. His senior said, ‘Ah, we have armed Americans wandering the streets of St Pierre at a time like this. You will come with me – both of you.’

‘Now, look here –’ began Wyatt, and stopped as he felt the muzzle of a gun poke into the small of his back. He bit his lip as the senior policeman waved them forward. ‘You bloody fool!’ he raged at Dawson. ‘Why the hell were you carrying a gun? Now we’re going to land in one of Serrurier’s gaols.’

II

Causton came out of the deep shadows very slowly and stared up the street to where the little group was hurrying away, then he turned and hurried back into the hotel and across the foyer. Mrs Warmington and Julie had just come in from the kitchen bearing more sandwiches and a pot of coffee, and Papegaikos was busy stacking bottles of soda-water on top of the bar counter.

‘Wyatt and Dawson have been nabbed by the police,’ he announced. ‘Dawson was carrying a gun and the coppers didn’t like it.’ He looked across at the Greek, who dropped his eyes.

Julie put down the coffee-pot with a clatter. ‘Where have they been taken?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Causton. ‘Probably to the local lock-up – wherever that is. Do you know, Eumenides?’

‘La Place de la Libération Noire,’ said the Greek. He shook his head. ‘You won’t get them out of there.’

‘We’ll see about that,’ said Causton. ‘We’ll bloody well have to get them out – Wyatt had the rotor-arm of the car engine in his pocket, and now the cops have got it. The car’s useless without it.’

Mrs Warmington said in a hard voice, ‘There are other cars.’

‘That’s an idea,’ said Causton. ‘Do you have a car, Eumenides?’

‘I ‘ad,’ said Eumenides. ‘But the Army took all cars.’

‘It isn’t a matter of a car,’ said Julie abruptly. ‘It’s a matter of getting Dave and Dawson out of the hands of the police.’

‘We’ll do that, too; but a car’s a useful thing to have right now.’ Causton rubbed his cheek. ‘It’s a long way to the docks from here – a bloody long walk.’

Eumenides shrugged. ‘We wan’ a car, not a sheep.’

‘Not a what?’ demanded Causton. ‘Oh – a ship! No, I want the British Consul – he lives down there. Maybe the power of the state allied to the power of the press will be enough to get Wyatt out of the jug – I doubt if I could do it on my own.’ He looked regretfully at the sandwiches. ‘I suppose the sooner I go, the sooner we can spring Wyatt and Dawson.’

‘You’ve got time for a quick coffee,’ said Julie. ‘And you can take a pocketful of sandwiches.’

‘Thanks,’ said Causton, accepting the cup. ‘Does this place have cellars?’

‘No – no cellars,’ said Eumenides.

‘A pity,’ said Causton. He looked about the bar. ‘I think you’d better get out of here. This kind of party always leads to a lot of social disorganization and the first thing looters go for is the booze. This is one of the first places they’ll hit. I suggest you move up to the top floor for the time being; and a barricade on the stairs might be useful.’

He measured the Greek with a cold eye. ‘I trust you’ll look after the ladies while I’m gone.’

Eumenides smiled. ‘I see to ever’t’ing.’

That was no satisfactory answer but Causton had to put up with it. He finished off the hot coffee, stuffed some sandwiches into his pocket and said, ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can – with Wyatt, I hope.’

‘Don’t forget Mr Dawson,’ said Mrs Warmington.

‘I’ll try not to,’ said Causton drily. ‘Don’t leave the hotel; the party’s split up enough as it is.’

Eumenides said suddenly, ‘Rawst’orne ‘as a car – I seen it. It got them – them special signs.’ He clicked his fingers in annoyance at his lack of English.

‘Diplomatic plates?’ suggested Causton helpfully.

‘Tha’s ri’.’

‘That should come in handy. Okay, I hope to be back in two hours. Cheerio!’

He left the bar and paused before he emerged into the street, carefully looking through the glass panels. Satisfied that there was no danger, he pushed through the revolving doors and set off towards the dock area, keeping well in to the side of the pavement. He checked on his watch and was surprised to find that it was not yet ten o’clock – he had thought it much later. With a bit of luck he would be back at the Imperiale by midnight.

At first he made good time, flitting through the deserted streets like a ghost. There was not a soul in sight. As he got nearer the docks he soon became aware that he was entering what could only be a military staging area. There were many army trucks moving through the dark streets, headlights blazing, and from the distance came the tramp of marching men.

He stopped and ducked into a convenient doorway and took a folded map from his pocket, inspecting it by the carefully shaded light of his torch. It would be the devil of a job getting to Rawsthorne. Close by was the old fortress of San Juan which Serrurier had chosen to use as his arsenal – no wonder there were so many troops in the area. It was from here that his units in the Negrito were being supplied with ammunition and that accounted for the stream of trucks.

Causton looked closer at the map and tried to figure out a new route. It would add nearly an hour to his journey, but there was no help for it. As he stood there the faraway thunder of the guns tailed off and there was dead silence. He looked up and down the street and then crossed it, the leather soles of his shoes making more noise than he cared for.

He got to the other side and turned a corner, striking away from San Juan fortress and, as he hurried, he wondered what the silence of the guns presaged. He had covered many bushfire campaigns in his career – the Congo, Vietnam, Malaysia – and he had a considerable fund of experience to draw upon in making deductions.

To begin with, the guns were indubitably Favel’s – he had seen the Government artillery in a seemingly inextricable mess just outside St Pierre. Favel’s guns had been firing at something, and that something was obviously the main infantry force which Serrurier had rushed up the Negrito at the first sign of trouble. Now the guns had stopped and that meant that Favel was on the move again, pushing his own infantry forward in an assault on Serrurier’s army. That army must have been fairly battered by the barrage, while Favel’s men must be fresh and comparatively untouched. It was possible that Favel would push right through, but proof would come when next the artillery barrage began – if it was nearer it would mean Favel was winning.

He had chosen to attack at night, something he had specialized in ever since he had retreated to the mountains. His men were trained for it, and probably one of Favel’s men was equal to any two of Serrurier’s so long as he was careful to dictate the conditions of battle. But once get boxed in open country with Serrurier’s artillery and air force unleashed and he’d be hammered to pieces. He was taking a considerable risk in coming down the Negrito into the plain around Santego Bay, but he was minimizing it by clever strategy and the unbelievable luck that Serrurier had a thick-headed artillery general with no concept of logistics.

Causton was so occupied with these thoughts that he nearly ran into a police patrol head on. He stopped short and shrank into the shadows and was relieved when the squad passed him by unseen. He wanted to waste no time in futile arguments. By the time he got to Rawsthorne’s house he had evaded three more police patrols, but it took time and it was very late when he knocked on Rawsthorne’s door.

III

James Fowler Dawson was a successful writer. Not only was he accepted by the critics as a man to be watched as a future Nobel Prizewinner, but his books sold in enormous numbers to the public and he had made a lot of money and was looking forward to making a lot more. Because he liked making money he was very careful of the image he presented to his public, an image superbly tailored to his personality and presented to the world by his press agents.

His first novel, Tarpon, was published in the year that Hemingway died. At the time he was a freelance writer concocting articles for the American sporting magazines on the glory of rainbow trout and what it feels like to have a grizzly in your sights. He had but average success at this and so was a hungry writer. When Tarpon hit the top of the best-seller lists no one was more surprised than Dawson. But knowing the fickleness of public taste he sought for ways to consolidate his success and decided that good writing was not enough – he must also be a public personality.

So he assumed the mantle that had fallen from Hemingway – he would be a man’s man. He shot elephant and lion in Africa; he game-fished in the Caribbean and off the Seychelles; he climbed a mountain in Alaska; he flew his own plane and, like Hemingway, was involved in a spectacular smash; and it was curious that there were always photographers on hand to record these events.

But he was no Hemingway. The lions he killed were poor terrified beasts imprisoned in a closing ring of beaters, and he had never killed one with a single shot. In his assault on the Alaskan mountain he was practically carried up by skilled and well-paid mountaineers, and he heartily disliked flying his plane because he was frightened of it and only flew when necessary to mend his image. But game-fishing he had actually come to like and he was not at all bad at it. And, despite everything else, he remained a good writer, although he was always afraid of losing steam and failing with his next book.

While his image was shiny, while his name made headlines in the world press, while the money poured into his bank, he was reasonably happy. It was good to be well-known in the world’s capitals, to be met at airports by pressmen and photographers, to be asked his opinion of world events. He had never yet been in a situation where the mere mention of his name had not got him out of trouble, and thus he was unperturbed at being put into a cell with Wyatt. He had been in gaol before – the world had chuckled many times at the escapades of Big Jim Dawson – but never for more than a few hours. A nominal fine, a donation to the Police Orphans’ Fund, a gracious apology and the name of Jim Dawson soon set him free. He had no reason to think it was going to be different this time.

‘I could do with a drink,’ he said grumpily. ‘Those bastards took my flask.’

Wyatt examined the cell. It was in an old building and there was none of the modernity of serried steel bars; but the walls were of thick and solid stone and the window was small and set high in the wall. By pulling up a stool and standing on it he could barely see outside, and he was a fairly tall man. He looked at the dim shapes of the buildings across the square and judged that the cell was on the second floor of the building in which the Poste de Police was housed.

He stepped down from the stool and said, ‘Why the hell were you carrying a gun?’

‘I always carry a gun,’ said Dawson. ‘A man in my position meets trouble, you know. There are always cranks who don’t like what I write, and the boys who want to prove they’re tougher than I am. I’ve got a licence for it, too. I got a batch of threatening letters a couple of years ago and there were some funny things happening round my place so I got the gun.’

‘I don’t know that that was a good idea, even in the States,’ said Wyatt. ‘But it certainly got us into trouble here. Your gun licence won’t cut any ice.’

‘Getting out will be easy,’ said Dawson angrily. ‘All I have to do is to wait until I can see someone bigger than one of those junior grade cops, tell him who I am, and we’ll both be sprung.’

Wyatt stared at him. ‘Are you serious?’

‘Sure I’m serious. Hell, man; everyone knows me. The Government of this tin-pot banana republic isn’t going to get in bad with Uncle Sam by keeping me in gaol. The fact that I’ve been picked up will make world headlines, and this Serrurier character isn’t going to let bad change to worse.’

Wyatt took a deep breath. ‘You don’t know Serrurier,’ he said. ‘He doesn’t like Americans in the first place and he won’t give a damn who you are – if he’s heard of you, that is, which I doubt.’

Dawson seemed troubled by the heresy Wyatt had uttered. ‘Not heard of me? Of course he’ll have heard of me.’

‘You heard those guns,’ said Wyatt. ‘Serrurier is fighting for his life – do you understand that? If Favel wins, Serrurier is going to be very dead. Right now he doesn’t give a damn about keeping in with Uncle Sam or anyone else – he just doesn’t have the time. And, like a doctor, he buries his mistakes, so if he’s informed about us there’ll probably be a shooting party in the basement with us as guests; that’s why I hope to God no one tells him. And I hope his boys don’t have any initiative.’

‘But there’ll have to be a trial,’ said Dawson. ‘I’ll have my lawyer.’

‘For God’s sake!’ exploded Wyatt. ‘Where have you been living – on the moon? Serrurier has had twenty thousand people executed in the last seven years without trial. They just disappeared. Start praying that we don’t join them.’

‘Now that’s nonsense,’ said Dawson firmly. ‘I’ve been coming to San Fernandez for the last five years – it makes a swell fishing base – and I’ve heard nothing of this. And I’ve met a lot of government officials and a nicer bunch of boys you couldn’t wish to meet. Of course they’re black, but I think none the less of them for that.’

‘Very broad-minded of you,’ said Wyatt sarcastically. ‘Can you name any of these “nice boys”? That information might come in useful.’

‘Sure; the best of the lot was the Minister for Island Affairs – a guy called Descaix. He’s a –’

‘Oh, no!’ groaned Wyatt, sitting on the stool and putting his head in his hands.

‘What’s the matter?’

Wyatt looked up. ‘Now, listen, Dawson; I’ll try to get this over in words of one syllable. Your nice boy, Descaix, was the boss of Serrurier’s secret police. Serrurier said, “Do it,” and Descaix did it, and in the end it added up to a nice pile of murders. But Descaix slipped – one of his murders didn’t pan out and the man came back to life, the man responsible for all those guns popping off up in the hills. Favel.’

He tapped Dawson on the knee. ‘Serrurier didn’t like that, so what do you think happened to Descaix?’

Dawson was looking unhappy. ‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘Neither would anyone else,’ said Wyatt. ‘Descaix’s gone, vanished as though he never existed – expunged. My own idea is that he’s occupying a hole in the ground up in the Tour Rambeau.’

‘But he was such a nice, friendly guy,’ said Dawson. He shook his head in bewilderment. ‘I don’t see how I could have missed it. I’m a writer – I’m supposed to know something about people. I even went fishing with Descaix – surely you get to know a man you fish with?’

‘Why should you?’ asked Wyatt. ‘People like Descaix have neatly compartmented minds. If you or I killed a man it would stay with us the rest of our lives – it would leave a mark. But Descaix has a man killed and he’s forgotten about it as soon as he’s given the order. It doesn’t worry his conscience one little bit, so it doesn’t show – there’s no mark.’

‘Jesus!’ said Dawson with awe. ‘I’ve been fishing with a mass murderer.’

‘You won’t fish with him ever again,’ said Wyatt brutally. ‘You might not fish with anyone ever again if we don’t get out of here.’

Dawson gave way to petulant rage. ‘What the hell is the American Government doing? We have a base here – why wasn’t this island cleaned up long ago?’

‘You make me sick,’ said Wyatt. ‘You don’t know what’s going on right in front of your nose, and when your nose gets bitten you scream to your Government for help. The American Government policy on this island is “hands off”, and rightly so. If they interfere here in the same way they did in the Dominican Republic they’d totally wreck their diplomatic relations with the rest of the hemisphere and the Russians would laugh fit to burst. Anyway, it’s best this way. You can’t hand freedom to people on a plate – they’ve got to take it. Favel knows that – he’s busy taking his freedom right now.’

He looked at Dawson who was sitting huddled on the bed, strangely shrunken. ‘You were trying to take the car, weren’t you? There was no policeman trying to drive it away at all. But you were.’

Dawson nodded. ‘I went upstairs and heard you and Causton talking about the hurricane. I got scared and figured I’d better get out.’

‘And you were going to leave the rest of us?’

Dawson nodded miserably.

Wyatt stretched out his legs. ‘I don’t understand it,’ he said. ‘I just don’t understand it. You’re Dawson – “Big Jim” Dawson – the man who’s supposed to be able to outshoot, out-fight, out-fly any other man on earth. What’s happened to you?’

Dawson lay on the bed and turned to the wall. ‘Go to hell!’ he said in a muffled voice.

IV

The police came for them at four o’clock in the morning, hustling them out of the cell and along a corridor. The office into which they were shown was bare and bleak, the archetype of all such offices anywhere in the world. The policeman at the desk was also archetypal; his cold, impersonal eyes and level stare could be duplicated in any police office in New York, London or Tokyo, and the fact that his complexion was dark coffee did not make any difference.

He regarded them expressionlessly, then said, ‘Fool, I wanted them one at a time. Take that one back.’ He pointed his pen at Wyatt, who was immediately pushed back into the corridor and escorted to the cell again.

He leaned against the wall as the key clicked in the lock and wondered what would eventually happen to him – perhaps he would join Descaix, an unlikely bedfellow. He had not heard the guns for some time and he hoped that Favel had not been beaten, because Favel was his only chance of getting clear. If Favel did not take St Pierre then he would either be shot or drowned in the cell when the waters of Santego Bay arose to engulf the town.

He sat on the stool and pondered. The policeman who had arrested them had shown a keen interest in Manning and Fuller, the two Englishmen from the North Coast, and he wondered why so much trouble should be taken over them in the middle of a civil war. Then he recalled Causton’s questioning earlier about shipments of arms and wondered if Manning and Fuller lived in the Campo de las Perlas, the area in which Causton had said the arms had been landed. If they were involved in that, no wonder Serrurier’s police were taking an interest in their doings – and in the doings of all other English people on San Fernandez.

Then, because he was very tired and had sat on the stool all night, he stretched out on the bed and fell asleep.

When he was aroused the first light of dawn was peering through the high window. Again he was taken down the corridor to the bleak room at the end and pushed through the doorway roughly. There was no sign of Dawson, and the policeman behind the desk was smiling. ‘Come in, Mr Wyatt. Sit down.’

It was not an invitation but an order. Wyatt sat in the hard chair and crossed his legs. The policeman said, in English, ‘I am Sous-Inspecteur Roseau, Mr Wyatt. Do you not think my English is good? I learned it in Jamaica.’

‘It’s very good,’ acknowledged Wyatt.

‘I’m glad,’ said Roseau. ‘Then there will be no misunderstandings. When did you last see Manning?’

‘I’ve never seen Manning.’

‘When did you last see Fuller?’

‘I’ve never seen him, either.’

‘But you knew where they lived; you admitted it.’

‘I didn’t “admit” a damned thing,’ said Wyatt evenly. ‘I told your underling that I’d heard they lived on the North Coast. I also told him that I’d never seen either of them in my life.’

Roseau consulted a sheet of paper before him. Without looking up he asked, ‘When were you recruited into American Intelligence?’

‘Well, I’ll be damned!’ said Wyatt. ‘This is all a lot of nonsense.’

Roseau’s head came up with a jerk. ‘Then you are in British Intelligence? You are a British spy?’

‘You’re out of your mind,’ said Wyatt disgustedly. ‘I’m a scientist – a meteorologist. And I don’t mind telling you something right now – if you don’t get the people out of this town within two days there’s going to be the most godawful smash-up you’ve ever seen. There’s a hurricane coming.’

Roseau smiled patiently. ‘Yes, Mr Wyatt, we know that is your cover. We also know that you British and the Americans are working hand in hand with Favel in an attempt to overthrow the lawful government of this country.’

‘That’ll do,’ said Wyatt. ‘I’ve had enough.’ He slapped the desk with the flat of his hand. ‘I want to see the British consul.’

‘So you want to see Rawsthorne?’ enquired Roseau with a malicious smile. ‘He wanted to see you – he was here trying to get you out, together with another Englishman. It is unfortunate that, because of his official position, we cannot arrest Rawsthorne – we know he is your leader – but my government is sending a strong protest to London about his conduct. He is non persona grata.’ Roseau’s smile widened. ‘You see I have Latin, too, Mr Wyatt. Not bad for an ignorant nigger.’

‘Ignorant is exactly the right word,’ said Wyatt tightly.

Roseau sighed, as a teacher sighs when faced with the obtuseness of a particularly stubborn pupil. ‘This is not the time to insult me, Wyatt. You see, your companion – your accomplice – the American agent, Dawson, has confessed. These Americans are not really so tough, you know.’

‘What the devil could he confess?’ asked Wyatt. ‘He’s as innocent of anything as I am.’ He moved his hand and felt a slight wetness on the palm. Turning his hand over he saw a smear of blood, and there were a few more drops spattered along the edge of the desk. He lifted his eyes and looked at Roseau with loathing.

‘Yes, Wyatt; he confessed,’ said Roseau. He drew a blank piece of paper from a drawer and placed in neatly before him. ‘Now,’ he said with pen poised. ‘We will begin again. When did you last see Manning?’

‘I’ve never seen Manning.’

‘When did you last see Fuller?’

‘I’ve never seen Fuller,’ said Wyatt monotonously.

Roseau carefully put down his pen. He said softly, ‘Shall we see if you are more stubborn than Dawson? Or perhaps you will be less stubborn – it is more convenient for you as well as for me.’

Wyatt was very conscious of the two policemen standing behind him near the door. They had not moved or made a sound but he knew they were there. He had known it ever since Dawson’s blood had stained his hand. He decided to take a leaf out of Rawsthorne’s book. ‘Roseau, Serrurier is going to have your hide for this.’

Roseau blinked but said nothing.

‘Does he know I’m here? He’s a bad man when he’s crossed – but who should know that better than you? When I saw him yesterday he was giving Hippolyte a going over – had Hippolyte shaking in his shoes.’

‘You saw our President yesterday?’ Roseau’s voice was perhaps not as firm as it had been.

Wyatt tried to act as though he was always in the habit of meeting Serrurier for afternoon drinks. ‘Of course.’ He leaned over the desk. ‘Don’t you know who Dawson is – the man you’ve just beaten up? He’s the famous writer. You must have heard of Big Jim Dawson – everyone has.’

Roseau twitched. ‘He tried to make me believe he was –’ He stopped suddenly.

Wyatt laughed. ‘You’ve put Serrurier right in the middle,’ he said. ‘He has his hands full with Favel but that’s all right – he can handle it. He told me so himself. But he was worried about the Americans at Cap Sarrat; he doesn’t know whether they’re going to come out against him or not. Of course you know what will happen if they do. The Americans and Favel will crack Serrurier between them like a nut.’

‘What has this got to do with me?’ asked Roseau uncertainly.

Wyatt leaned back in his chair and looked at Roseau with well-simulated horror. ‘Why, you fool, you’ve given the Americans the chance they’ve been waiting for. Dawson is an international figure, and he’s American. Commodore Brooks will be asking Serrurier where Dawson is in not too many hours from now, and if Serrurier can’t produce him, alive and unhurt, then Brooks is going to take violent action because he knows he’ll have world opinion behind him. Dawson is just the lever the Americans have been waiting for; they can’t take up arms just because a few Americans got mixed up in your civil war – that’s not done any more – but a potential Nobel Prizewinner, a man of Dawson’s stature, is something else again.’

Roseau was silent and twitchy. Wyatt let him stew for a few long seconds, then said, ‘You know as well as I do that Dawson told you nothing about Manning and Fuller. I know that because he knows nothing, but you used him to try to throw a scare into me. Now let me tell you something, Sous-Inspecteur Roseau. When Commodore Brooks asks Serrurier for Dawson, Serrurier is going to turn St Pierre upside down looking for him because he knows that if he doesn’t find him, then the Americans will break in the back door and stab him in the back just when he’s at grips with Favel. And if Serrurier finds that Sous-Inspecteur Roseau has stupidly exceeded his duty by beating Dawson half to death I wouldn’t give two pins for your chances of remaining alive for five more minutes. My advice to you is to get a doctor to Dawson as fast as you can, and then to implore him to keep his mouth shut. How you do that is your business.’

He almost laughed at the expression on Roseau’s face as he contemplated the enormity of his guilt. Roseau finally shut his mouth with a snap and took a deep breath. ‘Take this man to his cell,’ he ordered, and Wyatt felt a firm grip on his shoulder, a grip more welcome now than it would have been five minutes earlier. After being thrust into the cell it was a long time before he stopped shaking. Then he sat down to contemplate the sheer, copper-bottomed brilliance of the idea he had sold Roseau.

He thought that he and Dawson were safe from Roseau. But there was still the problem of getting out before the hurricane struck and that would not be easy – not unless he could manage to work on Roseau’s fears some more. He had an idea that he would be seeing Roseau before long; the Sous-Inspecteur would remember that Wyatt had claimed acquaintance with Serrurier and he would want to know more about that.

He looked at his watch. It was seven o’clock and the sunlight was streaming through the small window. He hoped that Causton would have sense enough to get the others out of St Pierre – even by walking they could get a long way.

The noise outside suddenly came to his attention. It had been going on ever since he had been pushed into the cell but he had been so immersed in his thoughts that it had not penetrated. Now he was aware of the racket in the square outside – the revving of heavy engines, the clatter of feet and the murmur of many men interspersed by raucous shouts – sergeants have the same brazen-voiced scream in any army; it sounded as though an army was massing in the square.

He kicked the stool across to the window and climbed up, but the angle was wrong and he could not see the ground at all, merely the façade of the buildings on the opposite side of the square. He stood there for a long time trying to make sense of the confused sounds from below but finally gave up. He was just about to step off the stool when he heard the sudden bellow of guns from so close that the hot air seemed to quiver.

He stood on tiptoe, desperately trying to see what was happening, and caught a glimpse of a deep red flash on the roof of the building immediately opposite. There was a slam and the front of the building caved in before his startled eyes, seeming to collapse in slow motion in a billowing cloud of dust.

Then the blast of the explosion caught him and he was hurled in a shower of broken glass right across the cell to thud against the door. The last thing he heard before he collapsed into unconsciousness was the thump of his head against the solid wood.

FOUR

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Greek lit another cigarette and said nothing.

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

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

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

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

‘It’s me,’ called Julie.

He relaxed. ‘Come in, Miss Marlowe.’

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

‘What’s La Warmington doing now?’

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

‘Is she asleep now?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘What old man?’

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

‘Don’t you believe him?’ asked Julie.

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

‘What can we do about a hurricane?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘With a white skin?’

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

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

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

Julie stared at him. ‘A what?’

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

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

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

‘In the bar where I lef’ it.’

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

Eumenides nodded.

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

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

II

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘I agree,’ said Mrs Warmington.

Rawsthorne looked around. ‘Where’s Causton?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘I fix,’ said Eumenides. ‘Come.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘I didn’t have time, my dear.’

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

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

‘Ten-fifteen,’ said Julie.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Julie sighed. ‘Thank God!’

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

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

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

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

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

‘Twenty past eleven.’

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

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

‘Be careful,’ whispered Julie.

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

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

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

‘What can we do?’ asked Julie.

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

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

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

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

‘Keep that woman quiet,’ Rawsthorne hissed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was a quarter to two.

III

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The soldier nodded dully.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Causton had been conscripted into Serrurier’s army.

IV

Dawson was astonished at himself.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

V

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘They’re okay.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Here he comes,’ said Dawson.

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

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