Десмонд Бэгли: Wyatt's Hurricane

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And the people?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Think it’s safe?’

‘Safe enough.’

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

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

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

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

‘Yes.’

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

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

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

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

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

‘I’ll have to thank him.’

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

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