Десмонд Бэгли: Wyatt's Hurricane

‘Up the Negrito — at La Carrière.’ Delorme grinned. ‘But wait until I have cleaned it up and replanted — it will not look good now.’

‘I’ll wait,’ promised Wyatt, and turned away.

It was not easy going down the hill. The wind plucked at them viciously and the surface had been loosened at the height of the storm so that small landslides were easy to start. There were many fallen trees round which they had to make their way, and the ripped-up trees left gaping holes. It was three-quarters of an hour before they reached the first of the survivors, a huddle of bodies lying in a small depression. The wind was still fierce and they had not yet stirred.

Dawson looked at them with an expression of horror. ‘They’re dead,’ he said. ‘The whole lot of them are dead.’ hugging a child in her arms; the child was obviously dead — the head hung unnaturally on one side like that of a broken-jointed doll — but the woman seemed not to be aware of it. ‘What can you do about a thing like that?’ he asked.

‘We can’t do anything,’ said Wyatt. ‘It’s best to leave her to her own people.’

Dawson looked back along the hill. ‘But there are thousands here — what can one regiment of men do? There are no medical supplies, no doctors, no hospitals left standing in St Pierre. A lot of these people are going to die — even those who have survived so far.’

‘There are a lot of people on the other side of the valley, too,’ said Wyatt, pointing across the flood. ‘It’s like this all along the Negrito — on both sides.’

The hillside heaved with slow, torpid movement as the inhabitants of St Pierre came to the tired realization that their agony was over. Favel’s men were now among them, but there was little they could do beyond separating the living from the dead, and the men who had enough first-aid knowledge to be able to splint a broken limb were kept very busy.

Wyatt said hopelessly, ‘How can we find one person in this lot?’

‘Julie’s white,’ said Dawson. ‘She ought to stand out.’

‘A lot of these people are as white as we are,’ said Wyatt glumly. ‘Let’s get on.’

They took to the slopes again where an incursion of the flood crept inland, and Wyatt paused constantly to ask the more alert-seeming survivors if they had seen a white woman. Some did not answer, others replied with curses, and others were slow and incoherent in their replies — but none knew of a white woman. Once Wyatt yelled, ‘There she is!’ and plunged back down the hill to grasp a woman by the arm. She turned and looked at him, revealing the creamy skin of an octoroon, and he let her arm fall limply.

At last they arrived at their goal and started a more systematic search, patrolling up and down the hill and looking very closely at each group of people. They searched for nearly an hour and did not find Julie or any other white person, male or female. Dawson was sickened by what he saw, and estimated that if what he saw was a fair sample there must have been a thousand killed on the one side of the Negrito alone — and the injured were beyond computation.

The people seemed unable to fight their way clear of the state of shock into which they had been plunged. The air was alive with the moaning and screaming of the injured, while the fit either just sat looking into space or moved aimlessly with the gait of tortoises. Only a minute few seemed to have recovered their initiative enough to leave the hillside or help in the rescue work.

Wyatt and Dawson met again and Dawson shook his head heavily in response to Wyatt’s enquiring and wild-eyed look. ‘The man can’t have made a mistake,’ said Wyatt frantically. ‘He can ’ t have.’

‘All we can do is keep on looking,’ said Dawson. ‘There’s nothing else we can do.’

‘We could go over to the coast road. That’s where they went in the first place. That we know. ’

‘We’d better finish checking here first,’ said Dawson stolidly. He looked over Wyatt’s shoulder. ‘Hey, there’s one of Favel’s boys coming this way — it looks as though he wants us.’

Wyatt spun on his heel as the soldier ran up. ‘You looking for a blanc? ’ asked the man.

‘A woman?’ asked Wyatt tersely.

‘That’s right; she’s over there — just over the rise.’

‘Come on,’ shouted Wyatt and started to run, with Dawson close behind. They came to the top of the slight rise and looked down at the couple of hundred people, some of whom raised enquiring black faces and rolling eyes in their direction.

‘There!’ jerked out Dawson. ‘Over there.’ He stopped and said quietly, ‘It’s the Warmington woman.’

‘She’ll know where Julie is,’ said Wyatt exultantly, and ran down the slope. He pushed his way among the people and reached out to grasp Mrs Warmington’s arm. ‘You’re safe,’ he said. ‘Where’s Julie — Miss Marlowe?’

Mrs Warmington looked up at him and burst into tears. ‘Oh, thank God — thank God for a white face. Am I glad to see you!’

‘What happened to Julie — and the others?’

Her face crumpled. ‘They killed him,’ she said hysterically. ‘They shot him and stabbed a bayonet in his back... again... and again. My God... the blood...’

Wyatt went cold. ‘Who was killed? Rawsthorne or Papegaikos?’ he demanded urgently.

Mrs Warmington looked at the backs of her hands. ‘There was a lot of blood,’ she said with unnatural quietness. ‘It was very red on the grass.’

Wyatt held himself in with an effort. ‘Who... was... killed?’

She looked up. ‘The Greek. They blamed me for it. It wasn’t my fault; it wasn’t my fault at all. I had to do it. But they blamed me.’

Dawson said, ‘Who blamed you?’

‘That girl — that chit of a girl. She said I killed him, but I never did. He was killed by a soldier with a gun and a bayonet.’

‘Where is Julie now?’ asked Wyatt tensely.

‘I don’t know,’ said Mrs Warmington shrilly. ‘And I don’t care. She kept on hitting me, so I ran away. I was frightened she’d kill me — she said she would.’

Wyatt looked at Dawson in shocked surprise, then he said dangerously softly, ‘Where did you run from?’

‘We came from the other side, near the sea,’ she said. ‘That’s where we were locked up. Then I ran away. There was a river and a waterfall — we all got wet.’ She shivered. ‘I thought I’d get pneumonia.’

‘Is there a river between here and the coast?’ asked Dawson.

Wyatt shook his head. ‘No.’ Mrs Warmington was obviously in a state of shock and would have to be treated with kid gloves if they were going to get anything out of her. He said gently, ‘Where was the river?’

‘On the top of a hill,’ said Mrs Warmington incomprehensibly. Dawson sighed audibly and she looked up at him. ‘Why should I tell you where they are? They’ll only tell you a lot of lies about me,’ she said spitefully. ‘I’m not going to tell you anything.’ She clenched her fists and the nails dug into her palms. ‘I hope she dies like she meant me to.’

Dawson tapped Wyatt on the shoulder. ‘Come over here,’ he said. Wyatt was looking horrified at Mrs Warmington, but he backed away under Dawson’s pressure until they stood a few paces away from her. Dawson said, ‘I don’t know what this is all about. I think that woman has gone crazy.’

‘She’s raving mad,’ said Wyatt. He was trembling.

‘Maybe — but she knows where Julie is all right. Something’s thrown a hell of a scare into her, and it wasn’t the hurricane, although that might have tipped her over the edge. Maybe she did kill Eumenides and Julie saw her do it — that means she’s scared of a murder charge. She may be crazy, but I think she’s crazy like a fox — faking it up, I mean.’