Desmond Bagley - Wyatt’s Hurricane / Bahama Crisis

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?’