‘You think they may be . . . what?’
‘I think they may be Mafia.’
‘What? But you have no connection with the Mafia. Do you?’
‘They are in the employ of the MGB.’
He stared at her, ashen-faced. ‘How long have you known this might happen?’
‘A few days, now.’
‘And . . . but you’ve sent everyone away.’
‘I work better on my own.’
‘My God! What are we going to do?’
‘You are going to do as I said, sit tight and keep the doors locked.’
‘You mean you’re going out to confront these people? But surely you’ll be better off here, with all this fire power, and under cover. I’d help you.’
‘Have you ever fired a gun in your life?’
‘Well . . . no.’
‘Then now is no time to start. But I’m leaving you a tommy gun just in case. You don’t have to aim it, just point it in the general direction of anyone who breaks in and squeeze the trigger. As for my staying here, that would be to give them a free run of the island. God knows how much damage they could cause. And we wouldn’t know what they were doing, what explosives they might be planting around us.’
‘And you think you can meet them on the beach? You? A—’
‘Please, Papa. Don’t say it.’
‘I was going to say, alone.’
She kissed him. ‘Then I forgive you. Just sit tight. You’re in command until I come back.’ She went down to the radio room, put her Walther and a couple of magazines in her shoulder bag, just in case, and added the spare drums for the tommy gun as well as the rockets. It weighed a ton, but she didn’t have far to go. She slung it, added the tommy gun, tucked the bazooka under her arm, and smiled at her father, who was watching her with increasing apprehension.
‘Do you mean to kill all the people on that boat?’
‘I mean to defend the cay, Papa. And the only adequate defence is offence. And the best offence of all is the pre-emptive strike. So wish me luck.’ She slung her binoculars round her neck. ‘You guys stay here and guard the house,’ she told the dogs.
Her mother was in the hall. ‘Anna—’
‘This is no time for talk, Mama. Papa knows what to do. But I shouldn’t be all that long.’ She kissed her, and opened the door.
*
It was only five o’clock, but the weather had deteriorated dramatically: the clouds were so low and black it was almost dark, and they hurried by, driven by a strong but not yet storm-force wind, and accompanied by driving rain squalls, rumbles of thunder and vivid flashes of forked lightning, most striking the surface of the sea; she had hardly left the shelter of the veranda when she was soaked to the skin.
She reached the slope leading down to the dock, and saw the large motor boat slowly feeling its way towards the reef. She chose her spot behind a casuarina tree and waited, as the ship came through the passage – she obviously had someone on board who knew the waters – and approached the dock, now rolling violently in the surging waves that swept across the sound to break on the dock and the beach. From the shelter of the swaying casuarinas Anna used the glasses to study the approaching vessel, pushing wet hair from her eyes. Now there could be no doubt that Fair Cay was her destination, and she was showing no lights, while as Anna focused the glasses she could make out several men on her deck . . . and that they were carrying tommy guns of their own.
That removed any lingering idea that they were simply coming for shelter. She knelt against the tree, opened her bag, stowed the binoculars. And fitted a rocket into the launcher, then held it to her shoulder to peer through the sight. She waited until the trawler yacht was within a hundred yards of the dock, sighting all the time, aiming at the hull which rose some eight feet out of the water to make a target she could not possibly miss, then drew a deep breath and squeezed the trigger. Even without a recoil the force of the discharge seemed to travel right through her body, throwing her back against the tree, driving the breath from her lungs. But despite her discomfort she was already fitting another rocket to the muzzle before peering down the sight again.
At pandemonium. The trawler had yawed violently, away from the dock, and there was a gaping hole in her hull, just above the waterline. That did not mean that she was about to sink, even if she was obviously taking water with every roll. Anna aimed just below the previous mark, and fired again, then lowered the bazooka to rub her shoulder and use the glasses.
Taken entirely by surprise at the suddenness and violence of the attack the would-be invaders seemed to be panic-stricken. Several were firing their guns, but as they could not see her and had no idea where the rockets had come from, they were simply making a noise. Others had climbed up to the top deck behind the flying bridge and were unlashing a rubber dinghy. Still others were running in and out of the wheelhouse.
Anna reloaded the bazooka, aimed, and fired, this time aiming at the wheelhouse itself. It seemed to explode in a kaleidoscope of shattering instruments. She did not know if she had killed anybody, although it seemed likely, especially as the house burst into flames, but the boat was now completely out of control, drifting helplessly, and now definitely sinking, as she heeled slowly to port. With the wind where it was, Anna estimated that she would be driven back on to the reef before she went down, although in any event with only about twelve feet of water out there, she was not going to go down very far.
Several men had already jumped into the water to make for the beach. Others were still freeing the dinghy and pushing it out to the rail. Anna laid down the bazooka, which had served its purpose, and picked up the shotgun, sending a shot into the middle of the group. Men fell left and right, and the dinghy exploded with an obvious gush of air which she couldn’t hear above the rattle of the rain and the howl of the wind.
It was time to turn her attention to the men in the water. Some were in trouble, waving their arms and clearly calling for help, although she couldn’t hear them either. But others had reached the shallows, and were wading or staggering ashore, buffeted and occasionally knocked down by the breaking waves. But most of them were still carrying their guns.
Anna laid the shotgun alongside the bazooka, pulling fallen leaves over both guns to conceal them, unslung her tommy gun, and crawled through the trees to a better vantage point, immediately above the beach, and close enough, she felt, for them to hear her even in the wind.
The survivors were just coming ashore. There were six of them, and she counted another six still floundering in the sea. Four more were still on the sinking ship, now virtually on her beam ends, and Anna reckoned that there had been about four in the burning wheelhouse. Twenty men, she thought, sent to kill one woman.
That did not encourage her to feel the least sorry for any of them, but she was reluctant to kill them all, unless she had to. She cupped her hands round her mouth. ‘I have you covered,’ she shouted. ‘Throw down your weapons and put your hands on your heads. If you do not obey me, now, I will fire into you.’
There was a moment’s hesitation, then someone shouted, ‘It’s the bitch, right up there.’ As he spoke the man opened fire, as did his companions. Anna lay flat, her hands over her head, and the bullets sliced through the trees and bushes. Then the firing stopped, and she rose to her knees again, but as she did so there was the loudest noise she had ever heard, a screaming howl like an express train entering a tunnel at full speed with its whistle blowing. The hurricane wind had arrived.
Instinctively she dropped on to her face again, digging her fingers into the soil. What the men were doing she had no idea; every sound was obliterated by the howl of the wind, now joined by the booming crashing of the waves. Although she was lying still she found herself gasping for breath, and then realized that she was being moved, or perhaps the whole island was being moved.
Desperately she tried to grasp the trunk of the nearest tree, but that was moving too, the entire roots being torn out of the ground. She released it and threw h
erself away from it, as it came down with an enormous scything sound, striking the ground with an earthshaking crash and taking several smaller trees with it. But by then Anna was far away. In escaping the falling casuarinas she had inadvertently risen to her knees, and was now carried along by the wind, crashing through various bushes, bouncing off trees. The tommy gun had long flown from her hands, but the shoulder bag, held by its strong leather strap, was still round her neck and she clutched it against her breasts and stomach to protect herself as best she could.
Then suddenly she found herself in a pool of water. For a moment she supposed she had been driven up the hill and into the pool, but this was fresh. Then, the cistern? But that was very nearly a mile from the dock.
She again rose to her knees, but while the wind continued to howl, it was no longer driving her along, and she realized that she had fallen into a hollow, and that the water had just been dumped here by the rain, which continued to teem down.
There was another tearing, scything sound, and she instinctively ducked into the water, and again felt the earth shake as another tree came down, right over her head, bridging both sides of the dip. Branches flailed her head but she was relatively unhurt, and she realized that she was now as safe as she could possibly be, protected by the dip from the full force of the wind, and by the tree from any more debris. So she lay, totally immersed save for her head, against the side of the hollow, and gasped for breath.
*
Anna had no idea for how long she lay in her ditch. She later realized that she must have nodded off from time to time, so that when the thunder dwindled and the wind suddenly dropped, she came to with a start. Looking at her watch, she discovered it was eleven o’clock, and the moon was shining brilliantly from an apparently clear sky. The eye!
As she reckoned it had been about seven when the storm had hit, she had lain here for four hours. Now she had a tremendous sense of urgency to find out what had been happening. Slowly she pushed herself up. She was dripping water, even from her hair, as the bandanna had long blown away, she was shivering with cold, and she felt as if she had been ridden over by a horde of elephants, but as she felt her legs and arms and ribs she realized that she was only bruised.
She climbed out of her hollow, looked around at a scene of utter devastation. The darkness hid the worst of it, but there were fallen trees everywhere. She made her way to the dock, and saw to her immense relief that Fair Girl was still riding to her mooring; the water inside the dock was relatively calm, and when she went down to it she saw that although three of the warps had snapped, the others had held, and she reckoned the amount of water both on deck and in puddles on the dock itself had been caused mainly by the rain; as she had estimated was likely, the long area of relatively shallow water had prevented any big storm surge from reaching the cay. Fortune, she thought, favours the brave. Or the ungodly.
On the other hand, the trawler yacht had entirely disappeared, either torn to pieces on the bottom or broken up on the reef. There would be time enough to check that out tomorrow. But the men! They were not to be seen either. Yet they, or their bodies, had to be around somewhere. That was assuming they had all perished.
She retraced her steps to the bushes where she had left the bazooka and the shotgun. Remarkably, while the bazooka was missing, the shotgun was still there. As the rocket-launcher was by far the heavier piece of metal, that had to be a freak of the wind . . . Or someone had found it. But as the other rockets were still in her bag, it wouldn’t do its new owner much good.
And there was no use looking for any of the invaders in the dark, and with the wind likely to return in the next few minutes. She climbed the rise to the house, increasingly aware of her aches and pains, but so relieved as she got closer to see the chinks of light through the shutters: thanks to her precautions, the electrics had not failed.
She banged on the door, and the dogs barked. ‘Anna?’ Johann asked.
‘It’s me.’
The bolts were drawn, and Anna was in his arms. ‘I’m afraid I’m very wet,’ she warned.
He hugged her tighter.
‘Anna!’ Jane was awaiting her turn. ‘It was so long. We thought . . . oh, we thought . . .’
‘I was sheltering in a ditch. But it filled with water.’ She turned her attention to the dogs. ‘No problems, here?’
‘I think one of the trees got struck by lightning,’ Johann said. ‘There was a terrible crash.’
‘We’ll have a look in the morning.’
‘But the ship?’ Jane said. ‘Did you see it?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘And was it coming here?’
‘I really can’t be sure. It sank.’
‘But . . . what about the people on board?’
‘I can’t be sure about them either. I was trying to stay alive. The wind arrived before I could get back to the house. Have you had dinner?’
‘Well . . . we ate something.’
‘I am ravenous. I am also filthy, as you can see, very wet, and very cold. I would also like a stiff drink, Papa. Meanwhile, I’m going to have a hot shower.’
‘But what are we going to do?’ Jane asked.
‘Mama, there is nothing we can do until tomorrow morning. We’ll pick up the pieces then.’
*
Isis lay on the bed and stretched as she watched her mistress strip off her sodden clothes; Anna wondered if she had even noticed there was a storm on.
She was still in the shower when the wind started again, howling around the house while the thunder boomed and the lightning flashed, but Anna felt that it was not as intense as before, although she recognized that could be because she was now under shelter instead of actually out in it.
She washed her hair, wrapped it in a towel and herself in a dressing gown, and went downstairs to enjoy the hot rum toddy prepared by her father and the meal prepared by her mother. Who continued to be anxious. ‘What are we going to do?’ she asked again above the roar of the wind and the crashing of the rain.
‘I told you, sit it out,’ Anna replied, ‘until this abates. It should have done that by dawn.’
‘What about the storm surge?’ Johann asked. They could hear the crashing of the waves even above the wind.
‘There is nothing we can do about that either, Papa. If it comes, it comes. As this house has been through a hurricane before, I’m quite sure it’ll do so again. But we can’t attempt to assess the damage and pick up any pieces until it’s daylight and the wind drops.’
‘I was thinking of the people on the boat,’ Jane said. ‘They can’t all have drowned. Some of them must have come ashore.’
‘In which case, we’ll find them too, in the morning. Now you both go to bed, and get some sleep.’
‘What are you going to do?’ Johann asked.
‘The same,’ she assured him, and stroked the dogs. ‘You’re on watch.’
*
Anna slept with Isis in her arms, awoke at six, not quite certain where she was. With the shutters closed the room was still dark, and the heavy wood also shut out all normal sound . . . and there was no other.
Isis had moved during the night, so she rolled out of bed, opened the shutters and then the doors to the veranda, went outside to gaze at a very turbulent sea, with tossing whitecaps in every direction, both within and outside the reef. But that was a residue of the storm, because this morning the wind, if fresh, had lost most of its force, and the sky was a clear empty blue, although there was a heavy cloud bank to the north-west to suggest that somebody else was catching it.
But that the storm had passed this way was evident wherever she looked. There were trees down to every side; even those coconut palms that had not been uprooted were bent almost double, and as her father had suspected, one of the casuarinas had come down in the pool, which was in any event overflowing, flooding the coronation and into the garden around it. But that would be mostly rainwater.
She dressed in pants and a shirt, sandals and a sun hat, leaving her still
damp hair loose, then emptied the shoulder bag of the rockets and three of the drums, retaining one. As she had no idea what she might be going to encounter, she also left the Walther and the two magazines, then carried Isis downstairs and set her before a saucer of milk.
Both her parents were up. ‘Is it over?’ Jane asked.
‘The storm, yes.’
‘You mean . . .’
‘There should be at least a couple of bodies lying around. I’m talking about drowned,’ she hastily added as she saw her mother’s expression.
‘Do you want breakfast?’
‘It’s very early. I’ll have a look outside first.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Johann volunteered.
‘Thank you, Papa.’ She went into the radio room, reloaded the shotgun with scatter shot, slung it and the reserve tommy gun, then wound the aerial back up and listened for a few minutes. The airwaves were busy with both contact calls and calls for assistance, but none of them appeared to be directed at Fair Cay.
She joined her father and mother. ‘Now, Mama,’ she said, ‘we’re not going to be long, but you must keep the doors shut and locked until we come back One or two of those characters may have survived.’
Jane nodded, face grim with determination. Anna had considered leaving her a weapon, but she knew that, like her father, her mother had never fired a gun in her life and in any event would be quite incapable of shooting a human being. Besides, with the storm shutters still in place and the doors locked the house was just about invulnerable. So she kissed her, and let the dogs out, followed by her father, to stand on the veranda and take long, deep breaths. ‘Doesn’t that smell good?’
‘Where do we begin?’ Johann asked.
‘North beach first. We need to know how high the surge came last night.’
They stopped by the generator house, picking their way over fallen trees and scattered underbrush. ‘The garden is ruined,’ Johann commented.
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