Wyatt's Hurricane / Bahama Crisis

by Desmond Bagley

  ‘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 Wyat
t, 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.’