Wyatt's Hurricane / Bahama Crisis

by Desmond Bagley

  Eumenides was silent. He did not see what they could do. If they tried to get away capture would be almost certain, but if they stayed, then daylight would give them away. Julie said, ‘Are any of the soldiers near?’

  Eumenides pointed. ‘Maybe two ‘undred feet. You speak loud—they ‘ear.’

  ‘Thank goodness we found this hollow,’ said Julie. ‘You’d better get into your hole, Eumenides. Cover yourself with banana leaves. We’ll wait for Mr Rawsthorne.’

  ‘I’m frightened,’ said Mrs Warmington in a small voice from out of the darkness.

  ‘You think I’m not?’ whispered Julie. ‘Now keep quiet.’

  ‘But they’ll kill us,’ wailed Mrs Warmington in a louder voice. ‘They’ll rape us, then kill us.’

  ‘For God’s sake, keep quiet,’ said Julie as fiercely as she could in a whisper. ‘They’ll hear you.’

  Mrs Warmington gave a low moan and lapsed into silence. Julie lay in the bottom of her foxhole and waited for Rawsthorne, wondering how long he would be, and what they could possibly do when he came back.

  Rawsthorne was in difficulties. Having crossed the service road, he was finding it hard to recross it; there was a constant stream of traffic in both directions, the trucks roaring along one after the other with blazing headlights so that he could not cross without being seen. And it had taken him a long time to find the road at all. In his astonishment at finding himself in the middle of an army he had lost his way, stumbling about in the leaf-dappled darkness between the rows of plants and fleeing in terror from one group of soldiers, only to find another barring his way.

  By the time he had calmed down he was a long way from the road and it took him nearly an hour and a half to get back to it, harried as he was by the dread of discovery. He had no illusions of what would happen to him if discovered. Serrurier’s propaganda had been good; he had deceived these men and twisted their minds, and then trained and drilled them into an army. To them all blancs were Americans and Americans were bogeymen in the mythology Serrurier had built up—there would be a weird equation in which white man equals Americans equals spy, and he would be shot on the spot.

  So he trod cautiously as he threaded his way among the banana plants. Once he had to remain motionless for a full half hour while a group of soldiers conversed idly on the other side of the plant under which he was hiding. He pressed himself against the broad leaves and prayed that one of them would not think to walk round the tree, and he was lucky.

  When he was able to go on his way again he thought of what the men had been saying. The troops were tired and dispirited; they complained of the inefficiency of their officers and spoke in awe of the power of Favel’s artillery. One recurring theme had been: where are our guns? No one had been able to answer. But the news was that the army was regrouping under General Rocambeau and they were going in to attack St Pierre when the night was over. Although a lot of their military supplies had been captured by Favel, Rocambeau’s withdrawing force had managed to empty San Juan arsenal and there was enough ammunition to make the attack. The men’s voices lifted when they spoke of Rocambeau and they seemed to have renewed hope.

  At last he found the road and waited in the shadows for a gap in the stream of traffic, but none came. He looked desperately at his watch—dawn was not far away and he would have to cross the road before then. At last, seeing no hope in a diminution of the traffic, he moved along the edge of the road until he found a curve. Here he might have a chance of crossing undetected by headlights. He waited until a truck went by, then ran across and hurled himself down on the other side. The lights of the next truck coming round the bend swept over him as he lay there winded.

  There was light in the eastern sky when at last he located the approximate direction of the hollow in which the others were concealed. He moved along warily, thinking that this sort of thing might be all right for younger men like Wyatt and Causton, but might prove the death of an elderly man like himself.

  Julie roused herself from her foxhole as the light grew in the sky. She sat up cautiously, lifting the huge green leaves, and looked about, wondering where Rawsthorne was. No one had come near the hollow and it seemed as though they might yet evade capture if they kept hidden and silent. But first she had to look about to see from which direction danger was most likely to threaten.

  She whispered to Eumenides, ‘I’m going to the edge of the hollow.’

  There was a stir in the banana leaves. ‘All ri’.’

  ‘Don’t leave me,’ Mrs Warmington pleaded, sitting up. ‘Please don’t go away—I’m frightened.’

  ‘Ssssh. I’m not going far—just a few yards. Stay here and be quiet.’

  She crawled away among the plants and found a place from which she could survey the plantation. In the dim morning light she could see the movement of men and heard a low hum of voices. The nearest group was a mere fifty yards away but the men were all asleep, huddled shapes lying round the dying embers of a fire.

  She had come away to check on their camouflage in the light of day and before it was too late, so she looked back down into the hollow to see that the newly turned earth looked dreadfully raw, but it was nothing that could not be disguised by a few more leaves. The holes themselves were quite invisible or would be if that damned woman would keep still.

  Mrs Warmington was sitting up and looking about nervously, still clutching her purse to her breast. ‘Get down, you fool,’ breathed Julie, but to her astonishment Mrs Warmington opened her purse, produced a comb and began to comb her hair. She’ll never learn, thought Julie in despair; she’s quite unadaptable and habit-ridden. To attend to one’s coiffure in the morning was, no doubt, quite laudable in suburbia, but it might mean death on this green hillside.

  She was about to slip back and thrust the woman back into her foxhole, by force if necessary, when she was arrested by a movement on the other side of the hollow. A soldier was coming down, stretching his arms as he walked as though he had just risen from sleep, and adjusting the sling of his rifle to his shoulder. Julie stayed very still and her eyes switched to Mrs Warmington, who was regarding herself in a small mirror. She distinctly heard the deprecating and very feminine sound which Mrs Warmington made as she discovered how bedraggled she was.

  The soldier heard it too and unslung his rifle and came down into the hollow very cautiously. Mrs Warmington heard the metallic click as he slammed back the bolt, and she screamed as she saw him coming towards her, scrabbling at her purse. The soldier stopped in astonishment and then a broad grin spread over his face and he came closer, putting up his rifle.

  Then there were three flat reports that echoed on the hot morning air. The soldier shouted and spun round to flop at Mrs Warmington’s feet, writhing like a newly landed fish. Blood stained his uniform red at the shoulder.

  Eumenides popped up from his hole like a jack-in-a-box as Julie started to run. When she got down to the bottom of the hollow he was bending over the fallen soldier, who was moaning incoherently. He regarded his bloody hand blankly. ‘He was shot!’

  ‘He was coming at me,’ screamed Mrs Warmington. ‘He was going to rape me—kill me.’ She waved a pistol in her hand.

  Julie let her have it, putting all her strength into the muscular open-handed slap. She was desperate—at all costs she must silence this hysterical woman. Mrs Warmington was suddenly silent and the gun dropped from her nerveless fingers to be caught by Eumenides. His eyes opened wide as he looked at it. ‘This is mine,’ he said in astonishment.

  Julie whirled as she heard a shout from behind and saw three soldiers running down the slope. The first one saw the prone figure on the ground and the pistol in Eumenides’s hand and wasted no time in argument. He brought up his gun and shot the Greek in the stomach.

  Eumenides groaned and doubled up, his hands at his belly. He dropped to his knees and bent forward and the soldier lifted his rifle and bayoneted him in the back. Eumenides collapsed completely and the soldier put his boot on him and pulled out the bayo
net, to stab and stab again until the body lay in a welter of blood.

  Rawsthorne, watching from the edge of the hollow, was sickened to his stomach but was unable to tear his eyes away. He listened to the shouting and watched the women being pushed about. One of the soldiers was ruthlessly pricking them with a bayonet and he saw the red blood running down Julie’s arm. He thought they were going to be shot out of hand but then an officer came along and the two women were hustled out of the hollow, leaving behind the lifeless body of Eumenides Papegaikos.

  Rawsthorne lingered for some minutes, held in a state of shock before his brain began to work again. At last he moved away, crawling on his belly. But he did not really know where he was going nor what he was going to do next.

  III

  Wyatt discovered that Favel was a hard man to find. With Dawson, he had been handed over to a junior officer who was too preoccupied with the immediate tactical situation to pay much attention to him. In order to rid himself of an incubus, the officer had passed them up the line, escorted by a single private soldier who was depressed at being taken out of the battle. Dawson looked at him, and said, ‘There’s nothing wrong with the morale of these boys.’

  ‘They’re winning,’ said Wyatt shortly. He was obsessed by the urgency of getting to see Favel, but he could see it was not going to be easy. The war had split into two separate battles to the west and east of St Pierre. Favel’s hammer blow in the centre had split Serrurier’s army into two unequal halves, the larger part withdrawing to the east in a fighting retreat, and a smaller fragment fleeing in disorder to the west to join the as yet unblooded troops keeping a watch on Cap Sarrat.

  A more senior officer laughed in their faces when Wyatt demanded to see Favel. ‘You want to see Favel,’ he said incredulously. ‘Blanc, I want to see him—everyone wants to see him. He is on the move all the time; he is a busy man.’

  ‘Will he be coming here?’ asked Wyatt.

  The officer grunted. ‘Not if I can help it. He comes only when there is trouble, and I don’t want to be the cause of his coming. But he might come,’ he prophesied. ‘We are moving against Rocambeau.’

  ‘Can we stay here?’

  ‘You’re welcome as long as you keep out of the way.’

  So they stayed in battalion headquarters and Wyatt relayed to Dawson the substance of what he had learned. Dawson said, ‘I don’t think you have a hope in hell of seeing him. Would you be bothered by a nutty scientist at a time like this?’

  ‘I don’t suppose I would,’ said Wyatt despondently.

  He listened carefully to all that was going on about him and began to piece together the military situation as it stood. The name of Serrurier was hardly mentioned, but the name of Rocambeau was on everyone’s lips.

  ‘Who the hell is this Rocambeau?’ demanded Dawson.

  ‘He was one of the junior Government generals,’ said Wyatt. ‘He took over when old Deruelles was killed and proved to be trickier than Favel thought. Favel was relying on finishing the war in one bash but Rocambeau got the Government army out of the net in a successful disengaging action. He’s withdrawn to the east and is regrouping for another attack, and the devil of it is that he managed to scrape together enough transport to empty San Juan arsenal. He’s got enough ammunition and spare weapons to finish the war in a way Favel doesn’t like.’

  ‘Can’t Favel move in and finish him before he’s ready? Sort of catch him off balance?’

  Wyatt shook his head. ‘Favel has just about shot his bolt. He’s been fighting continuously against heavy odds. He’s fought his way down from the mountains and his men are dropping on their feet with weariness. He also has to stop for resting and regrouping.’

  ‘So what happens now?’

  Wyatt grimaced. ‘Favel stops in St Pierre—he hasn’t the strength to push further. So he’ll fight his defensive battle in St Pierre, and along will come Mabel and wipe out the lot of them. Neither army will have a chance on this low ground round Santego Bay. No one is going to win this war.’

  Dawson looked at Wyatt out of the corner of his eye. ‘Maybe we’d better get out,’ he suggested. ‘We could go up the Negrito.’

  ‘After I’ve seen Favel,’ said Wyatt steadily.

  ‘Okay,’ said Dawson with a sigh. ‘We’ll stick around and see Favel—maybe.’ He paused. ‘Where exactly is Rocambeau regrouping?’

  ‘Just off the coast road to the east—about five miles out of town.’

  ‘Holy smoke!’ exclaimed Dawson. ‘Isn’t that where Rawsthorne and the others went?’

  ‘I’ve been trying not to think of that,’ said Wyatt tightly.

  Dawson felt depressed. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said abjectly. ‘About pulling that stupid trick with the car. If I hadn’t done that we wouldn’t have got separated.’

  Wyatt looked at him curiously. Something had happened to Dawson; this was not the man he had met in the Maraca Club—the big, important writer—nor was it the grouchy man in the cell who had told him to go to hell. He said carefully, ‘I asked you about that before and you bit my ear off.’

  Dawson looked up. ‘You want to know why I tried to take your car? I’ll tell you. I ran scared—Big Jim Dawson ran scared.’

  ‘That’s what I was wondering about,’ said Wyatt thoughtfully. ‘It doesn’t fit with what I’ve heard about you.’

  Dawson laughed sourly and there was not a trace of humour about him. ‘What you’ve heard about me is a lot of balls,’ he said bluntly. ‘I scare easy.’

  Wyatt looked at Dawson’s hands. ‘I wouldn’t say that.’

  ‘It’s a funny thing,’ said Dawson. ‘When I came slapbang against Roseau and knew I couldn’t talk my way out of it, I ought to have got scared then, but I got mad instead. That’s never happened to me before. As for my reputation, that’s a fake, a put-up job—and it was so easy, too. You go to Africa and shoot a poor goddam lion, everyone thinks you’re a hero; you pull a fish out of the sea a bit bigger than the usual fish, you’re a hero again. I used those things like a bludgeon and I built up Big Jim Dawson—what the Chinese call a paper tiger. And it’s wonderful what an unscrupulous press agent can do, too.’

  ‘But why?’ asked Wyatt helplessly. ‘You’re a good writer—all the critics say so; you don’t need artificial buttresses.’

  ‘What the critics think and what I think are two different things.’ Dawson looked at the point of his dusty shoe. ‘Whenever I sit at a typewriter looking at that blank sheet of paper I get a sinking feeling in my guts; and when I’ve filled up a whole lot of sheets and made a book the sinking feeling gets worse. I’ve never written anything yet that I’ve liked—I’ve never been able to put on paper what I really wanted to. So every time a book came out I was scared it would be a flop and I had to have some support so it would sell, and that’s why Big Jim Dawson was invented.’

  ‘You’ve been trying to do an impossible thing—achieve perfection.’

  Dawson grinned. ‘I’ll still try,’ he said cheerfully. ‘But it won’t matter any more. I think I’ve got over being scared.’

  Many hours later Wyatt was shaken into wakefulness. He had not been aware of falling asleep, and as he struggled into consciousness he was aware of cramped limbs and aching joints. He opened his eyes, to be blinded by a flashlight and he blinked painfully. A voice said, ‘Are you Wyatt, or is it the other chap?’

  ‘I’m Wyatt,’ he said. ‘Who are you?’ He threw off the blanket which someone had thoughtfully laid over him and stared at the big bearded man who was looking down at him.

  ‘I’m Fuller. I’ve been looking all over St Pierre for you. Favel wants to see you.’

  ‘Favel wants to see me! How does he even know I exist?’

  ‘That’s another story; come on.’

  Wyatt creaked to his feet and looked through the doorway. The first faint light of dawn was breaking through and he saw the outline of a jeep in the street and heard the idling engine. He turned and said, ‘Fuller? You’re the Englishman—one of them—wh
o lives on the North Coast, in the Campo de las Perlas.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘You and Manning.’

  ‘You’ve got it,’ said Fuller impatiently. ‘Come on. We’ve got no time for chit-chat.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ said Wyatt. ‘I’ll wake Dawson.’

  ‘We’ve got no time for that,’ said Fuller. ‘He can stay here.’

  Wyatt turned and stared at him. ‘Look, this man was beaten up by Serrurier’s bully-boys because of you—you and Manning. We were both within an ace of being shot for the same reason. He’s coming with me.’

  Fuller had the grace to be abashed. ‘Oh! Well, make it snappy.’

  Wyatt woke Dawson and explained the situation rapidly, and Dawson scrambled to his feet. ‘But how the hell does he know about you?’ was his first question.

  ‘Fuller will no doubt explain that on the way,’ said Wyatt. The tone of his voice indicated that Fuller had better do some explaining.

  They climbed into the jeep and set off. Fuller said, ‘Favel has established headquarters at the Imperiale—it’s nice and central.’

  ‘Well, I’m damned,’ said Dawson. ‘We needn’t have moved an inch. We were there this…last…afternoon.’

  ‘The government buildings took a battering during the bombardment,’ said Fuller. ‘They won’t be ready for occupation for quite a while.’

  Dawson said feelingly, ‘You don’t have to tell us anything about that—we were there.’

  ‘So I’m told,’ said Fuller. ‘Sorry about that.’

  Wyatt had been looking at the sky and sniffing the air. It was curiously hot considering it was so early in the morning, and the day promised to be a scorcher. He frowned and said, ‘Why has Favel sent for me?’

  ‘An English newspaperman came in with a very curious story—something about a hurricane. A lot of nonsense really. Still, Favel was impressed enough to send search-parties out looking for you as soon as we settled in the city. You are the weather boffin, aren’t you?’