Wyatt's Hurricane / Bahama Crisis

by Desmond Bagley

‘I am,’ said Wyatt with no expression in his voice.

  ‘So Causton came through all right,’ said Dawson. ‘That’s good.’

  Fuller chuckled. ‘He served a term in the Government army first. He told us that you’d landed in the jug—the one on Libération Place. That wasn’t encouraging because we plastered the Place pretty thoroughly, but there weren’t any white bodies in the police station so there was a chance you’d got away. I’ve been looking for you all night—Favel insisted, and when he insists, things get done.’

  Wyatt said, ‘When does the war start again?’

  ‘As soon as Rocambeau decides to make his push,’ said Fuller. ‘We’re fighting a defensive action—we’re not strong enough to do anything else right now.’

  ‘What about the Government troops to the west?’

  ‘They’re still grouped around Cap Sarrat. Serrurier is still afraid the Yanks will come out and stab him in the back.’

  ‘Will they?’

  Fuller snorted. ‘Not a chance. This is a local fight and the Yanks want none of it. I think they’d prefer Favel to Serrurier—who wouldn’t?—but they won’t interfere. Thank God Serrurier has a different opinion.’

  Wyatt wondered where Fuller came into all this. He spoke as one who was high in the rebel hierarchy and he was definitely close to Favel. But he did not ask any questions about it—he had more important things on his mind. The best thing was that Favel wanted to see him and he began to marshal his arguments once again.

  Fuller pulled up the jeep outside the Imperiale and they all climbed out. There was a great coming and going and Wyatt noticed that the revolving door had been taken away to facilitate passage in and out of the hotel. He chalked up another mark to Favel for efficiency and attention to minor detail. He followed Fuller inside to find that the hotel had been transformed; the foyer had been cleared and the American Bar had a new role as a map room. Fuller said, ‘Wait here; I’ll tell the boss you’ve arrived.’

  He went off and Dawson said, ‘This is how I like to view a war—from the blunt end.’

  ‘You might change your mind when Rocambeau attacks.’

  ‘That’s very likely,’ said Dawson. ‘But I refuse to be depressed.’

  There was a cry from the stairs and they saw Causton hurrying down. ‘Welcome back,’ he said. ‘Glad you got out of the cooler.’

  Wyatt smiled wryly. ‘We were blown out.’

  ‘Don’t believe it,’ said Dawson. ‘Wyatt did a great job—he got us both out.’ He peered at Causton. ‘What’s that on your face—boot-polish?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Causton. ‘Can’t get rid of the damn’ stuff. I suppose you’d like to clean up and put on some fresh clothing.’

  ‘Where’s Julie—and Rawsthorne?’ asked Wyatt.

  Causton looked grave. ‘We got separated quite early. The plan was to head east.’

  ‘They went east,’ said Wyatt. ‘Now they’re mixed up with Rocambeau’s army.’

  There was nothing anyone could say further about that and, after a pause, Causton said, ‘You’d better both take the chance of cleaning up. Favel won’t see you yet—he’s in the middle of a planning conference, trying to get a quart out of a pint pot.’

  He took them up to his room and provided welcome hot water and soap. One glance at Dawson’s hands produced a doctor, who hustled Dawson away, and then Causton found a clean shirt for Wyatt and said, ‘You can use my dry shaver.’

  Wyatt sat on the bed and shaved, already beginning to feel much better. He said, ‘How did you get separated from the others?’

  Causton told him, then said, ‘I got to Favel in the end and managed to convince him you were important.’ He scratched his head. ‘Either he didn’t need much convincing, or my powers of persuasion are a lot better than I thought—but he got the point very quickly. He’s quite a boy.’

  ‘Hurricanes excepted—do you think he’s got a chance of coming on top in this war?’

  Causton smiled wryly. ‘That’s an unanswerable question. The Government army is far stronger, and so far he’s won by surprise and sheer intelligence. He plans for every contingency and the groundwork for this attack was laid months ago.’ He chuckled. ‘You know that the main force of the Government artillery never came into action at all. The guns got tangled in a hell of a mess not far up the Negrito and Favel came down and captured the lot. I thought it was luck, but I know now that Favel never depends on luck. The whole damn’ thing was planned—Favel had suborned Lescuyer, the Government artillery commander; Lescuyer issued conflicting orders and had two columns of artillery meeting head-on on the same road, then he ducked for cover. By the time Deruelles had sorted that lot out it was all over, and Deruelles himself was dead.’

  ‘That must have been when Rocambeau took over,’ said Wyatt.

  Causton nodded. ‘That was a pity. Rocambeau is a bloody efficient commander—far better than Deruelles could ever be. He got the Government army out of the trap. God knows what will happen now.’

  ‘Didn’t the Government armour cause Favel any trouble when he came out on the plain?’

  Causton grinned. ‘Not much. He sorted out the captured artillery in quick time, ruthlessly junking the stuff that was in the way. Then he formed it into six mobile columns and went gunning for Serrurier’s armour. The minute a tank or an armoured car showed its nose, up would come a dozen guns and blast hell out of it. He had the whole thing taped right from the start—the Government generals were dancing to his tune until Rocambeau took over. Like when he blasted the 3rd Regiment in the Place de la Libération Noire—he had artillery observers already in the city equipped with walkie-talkies, and they caught the 3rd Regiment just when they were forming up.’

  ‘I know,’ said Wyatt soberly. ‘I saw the result of that.’

  Causton’s grin widened. ‘He disposed of Serrurier’s comic opera air force in the same tricky efficient fashion. The planes started flying and bombing all right, but when each plane had flown three attacks they found they’d come to the end of the ready-use petrol, so they broke open the reserve tanks on the airfield. The lot was doctored with sugar—there’s plenty of that on San Fernandez—and now all the planes are grounded with sticky engines.’

  ‘He certainly gets full marks for effort,’ said Wyatt. ‘Where do Manning and Fuller come into all this?’

  ‘I haven’t got to the bottom of that yet. I think they had something to do with getting his war supplies. Favel certainly knew what he wanted—rifles, machine-guns and mobile artillery, consisting of a hell of a lot of mountain guns and mortars, together with bags of ammunition. It must have cost somebody a packet and I haven’t been able to find out who financed all this.’

  ‘Manning and Fuller were in the right place,’ said Wyatt slowly. ‘And the police seemed to think they had a lot to do with Favel. They beat Dawson half to death trying to find out more.’

  ‘I saw his hands,’ said Causton. ‘What did he tell them?’

  ‘What could he tell them? He just stuck it out.’

  ‘I’m surprised,’ said Causton. ‘He has the reputation among us press boys of being a phoney. We know that the air crash he had in Alaska a couple of years ago was a put-up job to boost the sales of his latest book. It was planned by Don Wiseman and executed by a stunt pilot.’

  ‘Who is Don Wiseman?’

  ‘Dawson’s press agent. I always thought that every view we’ve had of Dawson was through Wiseman’s magnifying glass.’

  Wyatt said gently, ‘I think you can regard Wiseman as being Dawson’s former press agent.’

  Causton lifted his eyebrows. ‘It’s like that, is it?’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with Dawson,’ said Wyatt, stroking his clean-shaven cheek. He put down the dry-shaver. ‘When do I get to see Favel?’

  Causton shrugged. ‘When he’s ready. He’s planning a war, you know, and right now he may be on the losing end. I think he’s running out of tricks; his preliminary planning was good but it only stretches so far. Now h
e faces a slugging match with Rocambeau and he’s not in trim for it. He’s got five thousand men against the Government’s fifteen thousand, and if he tries a war of attrition he’s done for. He may have to retreat back to the mountains.’

  Wyatt buttoned his shirt. ‘He’ll have to make up his mind quickly,’ he said grimly. ‘Mabel won’t wait for him.’

  Causton sat in silence for a moment, then he said, almost pleadingly, ‘Have you anything concrete to offer him, apart from this hunch of yours?’

  Wyatt stepped to the window and looked up at the hot blue sky. ‘Not much,’ he said. ‘If I were back at the Base with my instruments I might have been able to come to some logical conclusions, but without instruments…’ He shrugged.

  Causton looked despondent, and Wyatt said, ‘This is hurricane weather, you know. This calm sultriness isn’t natural—something has stopped the normal flow of the south-east wind, and my guess is that it’s Mabel.’ He nodded towards the sea. ‘She’s somewhere over there beyond the horizon. I can’t prove for certain that she’s coming this way, but I certainly think so.’

  Causton said, ‘There’s a barometer downstairs; would that be any good?’ He sounded half-heartedly hopeful.

  ‘I’ll have a look at it,’ said Wyatt. ‘But I don’t think it will be.’

  They went downstairs into the hurly-burly of the army headquarters and Causton showed him the barometer on the wall of the manager’s office. Wyatt looked at it in astonishment. ‘Good God, a Torricelli barometer—what a relic!’ He tapped it gently. ‘It must be a hundred years old.’ Looking closely at the dial, he said, ‘No, not quite; “Adameus Copenhans—Amsterdam—1872.” ’

  ‘Is it any good?’ asked Causton.

  Wyatt was briefly amused. ‘This is like handing a pickaxe to a nuclear physicist and telling him to split some atoms.’ He tapped the dial again and the needle quivered. ‘This thing tells us what is happening now, and that’s not very important. What I’d like to know is what happened over the last twenty-four hours. I’d give a lot to have an aneroid barograph with a recording over the last three days.’

  ‘Then this is useless?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. It will probably give a wrong reading anyway. I can’t see anyone having taken the trouble to correct this for temperature, latitude and so on.’

  Causton waxed sarcastic. ‘The trouble with you boffins is that you’ve developed your instruments to such a pitch that now you can’t do without them. What did you weathermen do before you had your satellites and all your electronic gadgets?’

  Wyatt said softly, ‘Relied on experience and instinct—which is what I’m doing now. When you’ve studied a lot of hurricanes—as many as I have—you begin to develop a sixth sense which tells you what they’re likely to do next. Nothing shows on your instruments and it isn’t anything that can be analysed. I prefer to call it the voice of experience.’

  ‘I still believe you,’ said Causton plaintively. ‘But the point is: can we convince Favel?’

  ‘That isn’t worrying me,’ said Wyatt. ‘What is worrying me is what Favel will do when he is convinced. He’s in a cleft stick.’

  ‘Let’s see if he’s finished his conference,’ said Causton. ‘As a journalist, I’m interested to see what he does do.’ He mopped his brow. ‘You know, you’re right; this weather is unnatural.’

  Favel was still not free and they waited in the foyer watching the comings and goings of messengers from the hotel dining-room where the conference was being held. At last Fuller came out and beckoned. ‘You’re next,’ he said. ‘Make it as snappy as you can.’ He looked at Wyatt with honest blue eyes. ‘Personally, I think this is a waste of time. We don’t have hurricanes here.’

  ‘Serrurier told me the same thing in almost the same words,’ said Wyatt. ‘He isn’t a meteorologist, either.’

  Fuller snorted. ‘Well, come on; let’s get it over with.’

  He escorted them into the dining-room. The tables had been put together and were covered with maps and a group of men were conversing in low voices at the far end of the room. It reminded Wyatt irresistibly of the large ornate room in which Serrurier had been holding his pre-battle conference, but there was a subtle difference. There was no gold braid and there was no hysteria.

  Causton touched his elbow. ‘That’s Manning,’ he said, nodding to a tall white man. ‘And that’s Favel next to him.’

  Favel was a lean, wiry man of less than average height. He was lighter in complexion than the average San Fernandan and his eyes were, strikingly and incongruously, a piercing blue—something very unusual in a man of Negro stock. He was simply dressed in clean khaki denims with an open-necked shirt, out of which rose the strong corded column of his neck. As he turned to greet Wyatt the crowsfeet round his eyes crinkled and the corners of his mobile mouth quirked in a smile. ‘Ah, Mr Wyatt,’ he said. ‘I’ve been looking for you. I want to hear what you have to say but—from what Mr Causton tells me—I fear I won’t like it.’ His English was smooth and unaccented.

  ‘There’s going to be a hurricane,’ said Wyatt baldly.

  Favel’s expression did not change. He looked on Wyatt with a half-humorous curve to his lips, and said, ‘Indeed!’

  The tall white man—Manning—said, ‘That’s a pretty stiff statement, Wyatt. There hasn’t been a hurricane here since 1910.’

  ‘And I’m getting pretty tired of hearing the fact,’ said Wyatt wearily. ‘Is there some magic about the year 1910? Do hurricanes come at hundred-year intervals, and can we expect the next in 2010?’

  Favel said softly, ‘If not in 2010, when may we expect this hurricane?’

  ‘Within twenty-four hours,’ said Wyatt bluntly. ‘I wouldn’t put it at longer than that.’

  Manning made a noise with his lips expressive of disgust, but Favel held up his hand. ‘Charles, I know you don’t want anything to interfere with our war, but I think we ought to hear what Mr Wyatt has to say. It might have a considerable bearing on our future course of action.’ He leaned comfortably against the table and pointed a brown finger directly at Wyatt. ‘Now, then; give me your evidence.’

  Wyatt drew in a deep breath. He had to convince this slim brown man whose eyes had suddenly turned flinty. ‘The hurricane was spotted five days ago by one of the weather satellites. Four days ago I went to inspect it on one of the usual reconnaissance missions and found it was a bad one, one of the worst I’ve ever encountered. I kept a check on its course, and up to the time I left the Base it was going according to prediction. Since then I haven’t had the opportunity for further tracking.’

  ‘The predicted course,’ said Favel. ‘Does that bring the hurricane to San Fernandez?’

  ‘No,’ admitted Wyatt. ‘But it wouldn’t take much of a swing off course to hit us, and hurricanes do swerve for quite unpredictable reasons.’

  ‘Did you inform Commodore Brooks of this?’ asked Manning harshly.

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Well, he hasn’t put much stock in your story. He’s still sitting there across the bay at Cap Sarrat and he doesn’t look like moving.’

  Wyatt said carefully, looking at Favel, ‘Commodore Brooks is not his own master. He has other things to take into account, especially this war you’re fighting. He’s taking a calculated risk.’

  Favel nodded. ‘Just so. I appreciate Commodore Brooks’s position—he would not want to abandon Cap Sarrat Base at a time like this.’ He smiled mischievously. ‘I would not want him to abandon the Base, either. He is keeping President Serrurier occupied by his masterly inactivity.’

  ‘That’s beside the point,’ said Manning abruptly. ‘If he was as certain about this hurricane as Wyatt apparently is, he would surely evacuate the Base.’

  Favel leaned forward. ‘Are you certain about this hurricane, Mr Wyatt?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Even though you have been kept from your instruments and so do not have full knowledge?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Wyatt. He looked Favel in the eye. ‘There
was a man up near St Michel—two days ago, just before the battles started. He was tying down the roof of his hut.’

  Favel nodded. ‘I, too, saw a man doing that. I wondered…’

  ‘For God’s sake!’ exploded Manning. ‘This isn’t a meeting of a folklore society. The decisions we have to make are too big to be based on anything but facts.’

  ‘Hush, Charles,’ said Favel. ‘I am a West Indian, and so is Mr Wyatt. Like is calling to like.’ He saw the expression on Wyatt’s face and burst out laughing. ‘Oh yes, I know all about you; I have a dossier on every foreigner on the island.’ He became serious. ‘Did you talk to him—this man who was tying down the roof of his hut?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He said the big wind was coming. He said he was going to finish securing the roof of his house and then he was going to join his family in a cave in the hills. He said the big wind would come in two days.’

  ‘How did that coincide with your own knowledge of the hurricane?’

  ‘It coincided exactly,’ said Wyatt.

  Favel turned to Manning. ‘That man has gone to his cave where he will pray to an old half-forgotten god—older, even, than those my people brought from West Africa. Hunraken, the Carib storm god.’

  Manning looked at him blankly and Favel murmured, ‘No matter.’ He turned back to Wyatt and said, ‘I have a great belief in the instincts of my people for survival. Perhaps—‘ he wagged a lean, brown finger—‘ and only perhaps, there will be a hurricane, after all. Let us assume there will be a hurricane—what will be the probable result if it hits us, here in St Pierre?’

  ‘Mabel is a particularly bad…’ began Wyatt.

  ‘Mabel?’ Favel laughed shortly. ‘You scientists have lost the instinct for drama. Hunraken is the better name.’ He waved his hand. ‘But go on.’

  Wyatt started again. ‘She’ll hit from the south and come into Santego Bay; the bay is shallow and the sea will build up. You’ll have what is popularly known as a tidal wave.’

  Favel snapped his fingers. ‘A map. Let us see what it looks like on a map.’