Wyatt's Hurricane / Bahama Crisis

by Desmond Bagley

  ‘You can’t live in an ivory tower all your life,’ said Causton roughly. ‘You can’t escape the world outside.’

  ‘Perhaps not,’ said Wyatt, frowning. ‘But there’s something I’ve got to do. What about Julie and Rawsthorne and the others? We must do something about them.’

  Causton made a strangled noise. ‘What were you thinking of doing?’ he asked with caution.

  ‘We’ve got to do something,’ said Wyatt angrily. ‘I want transport—a car or something—and an escort for part of the way.’

  Causton struggled for a while to sort out his emotions. At last he said, ‘You weren’t intending—by any chance—going into the middle of Rocambeau’s army, were you?’

  ‘It seems to be the only way,’ said Wyatt. ‘I can’t think of anything else.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t worry Favel about it now,’ advised Causton. ‘He’s busy.’ He regarded Wyatt thoughtfully, trying to decide if he could be entirely sane. ‘Besides, Favel won’t want to lose you.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ demanded Wyatt.

  ‘He’ll expect you to consult the skies and give him a timetable for his operations.’

  ‘I’m not lending myself to that sort of thing,’ said Wyatt through his teeth.

  ‘Now, look here,’ said Causton in a hard voice. ‘Favel has over sixty thousand people to think of. You have only four—and you’re really only thinking of one. He is getting the people out of St Pierre, you know—and that is not essential to his military plans. In fact, the effort might damn’ well cripple him. I’ll leave it to you to see where your duty lies.’ He turned on his heel and walked away.

  Wyatt looked after him with a sinking feeling in his stomach. Causton was right, of course; too damnably right. He was caught up in this thing whether he liked it or not—in saving the population of St Pierre he would help to destroy the Government army. Perhaps it would be better to think of it the other way round—in helping to destroy the army he would save the people. He thought about that, but it did not make him feel much better.

  II

  At eleven o’clock the city of St Pierre boiled over. Manning’s plan was brutally simple. Starting simultaneously in the eastern and western suburbs, just behind the troops drawn up ready for battle, his evacuating force pitched the inhabitants into the streets, going systematically from house to house. The people could take the clothes they stood up in and as much food as they could carry—nothing else. The result was as though someone had thrust a stick into an ants’ nest and given it a vicious twist.

  Manning issued maps of the city to his officers, scored with red and blue lines. The red lines indicated the lines of communication of the army; no civilians were allowed on those streets at all on pain of death—at all costs the army must be protected and serviced and nothing must stand in the way of that. The blue lines led to the main road leading up through the Negrito Valley, the road along which Wyatt had driven with Julie what seemed a hundred years before.

  There were incidents. The blue lines indicated one-way traffic only, a traffic regulation enforced with violence. Those attempting to go against the stream were brusquely ordered to turn round, and if this failed, then the point of a bayonet was a convincing argument. But sometimes, against a frantic father looking for his family, even the bayonet was not convincing enough and the rifle beyond the bayonet spoke a louder word. The body would be dragged to the side of the road so as not to impede the steady shuffle of feet.

  It was brutal. It was necessary. It was done.

  Causton, wearing the brassard of a rebel officer, roamed the city. In all the hot spots of a troubled world he had covered in the course of his work he had never seen anything like this. He was simultaneously appalled and exultant—appalled at the vast scale of the tragedy he was witnessing, and exultant that he was the only newspaperman on the spot. The batteries of his tape recorder having run down, he wrote the quick, efficient shorthand he had learned as a cub reporter in notebooks looted from a stationery shop, and recorded the scene for a news-hungry world.

  The people were apathetic. For years Serrurier had systematically culled the leaders from among them and all that were left were the sheep. They resisted vocally on being told to get out of their homes but the sight of the guns silenced them, and, once in the street, they fell into the long line obediently and shuffled forward with Favel’s men at their heels chivvying them to greater speed. Inevitably there were confusions and bottlenecks as the greater mass of the populace came on to the streets; at one corner where two broad streets debouched into a third at a narrow angle there was chaos—a tangled inextricable mass of bodies crushed against one another which took Favel’s bawling non-coms two hours to straighten out, and when at last this traffic jam was eased it left a couple of dozen crushed and suffocated corpses as evidence of anarchy.

  Causton, in his borrowed car, toured the city and finally turned to the Negrito, checking on his map to find the quickest way on a red-lined route. He arrived by means of a side road at the main road leading into the Negrito Valley quite close to where Serrurier’s artillery had been captured, and saw the long line of refugees streaming away in the distance. Here there was a sizeable force of rebel soldiers, about two hundred strong. They were weeding out able-bodied men from the passing stream, forming them into squads and marching them away. Curious, Causton followed one of these squads to see where they were going and saw them set to digging under the rifles of Favel’s men.

  Favel was establishing his final defence line on the eighty-foot contour.

  When Causton returned to his car he saw a little pile of bodies tossed carelessly into a heap by the roadside behind the rebel troops—the conscientious objectors, the men who would not dig for victory.

  Sickened by death, he contemplated driving up the Negrito to safety. Instead, he turned the car and went back into the city because he still had his job to do and because his job was his life. He drove back to general headquarters at the Imperiale and asked for Wyatt, finding him eventually on the roof, looking at the sky.

  He looked up too, and saw a few feathery clouds barely veiling the furnace of the sun. ‘Anything doing yet?’ he asked.

  Wyatt turned. ‘Those clouds,’ he said. ‘Mabel’s on her way.’

  Causton said, ‘They don’t seem much. We get clouds like that in England.’

  ‘You’ll see the difference pretty soon.’

  Causton cocked an eye at him. ‘Got over your bloody-mindedness?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Wyatt gloomily.

  ‘I have a thought that might console you,’ Causton said. ‘The people who are going to get it in the neck are Serrurier’s soldiers, and soldiers are paid to get killed. That’s more than you can say for the women and children of St Pierre.’

  ‘What’s it like out there?’

  ‘Grim,’ said Causton. ‘There was a bit of looting, but Favel’s men soon put a stop to that.’ He deliberately refrained from mentioning the methods being used to get the people on the move; instead, he said, ‘The devil of it is that there’s only one practicable road out of town. Have you any idea how much road-space a city full of people takes up?’

  ‘I’ve never had occasion to work it out,’ said Wyatt sourly.

  ‘I did some quick mental arithmetic,’ said Causton. ‘And I came up with the figure of twelve miles. Since they’re not moving at more that two miles an hour, it takes six hours for the column to pass any given spot.’

  ‘I spent an hour looking at maps,’ said Wyatt. ‘Favel wanted me to outline safe areas for the people. I did my best, looking at bloody contours, but—‘ he thumped a fist into the palm of his hand—‘safe? I don’t know. This town ought to have had a hurricane plan ready for lifting from a pigeon-hole and putting into action,’ he said savagely.

  ‘That’s not Favel’s fault,’ pointed out Causton reasonably. ‘You can blame Serrurier for that.’ He looked at his watch. ‘One o’clock and Rocambeau hasn’t made a move yet. He must have been mauled m
ore seriously than we thought. Have you eaten yet?’

  Wyatt shook his head, so Causton said, ‘Let’s see what we can rustle up. It might be the last time we’ll eat for quite a while.’

  They went downstairs and were buttonholed by Manning, who had just walked in. ‘When’s that hurricane due?’ he asked abruptly.

  ‘I can’t tell you yet,’ said Wyatt. ‘But give me another couple of hours and I’ll tell you exactly.’

  Manning looked disgusted, but said nothing. Causton said, ‘Is there anything to eat around here? I’m getting peckish.’

  Manning grinned. ‘We did find a few stray chickens. You’d better come with me.’

  He took them into the manager’s office, which had been converted into an officers’ mess, and they found Favel just finishing a meal. He also questioned Wyatt, going into it much more thoroughly than Manning had, and then he went back to his map room, leaving them to eat in peace.

  Causton gnawed on a chicken leg and then paused, pointing it at Manning. ‘Where do you come into all this?’ he asked. ‘How did you get tangled up with Favel?’

  ‘A matter of business,’ said Manning offhandedly.

  ‘Such as professional advice on how to organize a war?’

  Manning grinned. ‘Favel doesn’t need any teaching about that.’

  Causton looked profound. ‘Ah,’ he said, as though enlightenment had suddenly come to him. ‘Your business is AFC business.’

  Wyatt looked up. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The Antilles Fruit Corporation—very big business in this part of the world. I was wondering where Favel got his finance.’

  Manning put down a bone. ‘I’m not likely to tell you, am I? I wouldn’t shoot off my mouth to a reporter.’

  ‘Not in the normal way,’ agreed Causton. ‘But if the reporter had the smell of the right idea and he was good enough at his job to ferret out the rest of it, you’d want him to get the right story, wouldn’t you? From your angle, I mean.’

  Manning laughed. ‘I like you, Causton; I really do. Well, I can give you some kind of story—but it’s off the record and don’t quote me on it. Let’s say I’m having a quiet talk with Wyatt here, and you’re eavesdropping with those long ears.’ He looked at Wyatt. ‘Let’s say there was a big American corporation which had a lot of capital invested in San Fernandez at one time, and all its holdings were expropriated by Serrurier.’

  ‘AFC,’ said Causton.

  ‘Could be,’ said Manning. ‘But I’m not saying so out loud. The officers of this corporation were as mad as hornets, naturally—their losses were more than twenty-five million dollars—and the shareholders weren’t pleased, either. That’s one half of it. The other half is Favel—he’s the chap who could do something about it—for reasons of his own. But he had no money to buy arms and train men, so what more natural than they get together?’

  ‘But why pick you as a go-between?’ asked Causton.

  Manning shrugged. ‘I’m in the business—I’m for hire. And they didn’t want an American; that might not have looked right. Anyway, I went shopping with the corporation’s money—there’s a chap in Switzerland, an American, who has enough guns to equip the British army, let alone our piddling little effort. Favel knew exactly what he wanted—rifles, machine-guns, mortars to pack a big wallop and yet be easily moved, recoilless rifles and a few mountain guns. He got his best men off the island and set up a training school—and I’d better not tell you where. He hired a few artillery instructors to train his men and then gradually started to recruit again on the island. When he had enough men we shipped in the arms.’

  Wyatt said incredulously, ‘Do you mean to tell me that all this has been done so that a fruit company can make a few dollars more profit?’

  Manning looked at him sharply and his hand curled into a ball. ‘It has not,’ he said crisply. ‘Where do you get that idea?’

  Causton said hastily, ‘Pray forgive my young friend. He’s still wet behind the ears—he doesn’t understand the facts of life, as I’ve had occasion to tell him.’

  Manning pointed his finger at Wyatt. ‘You say that to Favel and you’ll get your head chopped off. Somebody had to get Serrurier out and Favel was the only one with guts enough. And it couldn’t be done constitutionally because Serrurier abolished the constitution, so it had to be done with blood—a surgical operation. It’s a pity, but there it is.’

  He relaxed and grinned at Causton. ‘Our hypothetical fruit corporation might have caught a tiger by the tail—Favel is no one’s dummy. He’s a bit of a reformer, you know, and he’ll hold out for fair pay and good working conditions on the plantations.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m no company man; it’s no skin off my nose if Favel bites the hand that’s fed him.’

  Wyatt winced. It seemed that Causton was right again. Nothing in this topsy-turvy world of politics made sense to him. It was a world in which black and white merged into an indeterminate grey, where bad actions were done for good reasons and good reasons were suspect. It was not his world and he wished he were out of it, in his own uncomplicated sphere of figures and formulae where all he had to worry about was whether a hurricane would behave itself.

  He was about to apologize but he saw that Manning was still talking to Causton. ‘…will be better when San Fernandez can build up a fund of development capital instead of it being siphoned off into Serrurier’s pocket. A bit of spare money round here would make all the difference—it could be a good place.’

  Causton said, ‘Can Favel be trusted?’

  ‘I think so. He’s liberally inclined, but he’s not a milk-and-water liberal, and he’s got no inclination to be taken over by the Russians like Castro. He’ll stand up to the Americans, too.’ Manning grinned. ‘He’ll make them pay a hell of a lot more for Cap Sarrat Base than they’ve been paying.’ He became serious. ‘He’ll be a dictator because he can’t be anything else right now. Serrurier beat the stuffing out of these people, killed their natural leaders and drained them of guts—they’re not fit for government yet. But I don’t think he’ll be a bad dictator, certainly not as bad as Serrurier.’

  ‘Um,’ said Causton. ‘He’ll have to take a lot of criticism from well-meaning fools who don’t know what’s been going on here.’

  ‘That won’t worry him,’ said Manning. ‘He doesn’t give a damn about what people say about him. And he can give as good as he gets.’

  The table shook and there came a roll of thunder rumbling from the east. Manning lifted his head. ‘The party’s started—Rocambeau has begun his attack.’

  III

  Julie looked through a crack in the door of the corrugated iron hut, paying no attention to the shrill voice of Mrs Warmington who sat crouched on a box behind her. There still seemed to be a lot of trucks in the quarry, although she had heard many drive away. And there were still many soldiers about, some standing in groups, talking and smoking, and others moving about intent on their business. She was thankful that the officer had not considered it necessary to post a guard on the hut; he had merely tested the bolt on the outside of the door before pushing them inside.

  She had had a hard time with Mrs Warmington—the woman was impossible. When they were captured and brought down to the quarry Mrs Warmington had tried to talk her way out of it, raising her voice in an attempt to get her point over—which was that she was an American and not to be treated like a criminal when she had merely been defending her life and honour. It had not worked because no one understood English, no matter how loudly shouted, and they had been thrust into the hut and, Julie hoped, forgotten.

  She turned from the door, irritated with Mrs Warmington’s monologue. ‘For God’s sake, will you be quiet?’ she said wearily. ‘What do you want them to do—come in here and shut you up with a gun? They will, you know, once they get as tired of you as I am.’

  Mrs Warmington’s mouth shut with a snap—but not for long. ‘This is intolerable,’ she said with the air of a victim. ‘The State Department will know of this when I get home
.’

  ‘If you get home,’ said Julie cruelly. ‘You shot a man, you know. You shot him with Eumenides’s gun.’ She cocked her head at the door. ‘They’re not going to like that.’

  ‘But they don’t know,’ said Mrs Warmington craftily. ‘They think it was that Greek.’

  Julie looked at her in disgust for a long moment. ‘They don’t know,’ she agreed. ‘But they will if I tell them.’

  Mrs Warmington gulped. ‘But you wouldn’t do that…would…you?’ Her voice tailed away as she saw the expression on Julie’s face.

  ‘I will if you don’t keep your big trap shut,’ said Julie callously. ‘You killed Eumenides—you killed him as surely as if you’d shot him and pushed a bayonet into his back yourself. He was a nice guy; not very brave maybe—who is?—but a nice guy. He didn’t deserve that. I’m not going to forget it, you know, so you’d better watch yourself. If I killed you here and now it wouldn’t be murder, just decent execution.’

  She spoke levelly and without emphasis, but her words were chilling and Mrs Warmington shrank into a corner with horror in her eyes. Julie said, ‘So walk carefully round me, you big bag of wind, or I might be tempted. I could kill you, it shouldn’t be too difficult.’ Her voice was detached, but when she looked down at her hands she saw they were shaking violently.

  She turned and looked again through the crack in the door, astonished at herself. Never before had she struck at another person with such deadly intent to hurt, never before had she trembled in such fury. For too long she had exercised the tact drilled into her as an air hostess and it felt good to let rip at this futile and dangerous woman. She felt a surge of strength and knew she had done the right thing.

  She felt a warm trickle run down her thigh, and looked at her arm and saw the drying blood where she had been jabbed by a bayonet. There was much activity outside but no one seemed to be taking particular note of the hut, so she stripped off her slacks and examined the wounds in her legs.