II
"It's too hot," said Mrs. Warmington querulously.
Julie agreed but did not say so aloud -- Mrs. Warmington was the last person she felt like agreeing with about anything. She wriggled slightly, trying to unstick her blouse from the small of her back, and looked ahead through the windscreen. She saw exactly what she had. seen for the last half-hour -- a small handcart piled perilously high with trumpery household goods being pushed by an old man and a small boy who obstinately stuck to the crown of the road and refused to draw to the side.
Rawsthorne irritably changed down again from second gear to first. "The engine will boil if we carry on like this in this heat," he said.
"We mustn't stop," said Julie in alarm.
"Stopping might prove more difficult than moving," said Rawsthorne. "Have you looked behind lately?"
Julie twisted in her seat and looked through the back window of the car, which was now cresting a small rise. Behind, as far as she could see, stretched the long line of refugees fleeing from St. Pierre. She had seen this kind of thing on old newsreels but had never expected to see it in actuality. This was a people on the move, trudging wearily from the coming desolation of war, carrying as much of the material minutiae of their lives as they could on an incredible variety of vehicles. There were perambulators loaded not with babies but with clocks, clothing, pictures, ornaments; there were carts pushed by hand or drawn by donkeys ; there were beat-up cars of incredible vintage, buses, trucks and the better cars of the more prosperous.
But primarily there were people:- men and women, old and young, rich and poor, the hale and the sick. These were people who did not laugh or speak, who moved along quietly like driven cattle with grey faces and downcast eyes, whose only visible sign of emotion was the quick, nervous twitch of the head to look back along the road.
Julie turned as Rawsthorne blasted on the horn at the obstinate old man ahead. "The damned fellow won't move aside," he grumbled. "11 he'd move just a little to the side I could get through."
Eumenides said, "The road -- it drop on side." He pointed to the cart. "'E fright 'e fall."
"Yes," said Rawsthorne. "That cart is grossly overloaded and there is a steep camber."
Julie said, "How much farther do we have to go?"
"About two miles." Rawsthorne nodded ahead. "You see where the road turns round that headland over there? We have to get to the other side."
"How long do you think it will take?"
Rawsthorne drew to a halt to avoid ramming the old man. "At this rate it will be another two hours."
The car crept on by jerks and starts. The refugees on foot were actually moving faster than those in vehicles and Rawsthorne contemplated abandoning the car. But he rejected the idea almost as soon as he thought of it; there was the food and water to be carried, and the blankets, too -- those would be much too valuable in the coming week to leave behind with the car. He said, "At least this war is having one good result -- it's getting the people out of St. Pierre."
"They won't all get out," said Julie. "And what about the armies?"
"It's damn' bad luck on Favel," said Rawsthorne. "Imagine taking a town and then being smashed by a hurricane. I've read a lot of military history but I've never heard of a parallel to it."
"It will smash Serrurier, too," said Julie."
"Yes, it will," said Rawsthorne thoughtfully. "I wonder who'll pick up the pieces." He stared ahead. "I like Wyatt, but I hope he's wrong about this hurricane. There's a chance he might be, you know; he's relying a lot on his intuition. I'd like Favel to have a fighting chance."
"I hope he's wrong, too," said Julie sombrely. "He's trapped back there."
Rawsthorne glanced at her drawn face, then bit his lip and lapsed into silence. The time dragged on as slowly as the car. Presently he pointed out a group of young men who were passing. They were fit and able-bodied, if poorly dressed; one had a fistful of bank-notes which he was counting, and another was twirling a gleaming necklace on his forefinger. He said meditatively, "I wish Causton hadn't taken your gun, Eumenides; it might have come in handy. Those boys have been looting. They've taken money and jewellery but soon they'll get hungry and try to take food from whoever has it."
Eumenides shrugged. "Too late; 'e took gun -- I look."
At last they rounded the headland and Rawsthorne said, "Another few hundred yards and we'll pull off. Look for a convenient place to run the car off the road -- what we really need is a side turning."
They ground on, still in bottom gear, and after a while Eumenides said, "Turn 'ere."
Rawsthorne craned his neck. "Yes, this looks all right. I wonder where it leads."
"Let's try," said Julie. "There's no one going up there."
Rawsthorne turned the car on to the unmetalled side road and was immediately able to change up to second gear. They bumped along for a few hundred yards and then came into the wide space of a quarry. "Damn!" he said. "It's a dead end."
Julie wriggled in her seat. "At least we can get out and stretch our legs before going back. And I think we ought to eat again while we have the chance, too," she said.
The bread was stale, the butter melted and going rancid, the water tepid and, on top of that, the heat had not improved their appetites, but they ate a little while sitting in the shade of the quarry huts and discussed their next move. Mrs. Warmington said, "I don't see why we can't stay here -- it's a quiet place."
"I'm afraid not," said Rawsthorne. "We can still see the sea from here -- to the south. According to Wyatt, the hurricane will come from the south."
Mrs. Warmington made an impatient noise. "I think that young man is a scaremonger; I don't think there is going to be a hurricane. I looked back when we could still see the Base and there are still ships there at anchor. Commodore Brooks doesn't think there'll be a hurricane, so why should we?"
"We can't take the chance that he'll be wrong," said Julie quietly. She turned to Rawsthorne. "We'll have to go back to the road and try again."
"I don't think so," said Rawsthorne. "I don't really think we can. This track left the road at an acute angle -- I don't see how we could turn the car into the traffic stream. Nobody would stop to let us through." He looked up at the quarry face. "We've got to get on the other side of that."
Mrs. Warmington snorted. "I'm not even going to try to climb that. I'm staying here."
Rawsthorne laughed. "We don't have to climb it -- we go round it. There's a convenient place to climb a little farther back down the track." He chewed the stale bread distastefully. "Wyatt said we must get on the north side of a ridge, didn't he? Well, that's what we're going to do."
Eumenides asked abruptly, "We leave car?"
"We'll have to. We'll take all we need from it, then park it behind these huts. With a bit of luck no one will find it."
They finished their brief meal and began to pack up. Julie looked at the wilting Mrs. Warmington and forced some humour into her voice. "Well, there's no dish-washing to be done." But Mrs. Warmington was past caring ; she just sat in the shade and gasped, and Julie thought cattily, this is better than a diet for reducing her surplus poundage.
Rawsthorne ran the car down the track and they unpacked all the supplies. He said, "It's better we do this here; it's a nice out-of-the-way spot with none of those young thugs snooping at us." He looked up the hill. "It's not far to the top -- I suppose this ridge isn't much more than two hundred feet high."
He took the car back to the quarry. Mrs. Warmington said pettishly, "I suppose we must, although I think this is nonsense." She turned to Eumenides. "Don't just stand there; pick up something."
Julie looked at Mrs. Warmington with a glint in her eye. "You'll have to do your share of carrying."
Mrs. Warmington looked doubtfully at the scrub-covered hill. "Oh, but I can't -- my heart, you know."
Julie thought that Mrs. Warmington's heart was as sound as a bell and just as hard. "The blankets aren't heavy," she said. "Take some of those." She thrust a bundle o
f blankets into Mrs. Warmington's unready arms and she dropped her bag. It fell with a dull thud into the dust and they both stooped for it.
Julie picked it up and found it curiously heavy. "Whatever lave you got in here?"
Mrs. Warmington snatched the bag from her, dropping the blankets. "My jewels, darling. You don't suppose I'd leave those behind."
Julie indicated the blankets. "Those might keep you alive -- your jewels won't." She stared hard at Mrs Warmington. "I suggest you concentrate more on doing work and less on giving orders ; you haven't been right about a damn' thing so far, and you're just a dead weight."
"All right," said Mrs. Warmington, perhaps alarmed at the expression on Julie's face. "Don't drive so. You're too mannish, my dear; it's no wonder you haven't caught yourself a husband."
Julie ignored her and lifted a cardboard box full of bottled water. As she climbed the hill, she smiled to herself. A few days ago that gibe might have rankled, but not now. At one time she had thought that perhaps she was too self-reliant to appeal to a man ; perhaps men did like the clinging ultra-feminine type, which she herself had always regarded as parasitic and not giving value for value received. Well, to hell with it! She was not going to disguise her natural intelligence for any man, and a man who was fooled by that sort of thing wasn't worth marrying, anyway. She would rather be herself than be a foolish, ineffectual, overstuffed creature like the Warmington woman.
But her heart turned over at the thought that she might not see Wyatt ever again.
It took them a long time to transport their supplies to the top of the ridge. Rawsthorne, although willing, was not a young man and had neither the strength nor the stamina for the sustained effort. Mrs. Warmington was totally unfit for any kind of work and after she had toiled to the top with her small load of blankets, she sat back and watched the others work. Julie was fit enough, but she was not used to the intense heat and the strong sun made her head swim. So it was Eumenides who carried the bulk of the supplies, willingly and without complaint. All he allowed himself was a contemptuous glance at Mrs. Warmington each time he deposited a load at the top.
At last all the stores had been moved and they rested for a while on the ridge-top. On the seaward side they could see the main coast road, still aswarm with refugees heading east away from St. Pierre. The city itself was out of sight behind the headland, but they could hear the distant thud of guns and could see a growing smudge of smoke in the western sky.
On the other side of the ridge the ground sloped down into a small green valley, heavily planted with bananas in long rows. Over a mile away was a long, low building with a few smaller huts scattered about it. Rawsthorne looked at the banana plantation with satisfaction. "At least we'll have plenty of shade. And the ground is cultivated and easy to dig. And a banana plant blowing down on one wouldn't hurt."
"I've always liked bananas," said Mrs. Warmington.
"I wouldn't eat any you find down there; they're unripe and they'll give you the collywobbles." Rawsthorne meditated for a moment. "I'm no expert on hurricanes like Wyatt, but I do know something about them. If the hurricane is coming from the south, then the wind will blow from the east to begin with -- so we must have protection from that side. Later, the wind will come from the west, and that makes things complicated."
Eumenides pointed. "Over there -- lil "ollow."
"So there is," said Rawsthorne. He arose and picked up a spade. "I thought these might come in useful when I put them in the car. Shall we go? We can leave all this stuff here until we're sure we know where we're going to take it."
They descended into the plantation, which was quite deserted. "We'll keep away from that building," said Rawsthorne. "That's the barracks for the convict labour. I imagine Serrurier has given orders that the men be kept locked up, but there's no point in taking chances." He poked at the ground beneath a banana plant and snorted in disgust. "Very bad cultivation here ; these plants need pruning -- if they're not careful they're going to get Panama disease. But it's the same all over the island since Serrurier took over -- the whole place is running down."
They reached the hollow and Rawsthorne adjudged it a good place. "It's nicely protected," he said, and thrust his spade into the earth. "Now we dig."
"How dig?" asked Eumenides.
"Foxholes -- as in the army." Rawsthorne began to measure out on the ground. "Five of them -- one for each of us and one for the supplies."
They took it in turns digging -- Rawsthorne, Eumenides and Julie -- while Mrs. Warmington panted in the shade. It was not very hard work because the ground was soft as Rawsthorne had predicted, but the sun was hot and they sweated copiously. Near the end of their labours Julie paused for a drink of water and looked at the five . . .graves! She thought sombrely of the unofficial motto of the Seabees -- " First we dig 'em, then we die in 'em." In spite of the hot sun, she shivered.
When they had finally completed the foxholes and had brought down the supplies it was near to sunset, although it seemed hotter than ever. Rawsthorne cut some of the huge leaves from some near-by plants and strewed them over the raw earth. "In the middle of a civil war camouflage does no harm. Anyway, these plants need cutting."
Julie lifted her head. "Talking of the war -- don't the guns sound louder . . . closer?"
Rawsthorne listened intently. "They do, don't they?" He frowned. "I wonder if ..." He clicked his tongue and shook his head.
"If what?"
"I thought the battle might come this way," he said. "But I don't think so. Even if Favel takes St. Pierre he must attack Serrurier's forces between St. Pierre and Cap Sarrat -- and that's on the other side."
"But the guns do sound nearer," said Julie "A trick of the wind," said Rawsthorne. He said it with dubiety. There was no wind.
As the sun dipped down they prepared for the night and arranged watches. Mrs. Warmington, by common consent, was left to sleep all night as being too unreliable. They talked desultorily for a while and then turned in, leaving Julie to stand first watch.
She sat in the sudden darkness and listened to the sound of the guns. To her untutored ear they sounded as though they were just down the valley and round the corner, but she consoled herself with Rawsthorne's reasoning. But there was a fitful red glare in the west from the direction of St. Pierre -- there were fires in the town.
She searched her pockets and found a crumpled cigarette, which she lit, inhaling the smoke greedily. It had been a bad day; she was tense and the cigarette relaxed her. She sat with her back against a banana tree -- or plant, or whatever it was -- and thought about Wyatt, wondering what had I happened to him. Perhaps he was already dead, caught up in the turmoil of war. Or maybe raging in a cell, waiting for the deadly wind he alone knew was going to strike. She wished with all her heart they had not been separated -- whatever was going to happen, she wanted to be with him.
And Causton -- what had happened to Causton? If he found his way back to the hotel he would find the note they had pinned on the door of the store-room under the stairs and know they had fled to safety. But he would not know enough to be able to join them. She hoped he would be safe -- but her thoughts dwelt longer on Wyatt.
The moon had just risen when she awoke Eumenides as planned. "Everything quiet," she said in a low voice. "Nothing is happening."
He nodded and said, "The guns ver' close -- more close than before."
"You think so?"
He nodded again but said nothing more, so she went to her own foxhole and settled down for the night. It is like a grave, she thought as she stretched on the blanket which lay on the bottom. She thought of Wyatt again, very hazily and drowsily, and then fell asleep before she had completed the thought.
She was awakened by something touching her face and she started up, only to be held down. "Ssssh," hissed a voice. "Keep ver' still."
"What's wrong, Eumenides?" she whispered.
"I don' know," he said in a low voice. "Man' peoples 'ere -- lis'en!"
She strained her ears and
caught an indefinable sound which seemed to emanate from nowhere in particular and everywhere at once. "It's the wind in the banana leaves," she murmured.
"No win'," said Eumenides definitely.
She listened again and caught what seemed to be a faraway voice. "I don't know if you're right or wrong," she said. "But I think we ought to wake the others."
He went to shake Rawsthorne, while Julie woke Mrs. Warmington, who squealed in surprise. "Damn you, be quiet" snapped Julie, and clapped her hand over Mrs.
Warmington's mouth as it opened again. "We might be in trouble. Just stay there and be prepared to move in a hurry. And don't make a sound."
She went over to where Rawsthorne and Eumenides were conferring in low tones. "There's something going on," said Rawsthorne. "The guns have stopped, too. Eumenides, you go up to the top and see what's happened on the seaward side of the ridge; I'll scout down the valley. The moon's bright enough to see for quite a distance." His voice held a note of perplexity. "But these damn' noises are coming from all round."
He stood up. "Will you be all right, Julie?"
"I'll be fine," she said. "And I'll keep that damned woman quiet if I have to slug her."
The two men went off and she lost sight of them as they disappeared in the plantation. Rawsthorne flitted among the rows, edging nearer and nearer to the convict barracks. Soon he came to a service road driven through the plantation and paused before he crossed -- which was just as well for he heard a voice from quite close.
He froze and waited while a group of men went up the road. They were Government soldiers and from the sound of their voices they were weary and dispirited. From a word and a half-heard phrase he gathered that they had been defeated in a battle and had not liked it at all. He waited until they had gone by, then crossed the road and penetrated the plantation on the other side.
Here he literally fell over a wounded man lying just off the road. The man cried aloud in anguish and Rawsthorne ran away, afraid the noise would attract attention. He blundered about in the plantation, suddenly aware that there were men all about him in the leaf-shadowed moonlight. They were drifting through the rows of plants from the direction of St. Pierre in no form of order and with no discipline.
Bagley, Desmond - Wyatts Hurricane Page 14