‘What happened to it?’
Wyatt shrugged. ‘Ambushes – snipers – fever – exhaustion. White men couldn’t live up there, but the blacks could. But it swallowed another army – a black one this time – not very long ago. Serrurier tried to bring Favel to open battle by sending in three battalions of the army. They never came out, either; they were on Favel’s home ground.’
Julie looked up at the sun-soaked hills and shivered. ‘The more I hear of the history of San Fernandez, the more it terrifies me.’
Wyatt said, ‘We West Indians laugh when you Americans and the Europeans think the Antilles are a tropical paradise. Why do you suppose New York is flooded with Puerto Ricans and London with Jamaicans? They are the true centres of paradise today. The Caribbean is rotten with poverty and strife and not only San Fernandez, although it’s just about as bad here as it can get.’ He broke off and laughed embarrassedly. ‘I was forgetting you said you would come here to live – I’m not giving the place much of a build-up, am I?’ He was silent for a few minutes, then said thoughtfully, ‘What you said about doing research in the States makes sense, after all.’
‘No, Dave,’ said Julie quietly. ‘I wouldn’t do that to you. I wouldn’t begin our lives together by breaking up your job – it wouldn’t be any good for either of us. We’ll make our home here in San Fernandez and we’ll be very happy.’ She smiled. ‘And how long do I have to wait before I have my swim?’
Wyatt started the car and drove off again. The country changed as they went higher to go over the shoulder of the mountains, plantations giving way to thick tangled green scrub broken only by an occasional clearing occupied by a ramshackle hut. Once a long snake slithered through the dust in front of the slowly moving car and Julie gave a sharp cry of disgust.
‘This is a faint shadow of what it’s like up in the mountains,’ observed Wyatt. ‘But there are no roads up there.’
Suddenly he pulled the car to a halt and stared at a hut by the side of the road. Julie also looked at it but could see nothing unusual – it was merely another of the windowless shacks made of rammed earth and with a roughly thatched roof. Near the hut a man was pounding a stake into the hard ground.
Wyatt said, ‘Excuse me, Julie – I’d like to talk to that man.’
He got out of the car and walked over to the hut to look at the roof. It was covered by a network of cords made from the local sisal. From the net hung longer cords, three of which were attached to stakes driven into the ground. He went round the hut twice, then looked thoughtfully at the man who had not ceased his slow pounding with the big hammer. Formulating his phrases carefully in the barbarous French these people used, he said, ‘Man, what are you doing?’
The man looked up, his black face shiny with sweat. He was old, but how old Wyatt could not tell – it was difficult with these people. He looked to be about seventy years of age, but was probably about fifty. ‘Blanc, I make my house safe.’
Wyatt produced a pack of cigarettes and flicked one out. ‘It is hard work making your house safe,’ he said carefully.
The man balanced the hammer on its head and took the cigarette which Wyatt offered. He bent his head to the match and, sucking the smoke into his lungs, said, ‘Very hard work, blanc, but it must be done.’ He examined the cigarette. ‘American – very good.’
Wyatt lit his own cigarette and turned to survey the hut. ‘The roof must not come off,’ he agreed. ‘A house with no roof is like a man with no woman – incomplete. Do you have a woman?’
The man nodded and puffed on his cigarette.
‘I do not see her,’ Wyatt persisted.
The man blew a cloud of smoke into the air, then looked at Wyatt with blood-flecked brown eyes. ‘She has gone visiting, blanc.’
‘With all the children?’ said Wyatt quietly.
‘Yes, blanc.’
‘And you fasten the roof of your house.’ Wyatt tapped his foot. ‘You must fear greatly.’
The man’s eyes slid away and he shuffled his feet. ‘It is a time to be afraid. No man can fight what is to come.’
‘The big wind?’ asked Wyatt softly.
The man looked up in surprise. ‘Of course, blanc, what else?’ He struck his hands together smartly and let them fly up into the air. ‘When the big wind comes – li tomber boum’
Wyatt nodded. ‘Of course. You do right to make sure of the roof of your house.’ He paused. ‘How do you know that the wind comes?’
The man’s bare feet scuffled in the hot dust and he looked away. ‘I know,’ he mumbled. ‘I know.’
Wyatt knew better than to persist in that line of questioning – he had tried before. He said, ‘When does the wind come?’
The man looked at the cloudless blue sky, then stopped and picked up a handful of dust which he dribbled from his fingers. ‘Two days,’ he said. ‘Maybe three days. Not longer.’
Wyatt was startled by the accuracy of this prediction. If Mabel were to strike San Fernandez at all then those were the time limits, and yet how could this ignorant old man know? He said matter-of-factly, ‘You have sent your woman and children away.’
‘There is a cave in the hills,’ the man said. ‘When I finish this, I go too.’
Wyatt looked at the hut. ‘When you go, leave the door open,’ he said. ‘The wind does not like closed doors.’
‘Of course,’ agreed the man. ‘A closed door is inhospitable.’ He looked at Wyatt with a glint of humour in his eyes. ‘There may be another wind, blanc, perhaps worse than the hurricane. Favel is coming down from the mountains.’
‘But Favel is dead.’
The man shrugged. ‘Favel is coming down from the mountains,’ he repeated, and swung the hammer again at the top of the stake.
Wyatt walked back to the car and got into the driving seat.
‘What was all that about?’ asked Julie.
‘He says there’s a big wind coming so he’s tying down the roof of his house. When the big wind comes – li tomber boum.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘A very free translation is that everything is going to come down with a hell of a smash.’ Wyatt looked across at the hut and at the man toiling patiently in the hot sun. ‘He knows enough to leave his door open, too – but I doubt if I could tell you why.’ He turned to Julie. ‘I’m sorry, Julie, but I’d like to get back to the Base. There’s something I must check.’
‘Of course,’ said Julie. ‘You must do what you must.’
He turned the car round in the clearing and they went down the road. Julie said, ‘Harry Hansen told me you were worried about Mabel. Has this anything to do with it?’
He said, ‘It’s against all reason, of course. It’s against everything I’ve been taught, but I think we’re going to get slammed. I think Mabel is going to hit San Fernandez.’ He laughed wryly. ‘Now I’ve got to convince Schelling.’
‘Don’t you think he’ll believe you?’
‘What evidence can I give him? A sinking feeling in my guts? An ignorant old man tying on his roof? Schelling wants hard facts – pressure gradients, adiabatic rates – figures he can measure and check in the textbooks. I doubt if I’ll be able to do it. But