Wyatt laughed. ‘You’ve put Serrurier right in the middle,’ he said. ‘He has his hands full with Favel but that’s all right – he can handle it. He told me so himself. But he was worried about the Americans at Cap Sarrat; he doesn’t know whether they’re going to come out against him or not. Of course you know what will happen if they do. The Americans and Favel will crack Serrurier between them like a nut.’
‘What has this got to do with me?’ asked Roseau uncertainly.
Wyatt leaned back in his chair and looked at Roseau with well-simulated horror. ‘Why, you fool, you’ve given the Americans the chance they’ve been waiting for. Dawson is an international figure, and he’s American. Commodore Brooks will be asking Serrurier where Dawson is in not too many hours from now, and if Serrurier can’t produce him, alive and unhurt, then Brooks is going to take violent action because he knows he’ll have world opinion behind him. Dawson is just the lever the Americans have been waiting for; they can’t take up arms just because a few Americans got mixed up in your civil war – that’s not done any more – but a potential Nobel Prizewinner, a man of Dawson’s stature, is something else again.’
Roseau was silent and twitchy. Wyatt let him stew for a few long seconds, then said, ‘You know as well as I do that Dawson told you nothing about Manning and Fuller. I know that because he knows nothing, but you used him to try to throw a scare into me. Now let me tell you something, Sous-Inspecteur Roseau. When Commodore Brooks asks Serrurier for Dawson, Serrurier is going to turn St Pierre upside down looking for him because he knows that if he doesn’t find him, then the Americans will break in the back door and stab him in the back just when he’s at grips with Favel. And if Serrurier finds that Sous-Inspecteur Roseau has stupidly exceeded his duty by beating Dawson half to death I wouldn’t give two pins for your chances of remaining alive for five more minutes. My advice to you is to get a doctor to Dawson as fast as you can, and then to implore him to keep his mouth shut. How you do that is your business.’
He almost laughed at the expression on Roseau’s face as he contemplated the enormity of his guilt. Roseau finally shut his mouth with a snap and took a deep breath. ‘Take this man to his cell,’ he ordered, and Wyatt felt a firm grip on his shoulder, a grip more welcome now than it would have been five minutes earlier. After being thrust into the cell it was a long time before he stopped shaking. Then he sat down to contemplate the sheer, copper-bottomed brilliance of the idea he had sold Roseau.
He thought that he and Dawson were safe from Roseau. But there was still the problem of getting out before the hurricane struck and that would not be easy – not unless he could manage to work on Roseau’s fears some more. He had an idea that he would be seeing Roseau before long; the Sous-Inspecteur would remember that Wyatt had claimed acquaintance with Serrurier and he would want to know more about that.
He looked at his watch. It was seven o’clock and the sunlight was streaming through the small window. He hoped that Causton would have sense enough to get the others out of St Pierre – even by walking they could get a long way.
The noise outside suddenly came to his attention. It had been going on ever since he had been pushed into the cell but he had been so immersed in his thoughts that it had not penetrated. Now he was aware of the racket in the square outside – the revving of heavy engines, the clatter of feet and the murmur of many men interspersed by raucous shouts – sergeants have the same brazen-voiced scream in any army; it sounded as though an army was massing in the square.
He kicked the stool across to the window and climbed up, but the angle was wrong and he could not see the ground at all, merely the façade of the buildings on the opposite side of the square. He stood there for a long time trying to make sense of the confused sounds from below but finally gave up. He was just about to step off the stool when he heard the sudden bellow of guns from so close that the hot air seemed to quiver.
He stood on tiptoe, desperately trying to see what was happening, and caught a glimpse of a deep red flash on the roof of the building immediately opposite. There was a slam and the front of the building caved in before his startled eyes, seeming to collapse in slow motion in a billowing cloud of dust.
Then the blast of the explosion caught him and he was hurled in a shower of broken glass right across the cell to thud against the door. The last thing he heard before he collapsed into unconsciousness was the thump of his head against the solid wood.
The drumfire of the guns jerked Causton from a deep sleep. He started violently and opened his eyes, wondering for a moment where he was and relieved to find the familiarity of his own room at the Imperiale. Eumenides, to whom he had offered a bed, was standing at the window looking out.
Causton sat up in bed. ‘God’s teeth!’ he said, ‘those guns are near. Favel must have broken through.’ He scrambled out of bed and was momentarily disconcerted to find he was still wearing his trousers.
Eumenides drew back from the window and looked at Causton moodily. ‘They will fight in town,’ he said. ‘Will be ver’ bad.’
‘It usually is,’ said Causton, rubbing the stubble on his cheeks. ‘What’s happening down there?’
‘Many peoples – soldiers,’ said Eumenides.’Many ‘urt.’
‘Walking wounded? Serrurier must be in full retreat. But he’ll do his damnedest to hold the town. This is where the frightful part comes in – the street fighting.’ He wound up a clockwork dry shaver with quick efficient movements. ‘Serrurier’s police have been holding the population down; that was wise of him – he didn’t want streams of refugees impeding his army. But whether they’ll be able to do it in the middle of a battle is another thing. I have the feeling this is going to be a nasty day.’
The Greek lit another cigarette and said nothing.
Causton finished his shave in silence. His mind was busy with the implications of the nearness of the guns. Favel must have smashed Serrurier’s army in the Negrito and pushed on with all speed to the outskirts of St Pierre. Moving so fast, he must have neglected mopping-up operations and there were probably bits of Serrurier’s army scattered in pockets all down the Negrito; they would be disorganized now after groping about in the night, but with the daylight they might be a danger – a danger Favel might be content to ignore.
For a greater danger confronted him. He had burst on to the plain and was hammering at the door of St Pierre in broad daylight, and Causton doubted if he was well enough equipped for a slugging match in those conditions. So far, he had depended on surprise and the sudden hammer blow of unexpected artillery against troops unused to the violence of high explosives – but Serrurier had artillery and armour and an air force. True, the armour consisted of three antiquated tanks and a dozen assorted armoured cars, the air force was patched up from converted civilian planes and Favel had been able to laugh at this display of futile modernity when still secure in the mountains. But on the plain it would be a different matter altogether. Even an old tank would be master of the battlefield, and the planes could see what they were bombing.
Causton examined his reflection in the glass and wondered if Favel had moved fast enough to capture Serrurier’s artillery before it had got into action. If he had, he would be the luckiest commander in history because it had been sheer inefficiency on the part of the Government artillery general that had bogged it down. But luck – good and bad – was an inescapable element on the field of battle.
He plunged his head into cold water, came up spluttering and reached for a towel. He had just finished drying himself when there was a knock on the door. He held up a warning hand to Eumenides. ‘Who’s that?’
‘It’s me,’ called Julie.
He relaxed. ‘Come in, Miss Marlowe.’
Julie looked a little careworn; there were dark circles under her eyes as though she had had