They had always danced well together but this time there seemed to be a stiffness and a tension between them. It was not the fault of the orchestra, poor though it was, for while the tune was weird, the rhythm was perfect. They danced in silence for a while, then Julie looked up and said softly, ‘Hello, Dave. Seen any good hurricanes lately?’
‘See one, you’ve seen them all,’ he said lightly. ‘And you?’
‘About the same. One flight is very like another. Same places, same air, same passengers. I sometimes swear that the air traveller is a different breed from the rest of us common humanity; like Dawson – that man over there.’
Wyatt listened to the raucous voice spinning its interminable fishing yarn. ‘You know him?’
‘Don’t you?’ she said in surprise. ‘That’s Dawson, the writer – Big Jim Dawson. Everyone’s heard of him. He’s one of the regulars on my flight, and a damn’ nuisance he is, too.’
‘I’ve heard of him,’ said Wyatt. Julie was right – there could not have been a corner of the world where the name of Big Jim Dawson was not known. He was supposed to be a pretty good writer, although Wyatt did not feel himself equipped to judge; at any rate, the critics appeared to think so.
He looked down at Julie and said, ‘You don’t appear to find Causton a nuisance.’
‘I like him. He’s one of these polite, imperturbable Englishmen we’re always reading about – you know, the quiet kind with hidden depths.’
‘Is he one of your regulars?’
‘I met him for the first time on my last flight. I certainly didn’t expect to find him here in San Fernandez.’
‘You certainly went out of your way to make him feel at home,’
‘That was just hospitality – looking after a stranger in a strange land.’ Julie looked up with a mischievous glint in her eye. ‘Why, Mr Wyatt, I do believe you’re jealous.’
‘I might be,’ said Wyatt bluntly. ‘If I had anything to be jealous about.’
Julie dropped her eyes and went a little pale. They danced in stiff silence until the melody was finished, then turned to go back to their table, but Julie was whirled away by the exuberant Hansen. ‘Julie Marlowe! What are you doing in this dump? I’m stealing her, Davy Boy, but I’ll return her intact.’ He swept her on to the floor in a caricatured rumba, and Wyatt returned glumly to Causton.
‘Powerful stuff,’ said Causton, holding a bottle to the light. He waved it. ‘Have one?’
Wyatt nodded. He watched Causton fill his glass, and said abruptly, ‘Here on business?’
‘Good lord, no!’ said Causton. ‘I was due for a week’s holiday, and since I was in New York, I decided to come down here.’
Wyatt glanced at Causton’s shrewd eyes and wondered how far that was true. He said, ‘There’s not much here for a holiday; you’d have been better off in the Bermudas.’
‘Maybe,’ said Causton non-committally. ‘Tell me something about San Fernandez. Does it have a history?’
Wyatt smiled sourly. ‘The same as any other Caribbean island – but a bit more so. First it was Spanish, then English, and finally French. The French made the deepest impression – you can see that in the language – although you do find the natives referring to St Pierre and San Pedro and Peter’s Port, and the language is the most mixed-up you’ve heard.’
Causton nodded ruefully, thinking of his recent difficulties with the waiter.
Wyatt said, ‘When Toussaint and Cristophe threw the French out of Haiti at the beginning of the 1800s, the locals here did the same, though it hasn’t had the same publicity.’
‘Um,’ said Causton. ‘How did an American base get here?’
‘That happened at the turn of this century,’ said Wyatt. ‘Round about the time the Americans were flexing their muscles. They found they were strong enough to make the Monroe Doctrine stick, and they’d just got over a couple of wars which proved it. There was a lot of talk about “Manifest Destiny” and the Yanks thought they had a big brotherly right to supervise other people’s business in this part of the world. San Fernandez was in pretty much of a mess in 1905 with riots and bloody revolution, so the Marines were sent ashore. The island was American administered until 1917 and then the Americans pulled out – but they hung on to Cap Sarrat.’
‘Didn’t something of the sort happen in Haiti as well?’
‘It’s happened in most of the islands – Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic’
Causton grinned. ‘It’s happened more than once in the Dominican Republic.’ He sipped his drink. ‘I suppose Cap Sarrat is held under some kind of treaty?’
‘I suppose you could call it that,’ agreed Wyatt. ‘The Americans leased the Cap in 1906 for one thousand gold dollars a year – not a bad sum for those days – but depreciation doesn’t work in favour of San Fernandez. President Serrurier now gets $1693.’ Wyatt paused. ‘And twelve cents,’ he added as an afterthought.
Causton chuckled. ‘Not a bad bit of trading on the part of the Americans – a bit sharp, though.’
‘They did the same in Cuba with Guantanamo Base,’ said Wyatt. ‘Castro gets twice as much – but I think he’d rather have Guantanamo and no Americans.’
‘I’ll bet he would.’
‘The Navy is trying to build up Cap Sarrat as a substitute for Guantanamo in case Castro gets uppity and takes it from them. I suppose there is a possibility that it might happen.’
‘There is,’ said Causton. ‘I don’t think he could just take it by force, but a bit of moral blackmail might do it, given the right political circumstances.’
‘Anyway, here is Cap Sarrat,’ said Wyatt. ‘But it’s not nearly as good as Guantanamo. The anchorage in Santego Bay is shallow – all it will take is a light cruiser – and the base facilities will take twenty years and a couple of hundred million dollars to even approach Guantanamo. It’s very well equipped as an air base, though; that’s why we use it as a hurricane research centre.’
‘Miss Marlowe was telling me about that –’ began Causton, but he was interrupted by the return of Hansen and Julie and he took the opportunity of asking Julie to dance.
‘Aren’t you going to ask me to have a drink?’ demanded Hansen.
‘Help yourself,’ said Wyatt. He saw Schelling come into the room with another officer. ‘Tell me, Harry; how did Schelling come to make Commander in your Navy?’
‘Dunno,’ said Hansen, sitting down. ‘Must be because he’s a good meteorologist, because he’s an officer like a bull’s got tits.’
‘Not so good, eh?’
‘Hell, one thing an officer’s got to do is to lead men, and Schelling couldn’t be a Den Mother for a troop of Girl Scouts. He must have got through on the specialist side.’
‘Let me tell you something,’ said Wyatt, and told Hansen about his conversation that morning with Schelling. He ended up by saying, ‘He thinks that meteorology is an exact science and that what the textbooks say is so. People like that frighten me.’
Hansen laughed. ‘Dave, you’ve