Wyatt’s Hurricane

Schelling was apparently busy, but then, he always was apparently busy. He raised his head as Wyatt entered his office, and said, ‘I thought you had a free afternoon.’

‘I came back to check on Mabel,’ said Wyatt. ‘She’s speeded up.’

‘Oh!’ said Schelling. He put down his pen and pushed the form-pad away. ‘What’s her speed now?’

‘She’s covered a hundred miles in the last nine hours – about eleven miles an hour. She started at eight – remember?’ Wyatt thought this was the way to get at Schelling – to communicate some unease to him, to make him remember that his prediction sent to the Weather Bureau was now at variance with the facts. He said deliberately, ‘At her present speed she’ll hit the Atlantic Coast in about six days; but I think she’ll speed up even more. Her present speed is still under the average.’

Schelling looked down at the desk-top thoughtfully. ‘And how’s her course?’

This was the tricky one. ‘As predicted,’ said Wyatt carefully. ‘She could change, of course – many have.’

‘We’d better cover ourselves,’ said Schelling. ‘I’ll send a signal to the Weather Bureau; they’ll sit on it for a couple of days and then announce the Hurricane Watch in the South-Eastern States. Of course, a lot will depend on what she does in the next two days, but they’ll know we’re on the ball down here.’

Wyatt sat down uninvited. He said, ‘What about the Islands?’

‘They’ll get the warning,’ said Schelling. ‘Just as usual. Where exactly is Mabel now?’

‘She slipped in between Grenada and Tobago,’ said Wyatt. ‘She gave them a bad time according to the reports I’ve just been reading, but nothing too serious. She’s just north of Los Testigos right now.’ He paused. ‘If she keeps on her present course she’ll go across Yucatan and into Mexico and Texas just like Janet and Hilda did in 1955.’

‘She won’t do that,’ said Schelling irritably. ‘She’ll curve to the north.’

‘Janet and Hilda didn’t,’ pointed out Wyatt. ‘And supposing she does curve to the north as she’s supposed to do. She only has to swing a little more than theory predicts and we’ll have her right on our doorstep.’

Schelling looked up. ‘Are you seriously trying to tell me that Mabel might hit San Fernandez?’

‘That’s right,’ said Wyatt. ‘Have you issued a local warning?’

Schelling’s eyes flickered. ‘No, I haven’t. I don’t think it necessary.’

‘You don’t think it necessary? I would have thought the example of 1910 would have made it very necessary.’

Schelling snorted. ‘You know what the government of this comic opera island is like. We tell them – they do precisely nothing. They’ve never found it necessary to establish a hurricane warning system – that would be money right out of Serrurier’s own pocket. Can you see him doing it? If I warn them, what difference would it make?’

‘You’d get it on record,’ said Wyatt, playing on Schelling’s weakness.

‘There is that,’ said Schelling thoughtfully. Then he shrugged. ‘It’s always been difficult to know whom to report to. We have told Descaix, the Minister for Island Affairs, in the past, but Serrurier has now taken that job on himself – and telling Serrurier anything is never easy, you know that.’

‘When did this happen?’

‘He fired Descaix yesterday – you know what that means. Descaix is either dead or in Rambeau Castle wishing he were dead.’

Wyatt frowned. So Descaix, the chief of the Security Force, was gone – swept away in one of Serrurier’s sudden passions of house-cleaning. But Descaix had been his right arm; something very serious must have happened for him to have fallen from power. Favel is coming dawn from the mountains. Wyatt shook the thought from him – what had this to do with the violence of hurricanes?

‘You’d better tell Serrurier, then,’ he said.

Schelling smiled thinly. ‘I doubt if Serrurier is in any mood to listen to anything he doesn’t want to hear right now.’ He tapped on the desk. ‘But I’ll tell someone in the Palace – just for the record.’

‘You’ve told Commodore Brooks, of course,’ said Wyatt idly.

‘Er … he knows about Mabel… yes.’

‘He knows all about Mabel?’ asked Wyatt sharply. ‘The type of hurricane she is?’

‘I’ve given him the usual routine reports,’ said Schelling stiffly. He leaned forward. ‘Look here, Wyatt, you seem to have an obsession about this particular hurricane. Now, if you have anything to say about it – and I want facts – lay it on the line right now. If you haven’t any concrete evidence, then for God’s sake shut up and get on with your job.’

‘You’ve given Brooks “routine” reports,’ repeated Wyatt softly. ‘Schelling, I want to see the Commodore.’

‘Commodore Brooks – like Serrurier – has no time at the present to listen to weather forecasts.’

Wyatt stood up. ‘I’m going to see Commodore Brooks,’ he said obstinately.

Schelling was shocked. ‘You mean you’d go over my head?’

‘I’m going to see Brooks,’ repeated Wyatt grimly. ‘With you or without you.’

He waited for the affronted outburst and for a moment he thought Schelling was going to explode, but he merely said abruptly, ‘Very well, I’ll arrange an appointment with the Commodore. You’d better wait in your office until you’re called – it may take some time.’ He smiled grimly. ‘You’re not going to make yourself popular, you know.’

‘I haven’t entered a popularity contest,’ said Wyatt evenly. He turned and walked out of Schelling’s office, puzzled as to why Schelling should have given in so easily. Then he chuckled bleakly. The reports that Schelling had given Brooks must have been very skimpy, and Schelling couldn’t afford to let him see Brooks without getting in his version first. He was probably with Brooks now, spinning him the yarn.

The call did not come for over an hour and a half and he spent the time compiling some interesting statistics for Commodore Brooks – a weak staff to lean on but all he had, apart from the powerful feeling in his gut that disaster was impending. Brooks would not be interested in his emotions and intuitions.

Brooks’s office was the calm centre of a storm. Wyatt had to wait for a few minutes in one of the outer offices and saw the organized chaos that afflicts even the most efficient organization in a crisis, and he wondered if this was just another exercise. But Brooks’s office, when he finally got there, was calm and peaceful; Brooks’s desk was clean, a vast expanse of polished teak unmarred by a single paper, and the Commodore sat behind it, trim and neat, regarding Wyatt with a stony, but neutral, stare. Schelling stood to one side, his hands behind his back as though he had just been ordered to the stand-easy position.

Brooks said in a level voice, ‘I have just heard that there is a technical disputation going on among the Meteorological Staff. Perhaps you will give me your views, Mr Wyatt.’

‘We’ve got a hurricane, sir,’ said Wyatt. ‘A really bad one. I think there’s a strong possibility she may hit San Fernandez. Commander Schelling, I think, disagrees.’

‘I have just heard Commander Schelling’s views,’ said Brooks, confirming the suspicions Wyatt had been entertaining. ‘What I would like to hear are your findings. I would point out, however, that pending the facts you are about to give me, I consider the possibility of a hurricane hitting this island to be very remote. The last one, I believe, was in 1910.’

It was evident that he had been given a quick briefing by Schelling.

Wyatt said, ‘That’s right, sir. The death-roll on that occasion was 6,000.’

Brooks’s eyebrows rose. ‘As many as that?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Continue, Mr Wyatt.’

Wyatt gave a quick résumé of events since Mabel had been discovered and probed. He said, ‘All the evidence shows that Mabel is a particularly bad piece of weather; the pressure gradient is exceptional and the winds generated are remarkably strong. Lieutenant-Commander Hansen said it was the worst weather he had ever flown in.’

Brooks inclined his head. ‘Granted that it is a bad hurricane, what evidence have you got that it is going to hit this island? I believe you said that there is a “strong possibility”; I would want more than that, Mr Wyatt – I would want something more in the nature of a probability.’

‘I’ve produced some figures,’ said Wyatt, laying a sheaf of papers on the immaculate desk. ‘I believe that Commander Schelling is relying on standard theory when he states that Mabel will not come here. He is, quite properly, taking into account the forces that we know act on tropical revolving storms. My contention is that we don’t know enough to take chances.’

He spread the papers on the desk. ‘I have taken an abstract of information from my records of all the hurricanes of which I have had personal knowledge during the four years I have been here – that would be about three-quarters of those occurring in the Caribbean in that time. I have checked the number of times a hurricane has departed from the path which strict theory dictates and I find that forty-five per cent of the hurricanes have done so, in major and minor ways. To be quite honest about it I prepared another sheet presenting the same information, but confining the study to hurricanes conforming to the characteristics of Mabel. That is, of the same age, emanating from the same area, and so on. I find there is a thirty per cent chance of Mabel diverging from the theoretical path enough to hit San Fernandez.’

He slid the papers across the desk but Brooks pushed them back. ‘I believe you, Mr Wyatt,’ he said quietly. ‘Commander, what do you say to this?’