men will be lost saving the inhabitants of St pierre; they'll be outnumbered five

to one and alot of them will die--so why

shouldn't the hurricane exact my revenge?"
Wyatt momentarily quailed before those blazing blue eyes and fell back Then he
said, "I gave you the warning to save
lives, not to take them This is uncivilized"
"And the hydrogen bomb is civilized?" snapped favel "Use your brains--what else can
I do? This afternoon, when the
evacuation is complete, my men will be in sole possession of St pierre I am
certainly not going to leave them there when
the withdeaw the government forces will move in, thinking we are in retreat what
else would they think? I am not
asking them to be drowned in St pierre--they enter the city at their own risk"
"how far will you withdraw?" asking Wyatt
"you drew the line yourself," said favel remorselessly "We will hold as far as we
can, in the eight-foot cintour line"
"you could withdraw further," said Wyatt heatedly "They'd follow you on to higher
ground"
Pavel's hand come downon the table with the sound of a pistol shot "I have no wish
to fight further battles There, has
been enough of killing men let the hurricane do its work"
"This is murdeer"
"what else is war but murder?" asked favel, and turned his back on Wyatt "Enough,
we have work to do charles, let us see
which men i can spare you"
He walked to the end of the room, leaving Wyatt shattered causton came over and put
his hand on his shoulder "don't
worry your head about the policies of princes," he advised "it's dangerous"
"This ia against all I've ever worked for," said wyatt in a tow voice "I never
intended this"
"Otto frisch and lise meitner didn't mean trouble When they split the uranium atom
back in 1939" Causton nodded up
the room towards Favel "If you find a way of controlling hurrucanes, it's men like
that who'll decide what they'll be used
for"
"He could save everyone," said Wyatt in a stronger voice "He could, ou know If he
retreated up into the hills the
Government forces would follow him"
"I know," said Causton
"But he's not going to do that He's going to pen them in St pierre"
Causton scratched his head "That mau not be as easy as it sounds He's got to stand
off rocambeau and serrurier until the
evacuation is compeleted, then he hs to conduct a controlled retreat without being
smashed while he's doing it Next , he
has to establish his perimeter on the eight-foot line and that's a hell of a long
line to hold with five thousand men--less
what hell have lost while all this has been going on And on top of all that he'll
have to dig in against the wind" he shook
his head doubtfully "A trivky operation altogether"
Wyatt looked at favel "I think he's as power-mad as serrurier"
"Look, laddie," said Causton "Start thinking straight He,s doing what he has to do
in the circumstances He's begun
something he's got to go through with and in the dicey position he's in now, he'll
use any weapon at hand--even a
hurricane" He paused thoughtfully Maybe he's not as bad as I thought When hw said
he didn't want any more battles, I
think he meant it"
"He might well," said Wyatt "As long as he comes out on top"
Causton grinned "You're getting an education in the political facts of life Damn
it, some of you scientists are bloody naive"
Wyatt said, with something of despair in his voice, "I'd have liked to have gone
into atmic physics--my tutor wanted me
to--but I didn't like the endd results of what they were doing Now it's happening
to me anyway"
"you can't live in an ivory tower all your life," said Causton roughly "You can't
escape the world outside"
"Perhaps not," said Wyatt, frowning "But there's sometiling I've got to do What
about Julie and Rawsthorne and the other?
We must do something about them"
Causton made a strangled noise "What were you thinking of doing?" he asked with
caution
"We've got to do something," said Wyatt angrily "I want transport--a car or
somthing--and an escort for part of the way"
Causton struggled for a while to sort out his emotins At last he said, "You weren't
intending --by any chance--going into
the middle of rocambeau's army were you?"
"It seems to be the only way," siad Wyatt "I can't think of anything else"
"Well, I wouldn't worry favel about it now," advised Causton "he's busy" He
regarded Wyatt thoughtfully, trying to decide if
he could be entirely sane "Besides, favel won't want to lose you"
"What do you mean by that?" demanded Wyatt
"Hell expect you to consult the skies and give him a time-able for his operations"
"I'm not leanding myself to that sort of thing," said Wyatt through his teeth
"Now, look here," said Causton in a hard voice "favel has over sixty thousand
people to think of you have only four--and
you're really only thinking of one He is getting the people out of St pierre, you
know--and that is not essential to his
military plans In fact, the effort might damn' well cripple him I'll leave it to
you to see where your uty lies," He turned
on his heel and walked away
Wyatt looked after him with a sinking feeling in his stomach Causton was right, of
course, too damnably right He was
caught up in this thing whether he liked it or noy--in saving the population of St
pierre he would help to destroy the
Government army Perhaps it would be better to think of it the other way round--in
helping to destroy the army he would
save the people He thought about that, but it did not make him feel much better
At eleven o'clock the city of St pierr boiled over Manning's plan was brutally
simple strting simultaneously in the
estern and western suburbs, just behind the troops drawn up ready for bettle, his
evacuating force pitched the inhabitants
into the streets, going systematically from house to house the people could take
the clothes they stood up in ans as much
food as they could carry--nothing else The result was as thought someone had thrust
a stick into an ants' nest and given it
a vicious twist
Manning issued maps of the city to his officers, scored with red and blue lines
indicated the lines of
communication of the army; no civilians were allowed on those streets at all on
pain of death-- at all costs the army must
be protected and serviced and nothing must stand in the way of that The blue lines
led to the main road leading up
though the Negrito Vally, the road along which Wyatt had driven with Julie what
seemed a hundred years before
there were incidents The blue lines indicated one-way traffic only, a traffic
regulation enforced with violence those
attempting to go against the stream were brusquel ordered tp turn round, and if
this faild, then the point of a bayonet
was a convincing argument But sometimes, against a frantic father looking for his
family, even the bayonet was not