Mrs Wirminghton surveyed the hollow and shuddered "Let's get away from this

horrible place," she said in a trembling

Voice "It frightens me"
And well it might, through Julie; you killed a man here
"We'll go north," said Rawsthorne "Into this little valley and over the next ridge
we must be very careful, through; there
may be desperate men about"
so they went through the plantation, across the service road and, carefully
avoiding the convict barracks, pushed on up the
ridge on the other side At first Rawsthorne kept up a crecking pace, but he did not
have the stamina for it and gradually
his pace showed so that even Mrs Warmington could keep up with him The going was
not difficult while they were on
cultivated ground and in spite of their slower pace they made good time
At the top of the first ridge they left the banana plantation and entered pineapple
field, where all was well as long as
they walked between the rows and avoided the sharp, spiky leaves But then they come
to sugur-cans and, rinding the
thicked too hard to push through, had to cost about to find a road leading in the
right direction It was a narrow dusty
track between the high green canes, which rustled and crackled under the press of
the breeze, In spite of the breeze and the
high feathery clouds which vieled and haloed the sun it was still very hot, and
Julie fell into a daze as she mechinacelly
plodded behind Mrs Warmington
They saw no one and seemed to be travelling through an empty land The track dipped
and rose but climbed higher all the
tune, and Julie, when she looked back, saw huts in the distance, but no smoke arose
from these smell settlement nor was
there any sign of life Where the tracks come out of the cone-fields they come upon
more huts, and as soon as he saw them
Rawsthorne held up hid hand "We must be careful," he whispered "Better safe than
sorry Wait here"
Mrs Warmington sat down on the spot and cluthed her feet "These are crippling me,"
she said
"Hush!" said Julie, looking at the hust through me cans "There may be soldiers
here--deserted"
Mrs Warmington said no more, and Julie through in astonishment She is capable of
being taught, after all There
Rawsthorne come back "It's all right," he said "There isn't a soul here"
They emerged from the cane and movind among the huts Looking about Mrs warmington
stared at the crude rammed earth
walls and the straw roofs and sniffed "Pig-sties, that's all these are," she
announced "they're not even fit to keep pigs in"
Rawsthorne said, "I wonder if there's any water here I could do with some"
"Let's look," said Julie, and went into one of the huts It was sparsely furnished
and very primitive, but also very clean She
went into a small cubicle-like room which had obviously been a pantry, to find it
like Mother hubbard's cupboard--
swept bare Going into another hut, she formed it the same and when she come out in
the central clearing she found that
Rawsthorne had had no luck either
"These people have run away," he said "they've either taken all their valuable with
them or buried them" He held up a
bottle "I fpund some run, but I wouldn't recommend it as a thirst-quencher Still,
it may come in usefull"
"Do you think they've run away from the war?" asked Julie "Or the hurricane--like
that old man near St Michel?"
Rawathorne rubbed his check and it made a scratchy sound "That would be different
to say Off- hand, I'd say because of
the war--it doesn't really matter'
"These people must have got their water from somewhere," said Julie "What about
from down there?'
' She indicated a path that ran away downhill along the edge of cane-field "Shall
we see?"
Rawsthorne hesitsted "I don't think we should hang about here--it's to dangerous I
think we should push on"
From the movement they entered the scrub the going was harder The ground was poor
and stony and the tormented trees
clung to the hillside in a frozen frenzy of exposed roots over which they stumbled
and fell continually The hillside was
steeper here and what little soil there had been had long since been washed to the
bottom lands where the fertile
plantations were underfoot was rock and dust and a sporse sprinkling of tough grass
clinging in stubborn clumps wherever
the stunted trees did not cut off the sun
They come to the top of ridge to find themselves confronted by yet another which
was even higker and steeper Julie
looked down into the little depression "I wonder if there's a stream down there"
They found a watercourse in the valley but it was dry with not a drop of moisture
in it, so they pushed on again Mrs
Warmington was now becoming very exhausted; she had long since lost her ebullience
and her propensity for giving
instruction had degenerated into an aptitude for grumbeling Julie prodded her
relentlessly and without mercy, never
allowing herself to forget the things this women had done, and Rawsthorne ignored
her complaints--he had enough to do
in dragging his own ageing body up this terrible dusty hill
When they got to the top they found the ground levelling into a platean and it
become less difficult There was a thin
covering of dubious soil and the vegatation was a little lusger
They found another small gathering of huts in a clearing cut out of the scrub--
this was deserted too, and again they found
no water Rawsthorne looking about at the small patch of maize and cane, and said,
"I suppose they rely on rainfall Well,
they're going to get a lot of it presently--look back there"
The southern sky was dark with cloud and the sun was veiled in a thicker grey It
was perceptibly cooler and the breeze
had increased to a definite wind In the distance, seemingly very far away, this
could still hear the thudding of the guns,
and to Julie it seemed very much less impressive, althrough weather this was the
effect of distance or whether there was less
firing she had no way of knowing
Rawsthorne was perturbed by the oncoming weather "We can't stop now All we have to
do is to get over that" He pointed to
an even higher ridge straight ahead "On the other side of that is the Negrito"
"Oh, God!" said Mrs Warmington "I can't do it--I just can't do it"
"You must," said Rawsthorne "We have to get on a nothern slope, and it's on the
other side Come on"
Julie predded Mrs Warmington to her feet amd they left the huts She looked at her
watch--it was four-thirty in the
afternoon
By five-thirty they had crossed the platean and were halfway up the ridge, and the
wind had strengthened to a gale It
seened to be darkening much earliear than usual-the clouds were now thik overhead
but no rain had falled as yet The
wind plucked at they scrambled up, buffeting them mercilessly, and more than once
one or other of them lost his
footing and slide down in a miniature landslide of dust and small stones The wind
whipped the branches of the stunted
trees, transforming them into dengerous flails, and the dry leaves were swept away
along the ridge on the winds if gale
It seemed an eternity before they got to the top, and even they could not see down
into the Negrito "We must get
down other side," shouted Rawsthorne against wind "We mustn't stay " He choked as
the wind caught hin in the
mouth, and staggered forward in a crouch