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?’
Schelling said, ‘I think statistics presented in this way can be misused – misinterpreted. I am quite prepared to believe Mr Wyatt’s figures, but not his reasoning. He says there is a thirty per cent chance of Mabel diverging from her path, and I accept it, but that is not to say that if she diverges she will hit San Fernandez. After all, she could go the other way.’
‘Mr Wyatt?’
Wyatt nodded. ‘That’s right, of course; but I don’t like it.’
Brooks put his hands together. ‘What it boils down to is this: the risk of Mabel hitting us is somewhere between vanishing point and thirty per cent., but even assuming that the worst happens, it’s still only a thirty per cent risk. Would that be putting it fairly, Mr Wyatt?’
Wyatt swallowed. ‘Yes, sir. But I would like to point out one or two things that I think are pertinent. There was a hurricane that hit Galveston in 1900 and another that hit here in 1910; the high death-roll in each case was due to the same phenomena – floods.’
‘From the high rainfall?’
‘No, sir; from the construction of a hurricane and from geographical peculiarities.’
He stopped for a moment and Brooks, said, ‘Go on, Mr Wyatt. I’m sure the Commander will correct you if you happen to err in your facts.’
Wyatt said, ‘The air pressure in the centre of a hurricane drops a lot; this release of pressure on the surface of the sea induces the water to lift in a hump, perhaps ten feet in a normal hurricane. Mabel is not a normal hurricane; her internal air pressure is very low and I would expect the sea level at her centre to rise to twenty feet above normal – perhaps as much as twenty-five feet.’
He turned and pointed through the window. ‘If Mabel hits us she’ll be coming from due south right into the bay. It’s a shallow bay and we know what happens when a tidal wave hits shallow water – it builds up. You can expect flood waters to a height of over fifty feet in Santego Bay. The highest point on Cap Sarrat is, I believe, forty-five feet. You’d get a solid wall of water right over this Base. They had to rebuild the Base in 1910 – luckily there wasn’t much to rebuild because the Base hadn’t really got going then.’
He looked at Brooks, who said softly, ‘Go on, Mr Wyatt. I can see you haven’t finished yet.’
‘I haven’t, sir. There’s St Pierre. In 1910 half the population was wiped out – if that happened now you could count on thirty thousand deaths. Most of the town is no higher than Cap Sarrat, and they’re no more prepared for a hurricane and floods than they were in 1910.’
Brooks twitched his eyes towards Schelling. ‘Well, Commander, can you find fault with anything Mr Wyatt has said?’
Schelling said unwillingly, ‘He’s quite correct – theoretically. But all this depends on the accuracy of the readings brought back from Mabel by Mr Wyatt and Lieutenant-Commander
