Back at his desk the next morning, Wyatt began to work on the
information about the
hurricane. His office was in
the US Navy Base at Cap Sarrat on the island of San Fernandez. From
his window Wyatt
could look out across the
blue waters of Santego Bay towards St Pierre, the capital of the
island. It was a beautiful
picture, bright and clear in
the hot West Indian sun.
But this morning Wyatt had no time to look out of the window.
Although he was young, still
in his twenties, he was a
good weather scientist and knew his job well. He did not like
hurricanes, and this new
hurricane he did not like at all.
When
he had finished adding up all his figures, he studied the map
carefully. Then he went to see
Schelling, the US officer
who was the chief weather scientist at the Base.
This hurricane is going to be a bad one,' Wyatt told him.
Look at these figures. The winds could be up to 270 kilometres
an hour.'
Schelling studied the figures. 'Mmm. Not very nice,' he agreed.
'What's the name of this one?'
Wyatt looked through his papers. 'Let me see - H. I, J. K, L ... The
last one was Laura, so this
one will be Mabel.
She's moving slowly northwards at the moment, but she could change
direction and come our
way. I think we
should Ä'
'Oh, I don't think she will,' said Schelling quickly. 'If we look at
examples of other hurricanes,
the direction will very
probably stay north. Mabel will finish somewhere out in the North
Atlantic and not reach land
at all. I think we can
safely tell the Weather Office that.'
'I don't agree!' Wyatt said angrily. 'We just don't know enough about
hurricanes and how they
change direction. Look
at Isobel in 1955 - she changed direction seven times in ten days,
and ended up right in the mouth of the St Lawrence river in Canada!'
They argued for a while longer, but Schelling had very fixed ideas
and would not accept that
facts and figures did not
always give a true picture. Wyatt returned unhappily to his of office
In one way, Schelling was
right. At the moment
there was no real reason to think that Mabel would change direction.
But reason wasn't
everything. Wyatt just had a
feeling about Mabel - a very strong feeling in the bottom of his
stomach. He started to work
through his figures again,
looking for something to explain them.
Suddenly the phone rang, and when Wyatt answered it, he forgot all
about Mabel.
'Julie!' he said. 'Fantastic! Where are you?' He heard the warm laugh
that he remembered so
well, and his heart
jumped inside him. A few minutes later he had agreed to meet her that
evening in the one hotel
in St Pierre.
Julie Marlowe, he thought in surprise. She worked for a travel
company, and she and Wyatt
had been very friendly
for a while. Then her company moved her to the United States and
Wyatt had not seen her for
a year. But he had
not forgotten her. What was she doing back in St Pierre? Had she come
to see him? Wyatt
began to hope.