At last all the stores had been moved and they rested for a while on the ridge-top. On the seaward side they could see the main coast road, still aswarm with refugees heading east away from St Pierre. The city itself was out of sight behind the headland, but they could hear the distant thud of guns and could see a growing smudge of smoke in the western sky. On the other side of the ridge the ground sloped down into a small green valley, heavily planted with bananas in long rows. (Chapter 5, II)