James bit his lip and said nothing.
Stone kissed his children on their foreheads.
‘I’ll be back as soon as I can,’ he said. ‘And I’ll bring you a whole planeload of presents.’
‘And new dresses?’ said Precious.
‘And new dresses for my best girl,’ he said and kissed her again.
‘Now, James,’ he said straightening up, ‘do you want to come down and say goodbye to your aunt?’
‘Please,’ said James, wishing with all his heart that he were going with Charmian instead of being stuck here with these two monsters.
5
Four Men With Guns
The three powerful engines of the Ford Trimotor ‘Tin Goose’ struggled to pull the aircraft through the turbulent sky. The propellers thrashed and whined and when they hit pockets of dead air, they seemed to cut out altogether. The whole plane was shaking and rattling and it bumped up and down like a fairground ride. Heavy rain smashed into the windscreen and the wipers were struggling to clear it.
Strapped into the navigator’s seat behind Jack Stone and Beto, his Mexican co-pilot, Charmian’s teeth were clattering together. She looked over at her guide, Mendoza: he was white with fear and looked like he was about to be sick. The poor man had never been up in an aeroplane before. This was not a good introduction to the pleasures of flying.
Stone shouted something into his microphone and even with her headphones clamped to her ears Charmian had trouble understanding what he was saying over the roar of the engines and the wind and rain.
She just made out the word ‘house’ and looked down to where Stone was pointing through the side window.
A wisp of low cloud momentarily obscured her view and then she could clearly make out the Stones’ house on top of the hill overlooking Tres Hermanas.
‘I sure hope they get the storm shutters up in time,’ said Stone. ‘Otherwise I’m going to lose some windows.’
‘Don’t worry about them,’ Charmian shouted. ‘You just get us safely away from here.’
The house looked so secure and solid down there, while she felt totally at the mercy of the growing storm. The plane seemed tiny and fragile as if the wind could tear its wings off and bat it clean out of the sky.
She had to admit to being rather nervous herself.
Stone pointed again, this time out to sea, and she gasped as she saw a bank of black cloud towering up into the heavens.
‘Looks like we just made it in time,’ he yelled.
The black mass was swirling and boiling in a fast circular motion and it was bearing down on the town like a huge angry beast.
‘It’s not the hurricane season,’ said Stone, his voice made thin and harsh by the headphones. ‘But that sure is some storm.’
In the storm’s dark heart there were flashes of lightning. Charmian wiped her window, which had steamed up. As she tried to look, however, a gust of wind knocked the plane sideways and they banked steeply.
‘I’m gonna head inland,’ shouted Stone. ‘Try and outrun it. Once we get enough height we’ll be fine, but it’s pretty choppy out there just now.’
The engines complained as Stone pulled back on the controls and eased some more power out of the throttles. Charmian was forced back into her seat as the plane climbed higher into the sky.
She heard Mendoza throw up into a paper bag.
How she envied James, snug and warm inside the house.
James was in the middle of supper, but he wasn’t enjoying it at all.
It was Precious. She was quite the rudest and most self-centred person he had ever met, and she treated the Mexican servants horribly. He supposed that since her father had gone she was relishing the opportunity of being the mistress of the house, and he feared that she was also putting on a show for his benefit.
‘Oh, don’t be some clumsy, Rita,’ she said to the plump middle-aged woman who was trying to serve some boiled potatoes. ‘You are too careless. You nearly dropped them in my lap.’
Rita muttered an apology while Precious poked at the potatoes with a fork.
‘These won’t do,’ she said. ‘Take them away. They are not cooked properly. I won’t have any potatoes, bring me rice.’
As Rita waddled out with the serving dish Precious shook her head.
‘The problem is that they don’t really understand about good food,’ she said. ‘They eat such slop themselves, it’s foolish to think they could serve anything halfway decent for civilised people like us. I have told Daddy that we should get a chef from Europe, preferably France, and definitely not from England. The English do not know how to cook. Rita is just a peasant. All they know about is beans and rice. But they will eat anything, you know. I hear they even eat lizard. Ugh. Can you imagine that? Even if I was starving to death I would never eat a lizard, but they do not know any better.’
The three of them – James, Precious and JJ – were sitting around a large antique mahogany table. There was silver cutlery and silver candelabras and silver serving dishes, all laid out neatly on a gleaming white lace tablecloth.
On the wall behind Precious was a large painting of her and her brother, posing formally in stiff expensive clothes. It looked like it had been done by the same artist who had painted the dogfight in the entrance hall. James thought he was better at painting aeroplanes than he was at painting people. On the wall opposite was the portrait of a woman. She was thin and beautiful and cold. James thought it must be Mrs Stone, Precious’s mother.
He took a sip of water from a crystal glass. He was sweating badly. The air in here was damp and thick. The humidity was terrible, and the rain, which hammered down in a steady monotonous torrent, hadn’t helped to clear the atmosphere. Maybe when the heart of the storm hit it would help. There was a rumble of thunder, some way off in the distance still, but growing nearer.
A big ornate grandfather clock in the corner chimed five. It was going to be a long evening.
Outside, Alonzo was struggling with a storm shutter, trying to fix it over a window, but the wind was already strong and the shutter was heavy. Luis was supposed to be helping him, but he’d been sent off to fetch a hammer and nails ten minutes ago and still hadn’t returned. Luis was fifteen and the youngest of Mr Stone’s servants. As far as Alonzo was concerned, the boy was more trouble than he was worth, though. He was lazy and slow and cheeky. That was the problem with young people nowadays: they had no respect for their elders.
Alonzo cursed. He was too old for this. His arms were aching and he was cold and already soaked to the skin. If Luis didn’t come back he was going to give up. The house had stood for 200 years; it wasn’t about to blown over by a little wind.
Just then Luis appeared with a stupid grin on his face.
‘I am sorry, Alonzo,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t get the storeroom open. The door is warped.’
‘I don’t want to hear your excuses,’ Alonzo snapped. ‘Help me up with this damned shutter!’
‘What do you call this?’ Precious was once again scolding Rita, who was standing patiently with a bowl of steamed vegetables. ‘They are mush. Will I have to come into the kitchen and cook something myself? This is a joke, Rita. I can’t eat this. Take it away.’
‘I’ll have some,’ said James. He wasn’t really hungry, but he felt sorry for the servants who had gone to so much trouble to prepare the food, none of which Precious would eat. JJ was tucking in. He was slightly pudgy and had a permanent smirk on his round face. He worshipped his sister and laughed at her every petulant outburst.
Rita smiled at James, but Precious held her by the wrist.
‘You will not,’ she said, staring at James. ‘They will make you ill.’
‘They look all right to me,’ said James.
Precious spat into the dish.
‘It is not fit for pigs,’ she said.
Rita looked very tired. She sighed and waddled slowly out with the dish of vegetables.
‘I sometimes think they do it on purpose,’ said Precious. ?
??Because if I won’t eat it they can scoff it all themselves in the kitchen. Well, they won’t be scoffing those vegetables in a hurry.’
JJ laughed and spat into his own plate.
‘Stop that, JJ,’ said Precious. ‘It’s not funny. You have been spending too long with these peasants. You are becoming one of them.’
JJ laughed again and spat again. This time Precious couldn’t stop herself from sniggering.
‘I’m sure they spit on our food,’ she said. ‘When we are not looking.’
I wouldn’t blame them, thought James.
Precious pushed her plate away. She had not touched a thing. The food sat cold and dry on the white porcelain.
‘Oh, this is too much,’ she said. ‘I can’t eat anything tonight. It is too hot. Come along, JJ, let’s go upstairs. We’ll get Rita to bring us up some cake later.’ She looked at James. ‘You may come with us.’
‘I’m tired,’ James lied. ‘I think I’ll go to my room.’
‘As you wish,’ said Precious and she got up. On her way out, past her brother, she whispered something in his ear that made him look guiltily at James and snort with laughter.
When they had gone James pushed his chair back, stretched out his legs and finished his water. He then refilled his glass and drank some more. He had had some nasty stomach upsets since he had been in Mexico, but he assumed that the Stones’ water would be clean and pure.
He wiped the sweat off his neck with his napkin, He knew it wasn’t good manners, but there was nobody around to see him. He was just standing up to leave when Rita came back in with a bowl of rice. She saw that the other two children had gone and put the bowl down wearily on the table.
‘They went upstairs,’ said James.
Rita looked at the rice, muttered something in Spanish, sighed theatrically and returned to the kitchen.
James wiped his neck once more. In the few seconds since he had last wiped it, it had already become soaked again.
He walked out into the hallway. He looked at the painting of the dogfight. He looked at the ugly bronze statues. He hated this house already. He knew that if he wasn’t careful he was going to get very bored in the days ahead.
He trudged up the stairs towards his room. When he got there he found that he had left the window open, the shutters were flapping and banging in the wind, and rain was pouring in on to the expensive-looking carpet.
‘Hell,’ he said. He could get into trouble for this.
He hurried over to the window, and grabbed a shutter, but the wind pulled it out of his grasp. He got hold of it again, but no matter how hard he tried, the wind seemed insistent that it stayed open.
Alonzo was once more waiting for Luis. What would his excuse be this time? Surely it didn’t take twenty minutes to fetch a simple stepladder. They had only got four storm shutters up; there were still many windows left to secure.
He dropped his tools and headed round to the front of the house. His wide hat kept the water off his head but the rest of him was drenched. When he had finished he would have to go into the kitchen and sit by the stove to dry off. Maybe he would have a nice glass of wine. Or some of the rum he kept hidden in a cupboard. That would restore his spirits. He was just picturing the cosy scene when he saw a shape on the grass.
‘Luis? Luis, is that you?’ He trotted over. It was Luis all right. He was lying with his eyes closed. Blood was trickling from his hair just behind his ear.
‘Oh Santo Dio!’ said Alonzo and he knelt down. There was a faint pulse. The boy was not dead. But what had happened?
He looked up to see two men striding across the grass towards him. One was Japanese, the other was short and wide and looked like an American.
‘Don’t bother to get up,’ said the American and before Alonzo could say anything, the man flicked a cosh towards his head.
It was a small movement, but the cosh hit Alonzo with the force of a train.
There was a flash of bright light, a sudden burning pain and Alonzo blacked out.
James had seen everything from his bedroom as he wrestled with the shutters. When he saw Alonzo fall lifeless to the wet grass he forgot all about the window.
He ran from his room and looked over the banisters just as two more men and a woman came into the hallway. He recognised them as the group of tourists he had seen in Tres Hermanas.
But he had the feeling that they weren’t tourists at all.
The guns the men were carrying were the biggest give-away.
As Alonzo’s attackers joined them, James ducked back and bolted up the next flight of stairs towards the playroom.
He pushed the door open, breathless and panting.
JJ looked up at him. He was on the floor playing with some toy soldiers.
‘Where’s your sister?’ he said.
‘You should always knock,’ said Precious snootily. She was back at her mirror, trying on some earrings.
‘Oh, shut up,’ said James. ‘There’s trouble. You need to hide.’
‘Ha, ha, very funny,’ said Precious. ‘I suppose you think we’re going to fall for that, do you?’
‘I’m deadly serious,’ said James. ‘I just saw someone attack your servant Alonzo. He’s lying outside on the lawn with another servant. Unconscious.’
Precious opened her mouth wide and let out a high shrieking laugh. JJ looked at her and joined in.
‘Who was it attacked him?’ said Precious. ‘Frankenstein’s monster? King Kong?’
‘There are four men downstairs with guns,’ said James.
‘Oh,’ said Precious. ‘It must be public enemy number one, public enemy number two and public enemies three and four.’
JJ thought this was just about the funniest thing he had ever heard and he rolled on the floor kicking his legs in the air, wheezing and snorting with laughter.
James heard shouts and footsteps from outside the room.
‘Hide!’ he yelled and made a dive for the Wendy house. He just had time to get into a position where he could see out through the curtains when the playroom door was barged open and a young man came in. He was nattily dressed and holding a large pistol. Precious screamed and JJ burst into tears.
‘Believe me now?’ James whispered, but he could take no satisfaction from what was happening. Much as he didn’t like the two children, he realised that he was going to have to try to help them.
That was just assuming he didn’t get caught himself.
6
In the Belly of the Storm
James watched as the young man waved his gun at Precious and JJ.
‘Where’s your father?’ he yelled. ‘Tell me or I’ll hurt you.’
‘He’s not here,’ wailed Precious. ‘He’s flown down south. He won’t be back until after the storm.’
As Precious said the word ‘storm’ three things happened at once. There was a terrific crack of thunder, the whole house shook and the lights went out.
The storm had finally arrived.
Precious screamed. The young men snarled at her to shut up. There was just enough light coming through the window for James to see him grab the two children and drag them out of the room.
James stayed put, breathing heavily. The intruders seemed to have come prepared, but with luck they wouldn’t know that he was here at all.
James waited in the Wendy house for a full five minutes. Once he was sure that the man wasn’t coming back he crept out of his hiding place and tiptoed over to the playroom door.
He hardly needed to be quiet. The storm was making a fearsome racket as it buffeted the house. There was a cacophony of different sounds; crashing, hissing, roaring, squealing, rumbling.
As he moved out into the corridor James felt the full force of the wind slam into the house like a physical object. He could actually feel the floor moving beneath his feet, and the walls seemed to sway and shudder. He glanced out of the window, but all he could see was a swirling maelstrom of cloud and rain. There was a startling flash and another blast of thunder, the
n a gust of wind so powerful it blew the windows in. The rain followed, hosing down the corridor in horizontal bars. The walls were instantly soaked and a picture flew off the wall.
The noise from outside was like nothing that James had ever heard before, like boulders crashing down a mountainside. The wind was whipping around in the corridor and the house was vibrating as if at any moment it might crack up and be blown away.
James dropped to his knees and crawled along the sodden carpet as bits of debris were hurled past his head.
He reached the stairs and slid down them on his backside in the darkness. He made it safely to the lower landing and peered out between the rails into the hallway below.
The servants were being rounded up and herded into the dining room by two of the men. The raid had been planned like a military operation.
James was the only person who might be able to get out and go for help.
He backed away from the banisters, ducked into his bedroom and pulled the door shut.
He stood there for a moment, with his back to the door, breathing deeply. Rain was pouring in through the open window, and the carpet was soaked. There was already a large pool of water forming in the middle of the floor. James was sweating again. But it was a cold sweat, caused by fear, not heat. The temperature had dropped dramatically.
He considered his options and found that he had only one: to climb out and make a run for it.
He remembered seeing a little ornamental balcony outside and some thick jungly creeper up the side of the house.
He stepped towards the window, then suddenly threw himself to the floor as a piece of wood the size of a tabletop exploded through the window spraying the room with jagged splinters. It was a broken door. The wind must have ripped it off another house and tossed it up here.
Over the sound of the storm James heard shouts and someone running up the stairs.
He quickly pulled the bedclothes off the bed and covered himself with them, leaving just enough space to see out.
He saw the door open and a pair of legs come in.