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I let go of the button and waited again, this time with dwindling hope. If the Over Easy was out there, they were either too far away to hear the transmission, or they weren’t monitoring their radio channels. Both options were worrying.
I was just groping for the receiver again when something struck the side of the hut with a bang like a firework, and a force that made the whole thing shudder to its foundations. The shock made me jump almost out of my skin, and I stood there, my heart thudding, and then reached out to touch the side of the hut where it had been hit. The entire wall was bowed in, and I could feel that in places the corrugated iron had cracked. The rear wall of the hut had been hit by something very big and very heavy. If it had collided with the other wall—the one with the window—it wouldn’t have been stopped by metal sheeting, it would have shot through the glass and most likely brained me. As it was, it felt uncomfortably close to luck that the sheeting had withstood the blow.
I made up my mind. It wasn’t safe here. This side of the island was much more exposed than the villa side. I would go back, tell Joel what was happening, and then make my way to Palm Tree Rest, the villa Nico and I had been allocated on the first night. I doubted it would be locked—evidently the staff quarters weren’t—but if it was, well, then, I’d just break in. If Joel wanted to come—fine. If he wanted to return to Romi—also fine. I no longer gave a shit about the rules. I was just hoping we’d all be in one piece in the morning.
I picked up the receiver. I would make one last attempt before I left, and that was it.
“Over Easy, if you’re receiving this, please come in, this is urgent,” I said, speaking rapidly now. “The storm is getting really bad and I think we might need to evacuate. Just now—”
But I never got to finish the sentence. As I said the words, something huge and dark and shaped like a cannonball came flying through the window of the hut with a deafening crash. Glass flew everywhere, and the object landed with a sickening crunch on the mixing desk, crushing the bank of instruments to smithereens, along with the sturdy table beneath.
I found I was still holding the radio receiver, gasping like a fish. I think I was saying something like, “Oh God! Oh God!”
If I had been standing just ten centimeters to my left, I would have been dead—my chest crushed into the same pulp as the table and mixing desk.
As it was, I could feel cuts from the glass all over the parts of my arms and chest not protected by the robe, and the warm drops of blood beginning to trickle down my skin, mixed with the driving rain now coming through the smashed window, along with the wind.
For a moment I couldn’t move. I just stood there, gasping and shaking, unable to compute how close I had come just now to dying.
Then I let the receiver drop from my hand and ran.
CHAPTER 11
“JOEL!” I COULD hardly get the word out. I had run all the way from the staff quarters, through the maze of paths, trusting to luck more than instinct as to which way to go. Now I was standing, soaked and shivering at the foot of the bed, the blood running down my arms and mixing with the rain and sea spray still clinging to my skin. My robe was wet and blood-stained, and still glittering with broken glass, my chest was heaving, and I was shaking with the adrenaline of my near miss. “Joel!”
I was shouting, but it was still an effort to make my voice heard above the noise of the wind and the sea. How on earth was he sleeping through this? Another huge wave came crashing over the veranda, rattling the windows in their frames, and I made up my mind. This was not safe. Soon we wouldn’t be able to cross the gangway. I was going, now, whether Joel wanted to come or not.
I was groping my way to Joel’s side of the bed, ready to slap him awake if I had to, when something, some sixth sense, or maybe a sound, slightly different from the regular roar of the waves, made me pause and turn around. Another wave, even larger than its predecessors, was heaving itself up and out of the gray sea. As I braced myself, it came crashing over the veranda balustrade and once more smashed into the French windows.
Only this time, the windows didn’t hold. The force of the water snapped the flimsy catch, the windows burst inwards, and a drenching gush of seawater came flooding into the room, soaking me and sending me staggering me backwards.
For a moment I simply stood there, gasping and holding on to one of the four-poster’s poles, listening to Joel scrambling up and out of bed.
“Jesus Christ!” he was yelping. “What the fuck!”
“We’ve got to get out of here,” I said. My teeth were chattering. “It’s not safe.”
“Out of this villa, or off the island?” Joel was scrabbling around for his glasses. Now he slotted them over his ears and stared at me.
“I mean—both, but I tried radioing the Over Easy, there’s no one there.”
“There’s a radio?” He looked confused, and I waved my hand. No time to explain. We needed to get out of here.
“It doesn’t matter, I’ll show you later. Come on, we have to get out.”
Joel nodded, and we made our way cautiously out onto the veranda.
Outside, the force of the wind was terrifying, and the waves were sucking so hard at the base of the villa that I could see the long struts buried in the sand, far below the low-tide mark. Then, as the breakers came rushing back in, the whole structure was sent awash, water flooding in through the open French windows and tossing around the veranda chairs and throw cushions like toys.
Joel looked doubtfully at the gangway, barely visible in the driving rain, and flooded by several feet every time a wave came in.
“You crossed that?”
“Yes, but the sea wasn’t as high when I did it before.”
I was hesitating now. In the trough of each wave I could see that the gangway was still there, and the balustrade was still poking up out of the water, providing some measure of security, but the force of the waves crashing over the top every few minutes was giving me pause. This wouldn’t be a case of dashing across with the water at my ankles, the way it had been an hour ago. This would be a case of hanging on for dear life, and if one of us slipped, it wouldn’t end well.
“Should we hold hands?” Joel asked. “In case one of us slips?” He pushed his glasses up his nose, looking nervous. There was rain running down his face. I nodded.
