As the minute hand of the clock moved on to 10:59, Marshall stood up and left his desk. The meeting took place in the cabinet room at the end of the corridor. As Deborah picked up Marshall 's briefcase, he took it from her with a smile, his hand pressing over hers as he held the handle. The other hand touched her waist, pushed her gently toward the door.
"Time for our tête a tête," he said. "Let's see if we can give them something today to keep them happy."
The other members of the COE cabinet were taking their seats as they entered. There were five members, who reported to the Prime Minister through Sir Charles Gort, Permanent Secretary at the Home Office. A trim neat figure in pin-striped trousers and dark jacket, he was a professional civil servant, quiet but firmly spoken, never appearing to volunteer an opinion of his own but adept at reconciling contrary viewpoints.
He waited for the others to settle down, and then turned to Dr. Lovatt Dickinson, Director of the Meteorological Office, a sandyhaired Scot in a brown tweed suit, who sat on his left.
"Doctor, perhaps you'd be good enough to let us have the latest news on the weather front."
Dickinson sat forward, reading from a pad of blue Meteorological Office tabular memos.
"Well, Sir Charles, I can't say that I've anything very hopeful to report. The wind speed is now 175 miles per hour, an increase of 4.89 miles per hour over the speed recorded at 10 A.M. yesterday, maintaining the average daily increase of five miles per hour that we've seen over the last three weeks. The humidity shows a slight increase, to be accounted for by the passage of these enormous air volumes over the disturbed ocean surfaces. We've done our best to make high-altitude observations, but you'll appreciate that launching a balloon in this wind, let alone keeping track of it, is well nigh impossible. However, the weather ship _Northern Survey_ off the coast of Greenland, where the wind speed is down to a mere 85 mph, has reported data indicating, as one would expect, that the velocity of the global air stream declines with decreasing density, and that at 45,000 feet the air speed is approximately 45 mph at the equator and 30 mph over this latitude."
Dickinson momentarily lost his sequence, and while he shuffled the memos Gort cut in smoothly.
"Thank you, Doctor. But boiling it all down, what prospects are there of the wind system's actually subsiding?"
Dickinson shook his head dourly. "I'd like to be optimistic, Sir Charles, but I've every suspicion that it's got some way to go yet before it spends itself. We're witnessing a meteorological phenomenon of unprecedented magnitude, a global cyclone accelerating at a uniform rate, exhibiting all the signs distinguishing highly stable aerodynamic systems. The wind mass now has tremendous momentum, and the inertial forces alone will prevent a sudden abatement.
"Theoretically there are no reasons why it should not continue to revolve at high speeds indefinitely, and become the prevailing planetary system similar to the revolving clouds of gas that produce the rings of Saturn. To date the weather systems on this planet have always been dictated by the oceanic drifts, but it's obvious now that far stronger influences are at work. Exactly what, any of you are free to speculate.
"Recently our monitors have detected unusually high levels of cosmic radiation. All electromagnetic wave forms have mass-perhaps a vast tangential stream of cosmic radiation exploded from the sun during the solar eclipse a month ago, struck the earth on one exposed hemisphere, and its gravitational drag might have set in motion the huge cyclone revolving round the earth's axis at this moment.
Dickinson looked around the table and smiled somberly. "Or again, maybe it's the deliberate act of an outraged Providence, determined to sweep man and his pestilence from the surface of this once green earth. Who can say?"
Gort pursed his lips, eying Dickinson with dry amusement. "Well, let's sincerely hope not, Doctor. We simply haven't got a big enough budget for that sort of emergency. Summing up, then, it looks as if we were optimistic a week ago when we assumed, quite naturally, that the wind would exhaust itself once it reached hurricane force. We can expect it to continue, if not indefinitely, at least for a considerable period, perhaps another month. Could we now have a report of the present position as assessed by the intelligence section?"
Marshall sat forward, the eyes of the other men at the table turning toward him.
"Recapping for a moment, Sir Charles, it's exactly eight days since London first began to experience winds of over 120 miles an hour, greater than any previously recorded, and certainly well beyond anything the architects of this city designed for. Bearing that in mind, I'm sure you'll be proud to hear that our great capital city is holding together with remarkable tenacity." Marshall glanced around the table, letting the impact of this homily sink in, then continued in a slightly more factual tone:
"Taking London first, although almost all activity in the commercial and industrial sense has ceased for the time being, the majority of people are getting by without too much difficulty. Most of them have managed to board up their houses, secure their roofs, and lay in adequate stocks of food and water. Casualties have been low-2,000-and many of these were elderly people who were probably frightened to death, quite literally, rather than injured by falling masonry."
Marshall glanced through his notes. "Abroad, in Europe and North America, the picture is pretty much the same. They've all battened down the hatches and are ready to ride out the storm. Scandinavia and northern Russia, of course, are outside the main wind belt and life seems to be going on much as usual. They're equipped for hurricane-force winds as a matter of course." Marshall smiled his big craggy smile. "I think we can probably stand another 20 or 30 mph without any real damage."
Major-General Harris, a small man in a spic-and-span uniform, nodded briskly.
"Good to hear you say that, Marshall. Morale isn't as high as it could be. Too much negative talk around."
Vice-Admiral Saunders, sitting next to him, nodded agreement.
"I hope your information is right, though, Marshall. One of the Americans told me this morning that Venice was a complete writeoff."
"Exaggeration," Marshall said easily. "My latest report a few minutes ago was that there had been heavy flooding, but no serious damage."
The admiral nodded, glad to be reassured. Marshall continued with his survey. Deborah sat just behind him, listening to the steady confident tone. With the exception of Gort, who remained neutral, the three other members of the committee were inclined to be pessimistic and depressed, expecting the worst and misinterpreting the news to serve their unconscious acceptance of disaster. General Harris and Vice-Admiral Saunders were typical of the sort of serviceman in the saddle at the beginning of a war. They had the Dunkirk mentality, had already been defeated and were getting ready to make a triumph out of it, counting up the endless casualty lists, the catalogues of disaster and destruction, as if these were a measure of their courage and competence.
Marshall, Deborah realized, was the necessary counterforce on the team. Although he might be overoptimistic, this was deliberate, the sort of Churchillian policy that would keep people head-up into the wind, doing everything to defend themselves, rather than running helplessly before it. She listened half consciously to Mar shall, feeling his confidence surge through her.
On the way back to Marshall 's office after the meeting closed, they met Symington, carrying a teletype memo in his hand.
"Bad news, I'm afraid, sir. The old Russell Square Hotel collapsed suddenly about half an hour ago. Some of the piles drove straight through the sub-soil into the Piccadilly Line platforms directly below. First estimates are that about two hundred were killed in the Russell basement and about twice that number again in the station."