"Commander!" Goldman shouted, almost standing up at the wheel, his eyes fixed on the periscope. They were about ten miles from Genoa, moving down an exposed section of road that curved toward the dam at Sestra, two miles away. The broad hump of the concrete barrier was obscured by the spray whipped up from the deep torrent of water swirling down the road 50 yards away from them. Just ahead it left the roadway and spilled down into the valley, carrying with it a foam-flecked jetsam of smashed sheds and chicken coops.
"The dam's gone, Commander!" Goldman bellowed. Frantically he reversed the engine, sent the carrier backing obliquely across the road. Lanyon pressed his eyes to the periscope, then wrenched at Goldman's shoulder. High waves were cascading down into the valley, but as far as he could see the dam's outline was intact.
"Goldman, snap out of it! The dam's still O.K.!" He pounded Goldman's shoulder. "Get the engine forward again! The water's only a couple of feet deep."
Carried by the wind, the carrier was reversing rapidly. Before Goldman could pull himself together the off-side rear wheels left the road, and the vehicle swung around sharply and rolled over onto its side.
With a savage jolt the occupants were hurled off balance against the roof. Lanyon pulled himself away from Goldman, struggled painfully through the dim light past Patricia Olsen, who was rubbing her knees. Charlesby and the Wilsons were getting to their feet among the melee of suitcases and medical cartons. One of the orderlies opened the doors and kicked them outward. A whirl of dust and gravel whipped off the surface of the road and flashed past them in a white blur, while ten yards away to their left a deep stream of icy water surged past down the valley, spreading out across the vineyards.
The carrier lay immovably on its side, wheels spinning in the wind. Lanyon looked around for Goldman, trying to decide whether to clap the man under arrest, then decided the gesture would prove nothing.
Half a mile away was a group of low two-story brick buildings, grouped in a loose rectangle, a concrete tower standing above them on the far side. The remains of a rough fence ringed the compound, and there appeared to be a motor pool between two of the buildings, a collection of trucks huddled together against the storm.
"Looks like a barracks," Lanyon decided. The intervening country consisted of narrow farm strips divided by heavy hedges, ten-foothigh bocage that would provide them with enough shelter to reach the buildings.
Charlesby wearily pulled himself over to the doorway. "There's a good chance nothing will come along here for hours," Lanyon told him. "The road over the dam is probably closed by now and my guess is that they'll have radioed across to the units on this side to take another route further inland. We could be stranded here for days." He pointed to the buildings in the distance. "Just about our only hope is to head for the barracks over there."
Lanyon leading, followed by Charlesby and the Wilsons, with Patricia Olsen and then Goldman and the two orderlies bringing up the rear, they dived out of the carrier and plunged down the slope toward the hedge running parallel to the road 50 yards away.
As he left the carrier the wind caught Lanyon and gunned him along, tossing him helplessly across the lumpy soil. Over his shoulder he caught a glimpse of the others stepping tentatively out of the carrier and being whirled away on the slipstream. Charlesby stumbled and fell onto his knees, and then was swept upright again, his legs racing madly. The Wilsons, arm in arm, were being buffeted from left to right like drunken circus clowns. Abruptly Lanyon lost his own footing, fell heavily onto his knees and was tossed sideways like a child rolling down a hill.
Regaining his balance, he reached the hedge, crawled along to a narrow gateway and slipped through it into the slightly sheltered lee of the hedge. Away in the distance Goldman was bowed down with his back to the wind, being carried along the verge of the roadway. Charlesby, oilskin ripped off his back and billowing over his head, only attached by the tapes under his armpits, followed ten yards behind.
Zigzagging along the hedges in the general direction of the barracks, Lanyon kept what lookout he could for the others. Once or twice he thought he saw one of them moving along an adjacent field, but he was unable to cross the intervening open ground.
He reached the boundary of the barracks within half an hour, and lay in a ditch on the inner side of the fence-nothing more now than a series of tilting support posts-scanning the open surface of the compound. The barracks was the airmen's quarters of a small airfield. Beyond the buildings were the control tower and two or three wide concrete runways extending off into the haze. Between the barracks he could see the upright steel skeletons of two large hangars. In the nearer hangar was the tail section of a Dakota that had been tethered by a steel hawser. It slammed and swiveled in the driving wind, its identification numerals still visible.
He was lying waiting in the ditch for any of the others to appear, when he noticed something rolling toward the boundary line about 50 yards away. It moved in sudden jerks, occasionally throwing up a narrow white limb that Lanyon recognized as an arm. Within a few seconds it reached the boundary line, crossed it and then rolled down into the ditch, a lumpy bundle of gray-and-black rags. Lanyon crawled along to it.
When he was a few feet away he recognized the tattered strips of Charlesby's oilskin, the shreds of his gray suit.
He reached Charlesby and straightened him out, then massaged his pallid face, heavily bruised and barely recognizable after being dragged across the rough farmland. For a few fruitless moments Lanyon pumped the man's lungs, trying to inject some movement into him. Finally he gave up, wrapped Charlesby's head in the skirt of the oilskin, and lashed it around his neck with his trouser belt. Soon the wind would let up and all the field rats and scavengers sheltering in their burrows would come out, searching a barren world for food. It might be some while before the body was found, and better the scavengers should start on Charlesby's hands than on his face.
As he backed away he saw someone approaching him along the ditch.
"Commander Lanyon!"
It was Patricia Olsen. She still wore the belted blue coat, scratched and muddied, and her blonde hair trailed around her head in a tangled mat.
He hurried along to her, took her arm and steadied her into a sitting position. She rolled her head weakly against his shoulder and glanced at the body.
"Charlesby?" When Lanyon nodded, she closed her eyes. "Poor devil. Where are the others?"
"You're the only one I've seen." Lanyon peered up at the sky. He felt exhausted and muscle weary, and he was sure that the wind was stronger than when they left the carrier an hour earlier. The air was full of large pieces of grit that flicked and stung at their faces like angry insects.
"We'd better get inside the barracks. Are you strong enough to make it?"
She nodded weakly. After a moment's rest they darted forward across the clipped turf to the building 50 yards away. Lanyon held her arm, and she was almost flung out of his grasp, but together they lurched over to the far end of the barracks and pulled themselves around the corner into the doorway.
At the rear of the entrance hall a stairway led below into the basement. They hurried down, tripping over the litter-strewn steps, and with luck found a more or less airtight room off the central corridor.
Patricia sat down weakly on an old bedstead and brushed her hair wearily off her face, drawing her coat over her long legs. Lanyon checked the window. Below ground level, it looked out onto the narrow well which ringed the building, but its shutters still held, though enough light filtered through for him to see around the room. There were a couple of bunks, two empty wall cupboards, and underfoot a collection of old movie magazines, discarded webbing and cigarette butts. Lanyon sat down on the bed next to her.