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castle, I think. The wind is in our favor.”
    We pitched in. I saw the archeologists and the two students helping also. A modern pumping house had been installed on the island. I remembered it as being on the far side of the island’s harbor. Obviously, a few of the help had been trained in firefighting. The manager of the resort, Darrin Oser, was between the castle and the small pier in the bay. The doors from the tower to the outside were open. Water was being poured through one, and another hose from a farther stand pipe was rapidly being pulled forward. It reached about three-quarters of the way across the floor of the Great Hall. From that point it was turned on and water began to flow. If our stuff hadn’t been destroyed in the explosion, certainly the fire had gotten it, and if the flames weren’t enough, the water would wreck anything that was left.
    I couldn’t think of anything of intrinsic value that might have been ruined. Getting new passports would be a hassle but wasn’t the end of the world. We’d lost suitcases, clothes, several paperback books, some traveler’s checks. Nothing that couldn’t be replaced. Just us, if we’d decided to sit and watch a dead body rot. The misery and chill of the elements were less than the fear of what might have been. I was cold as much from fear as from the wind and the rain.
    We helped hold one of the hoses. Pietro was next to me. I said, “I thought all the electricity was out.”
    Pietro shouted, “The pumping house has a gasoline generator. I don’t know how much fuel it has. We haven’t had a fire in years.”
    The heat was going up through the exploded top of the tower. We could see bits of ceiling falling into the rooms beyond us. Wisps of smoke leaked into the Great Hall. The valuable art could easily suffer smoke damage, as could our lungs.
    I saw Rufus Seymour in his shirtsleeves. He was rumored to be around fifteenth in line to the British throne. The few times I had encountered him, mostly he acted as if his royal shit didn’t stink. He was helping to move materials from the castle. Seymour’s lover, Matthew McCue, was next to him, carrying valuables. Henry Tudor’s valet hovered near both of them, making sure they didn’t get too near the flames, but still helping with the salvaging of castle stuff.
    Through the broken glass, I saw one of them toting a Picasso to the shelter of the nearest villa. At one point I saw Seymour holding an umbrella over a priceless piece of art, but the rain was gusting horizontally at intervals as he struggled with it. I didn’t hold out much hope for the painting surviving undamaged.
    Another of the guests, Warwick Movado, who owned half the gay bars on Manhattan, was helping to direct the water from the other hose onto the tower. The wind made the direction of the water hard to control. It kept blowing the icy stream from the hoses back at us.
    For half an hour everyone worked. Mostly we heard the wind, thunder, and occasional shouts. The rain from the storm helped quell the flames. The wind didn’t. If we hadn’t been drenched by the storm, we were wet from the water being poured on flames driven by gusts of wind. Even the most experienced firefighters would have been hard put to fight such a wind. Mostly we shouted and sweated and stayed as wet as if we were immersed in the sea. Despite the cool night air and cold rain, nearly all of us worked without coats, a few without shirts.
    When the flames were nearly out, Seymour, McCue, Pietro, and several others risked a trip inside the ground floor of the tower foyer. They came back with a body suspended between them. It was one of the staff. He was breathing, but the upper part of his body was horribly burned. He would need medical help immediately. Those who carried him out reported no one else alive or dead left inside. Our feeble efforts probably did little to help, but the pelting rain and the two-feet-thick barriers between the now soaked ruins and the rest of