"Take us into town, will you?" Mickey Groff said wearily. The man hit the lock button on his door and cranked the window up a little. "It's only a little way on," he said evasively. "We aren't going any place special, we just heard about it on the radio and thought we'd come and see what was up--" He hit the gas and the car zoomed on. "Sightseers," Mrs. Goudeket said, wide-eyed. "God in Heaven, sightseers." Mrs. Chesbro was swearing. Arthur Chesbro was swearing and trying to remember what the license-plate numerals were. After a while they trudged on, there being nothing else to do. A helicopter came from the west as they marched, dipped low above them and hovered for a moment while they yelled and waved. The pilot pointed back into the body of the chopper with big exaggerated gestures after they had pointed at the burgess on his litter. Then he buzzed on eastward. Mickey Groff said: "I guess he was telling us he was full up." He rubbed his back for a moment. "Maybe he meant he'll be back for us." But he didn't really think so, and the helicopter didn't come back their way. CHAPTER TEN When they topped the rise and stood overlooking Hebertown there was a moment of silence and then a groan of horror burst from them all. "Gutted," Arthur Chesbro said succinctly. "Not a thin dime left in town; not a nickel." The true flood crest which they had missed in the hills had left a plain wake through the town. It was dark brown and even from their height they could smell its stink. Sewage, chemical waste, mud churned up from river bottoms where it had been rotting for a century. The brown smear lay over two-thirds of Hebertown, and there was something worse at its center, a long streak scores of yards to either side of the river. It seemed almost to have been bulldozed clean. The river still boiled many feet above its normal height, and flotsam rolled past, dotting its swell. There were tree trunks, chicken houses, timber and swollen things you didn't want to guess at. The bridges were out, the stout PWA bridge and the two rickety county bridges. Chesbro studied the view. "Gramatan Mills are wrecked," he said. "They'll never come back. They rebuilt on the river in ninety-seven right where the old waterpower mill was. Half their plant's--torn away." "Let's get on down," Groff said. McCue volunteered: "I'd try the school--if it's standing. That's where you always set up cots and aid stations." Chesbro said: "The junior high's standing. Built well on the outskirts. Lucky it's on this side of the river." They started down the hill. The stink grew worse. First they came to frame houses with picket fences and vegetable gardens in the back. The porches were full; exhausted people looked dully at them. At the third or fourth house a man came to his gate to watch them pass.