Fire Mountain

by Rose elver

  The golden-haired woman bent over her, raising her head and putting an aluminium mug to her lips. As Amelia drank thirstily, the china-blue eyes studied her face intently but not very sympathetically. Laying

  her down, she put a hand to Amelia's forehead, pushed back her sticky hair, then took her pulse with the competent touch of a trained nurse.

  `Do not be afraid,' she said quietly in English with a slightly guttural accent. 'The doctors have examined you. You have no disease or burns, only very exhausted just now.' She tucked a strand of flaxen hair into her bun. 'I am Lotte Meister. My husband is in charge of this disaster unit.'

  Huskily Amelia gave her own name. The other nodded : 'I know. At first, when you appeared so mysteriously and quite collapsed, we thought you were another refugee—maybe from a mission, or some traveller stranded by the eruption. We searched your handbag for identity, you understand. There was this letter for Dr Daud, and he informs us that you have come from London.' After a short, rather pointed silence she asked : 'How have you found your way to us in such condition?'

  `In Denpasar I hoped Dr Daud would arrange for me to get on to one of the flights,' Amelia sighed, But he had gone. So I went to Sumba instead and crossed over by sailing boat.' At the look in the saucer-blue eyes she rallied. 'I was all right, Mrs Meister. A bit seasick, that's all.'

  Lotte Meister clicked her tongue, frowning, and shook her head. 'Dr Daud says you have come to contact Professor Lyne. If you are after a newspaper interview to make a sensation, I admire your spirit, but it will do you no good,' she said with some asperity. 'The press corps are all properly authorised here.'

  `No!' Amelia hoisted herself up on her elbows. `You mustn't think that ! '

  `Now, now,' Mrs Meister pushed her firmly back. `What other reason or excuse?'

  Amelia was past pretence. 'I love Donovan Lyne with all my heart, Mrs Meister. That's my only reason. To share this with him, be with him ...'

  As she haltingly confided in Lotte, the other woman's face softened. 'I should not have questioned you until you were more rested.' She brushed the perspiration off her brow with the back of her hand, looking pensive. 'You should not be here, of course, but I begin to understand. My husband will have to decide this, and will do as he thinks best.' She moved away.

  `Mrs Meister ...?' Amelia wiped a drop of moisture from her eye. 'I seem to have lost my spectacles ...' she whispered.

  Lotte turned from the tent flap. 'On that folding chair beside you.'

  `Do you think ...' Amelia fumbled to put them on, `do you think I could see Professor Lyne?' She swallowed. 'Just for a few minutes.'

  Her voice trailed into nothing and apprehension shot through her like a pain as Lotte Meister hesitated, glancing at her compassionately.

  `No, not at present,' said Lotte matter-of-factly. 'He is not here.' Watching Amelia sink back and close her eyes, she continued in a bracing voice, 'He is wonderful, that man of yours. When we came first there was terrible confusion. It was he who could speak the various languages of the tribes and advised

  us what should be done. And the lives he has saved —almost all ! Without his special knowledge of this island there would be many dead who are now safe in the camp. He carries on his rescue work unceasingly. If it is possible he leaves markers for the helicopter, if not he sends the poor sufferers back by boat around the coast. Yesterday he radioed that he is searching another valley.' She came over and clasped Amelia's limp hand reassuringly. 'God will preserve the life of this brave man as he has preserved other lives, keep that thought to sustain you.'

  Into the sudden pool of silence Amelia said in a quiet, resolute tone : 'Then I shall wait until he comes back, Mrs Meister—whatever the doctors say. I'm strong enough to work, I'll nurse, I'll do anything required. But I shall be here when he returns, however long it takes. Will you help me?'

  `Such constancy?' said Lotte, smiling. 'Very well, I will do what I can.'

  Amelia was ordered to spend the day resting, and was not summoned to the administration tent until the following morning. The knowledge that Donovan had radioed the camp less than forty-eight hours ago was a lifeline she clung to throughout the noisy, sweltering restlessness of the night. Lotte took her along the perimeter of the camp and showed her a dark, sheltered ravine where a small stream had survived practically unpolluted and was used by the womenfolk to bathe and launder their clothing as best they could. Amelia had a dip, put on her cleanest jeans and blue-flowered shirt and was ready, armed

  with her inoculation certificate and other documents, when Lotte came to fetch her.

  Feeling as guilty as any stowaway, she sat bolt upright in front of the medical officers. Dr Daud, a short, fleshy individual, asked her very briefly and politely about Dr Hallow, then bulged into a small camp chair and watched Amelia with large, brown, unblinking eyes. It was left to Dr Meister, as bald and sharp-nosed as an eagle, to pounce on her at every turn, trying to trap her like a rabbit with his questions before ramming home the tragic realities of the situation into which she had blundered. No time for imprudent escapades here, he implied, and no room for idle visitors. Just as Amelia began to feel she could not endure this lecture calmly for much longer, he picked up and looked through her papers.

  He said grudgingly: 'Dr Hallow seems to have a good opinion of you.'

  `Then let me stay and work, and prove it.' Her eyes pleaded quietly, and Lotte intervened for the first time to suggest that they could do with help in taking care of the orphaned children. She exchanged a look, a barely perceptible nod with her husband which indicated to Amelia that in spite of his stern attitude he had been aware of the whole story from Lotte already.

  So began the hardest, longest days and nights of Amelia's life. At the camp there were twenty-five children in two large tents set aside for orphans rescued from the ravaged valleys of the island; most of them were unharmed, a few had minor burns, but all were bereft and in a state of shock which was heart-

  breaking. Amelia threw herself into the work, with a Swiss nurse and two native women, to get their emaciated brown bodies and terrified little minds fit enough to stand the journey by air to children's hospitals and homes elsewhere. She cajoled them to eat, cuddled them for comfort and encouraged them to relax by playing simple games, filling up all the set hours and more until she was ready to fall asleep on her feet.

  She became used to the dust, the pervasive stench of sulphur, but the eroding horror of Fire Mountain was her bitterest enemy. Somewhere among those gaseous ravines and lurid trails of lava was a man, searching. Was he still searching? Was he still alive? The helicopter had made one flight in response to his call; then no more. And no more boats sailed into the adjacent bay. The doctors were always preoccupied; Amelia stopped asking them, masking her fears behind an impassive, white-faced exterior. Lotte said, without much conviction, that Donovan's radio must have failed.

  Amela avoided the rest of the unit, the field hospital and big refugee camp; most of all the cameramen avid for anything that would make 'a story'. Every day, after the children's midday meal, when they had been put down to rest and she had hung up wet sheets to keep the dust and fumes out of the tents, she would wander down to the derelict beach to keep watch. And it was not until ten days of this hopeless vigil had passed that she saw the prow of a prahu nosing its way through the pumice towards the shore.

  News of Donovan? Her heart suddenly pounding in her ears, she moved across the beach. A figure rose in the bow and, as the boat drew in, he threw a packet ashore, climbed overboard and waded in with long, slow strides.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  `Donovan ...' she mouthed soundlessly. And again in a high, piercing shriek : `Don!'

  His head came up. 'Oh, my God!' he breathed, and stood still.

  For an aeon they looked at each other across the littered desolation of the beach. Then he passed a hand over his eyes, smearing the sooty lines on his face, and the movement broke their stunned immobility. As he strode forward, Amelia started to
run, tripping over the debris in her frenzied haste, blinded by tears pouring down her cheeks.

  A charred, lacerated stump which had once been the living branch of a tree hit her foot and brought her down with a thud on her knees in ashy sand. Before she could fall flat he had caught her under the armpits and hauled her upright. Half-conscious, she felt the solid reality of his chest, the grip of his fingers, and the hard sinews of his thighs pressed against hers. The regular thud of his heart jarred into the core of her being, telling her he was alive ... alive!

  Frantically she rubbed her hands over his arms, clung to his shoulders with a convulsive gesture, then reached up to grasp his hair as she strained to see his face through a blur of tears. His eyes, intensely

  brilliant in dark-ringed sockets, stared back incredulously.

  She wanted reassurance—and more. She wanted, needed the certainty that he understood the compulsion driving her, and shared it. The turmoil of months of restraint and days of acute anxiety suddenly burst through the old barriers in an uncontrollable flood.

  `How could you! ' she raged, beating on his chest with tight fists. 'How could you do this to me ! Have you any idea what I've been through? As soon as the earth tremors were reported on the news bulletin I knew ... I knew in my bones that you would go. Off to the ends of the earth, without so much as goodbye ... and not another word from you! What do you care about somebody else's private little hell?' She drew a shuddering breath. 'When we heard about the terrible eruption, Polly and Bill were almost as worried as I was. All the Institute could tell us was that you had sent a cable from Bali, and Sarava had no communications. Bill Austin did his best to get whatever news he could, but it was all about the gruesome conditions, never about you. It went on day after day, as if you'd ceased to exist. Don ... I nearly went out of my mind. I had to come ... I had to come myself ! You could have been severely injured—or buried alive in this horrible mess—or dead —or dead !' she wailed, pounding out each broken syllable furiously on his chest.

  `Amelia,' he said hoarsely, grabbing her wrists and holding her off. 'My God, I can't believe you're here. This isn't happening

  `Isn't it?' she broke in wildly. 'Does it look as

  though the sky's fallen in because it's me? Dull, unemotional, boringly predictable Amelia ! —have I upset your precious notions of what to expect from me by chasing you out here and throwing a tantrum?' Her voice rose hysterically. 'You don't think I'm capable of feeling as deeply as other women, do you? Well, I am—but you've been too preoccupied and indifferent to notice.' She wrenched her wrists out of his grasp and shouted : `Do you ever give a damn for those who love you, or consider the cost to them in sheer agony when you

  A sharp whack across the cheek cut her short. She collapsed like a rag doll, and lay for a long time stifling her sobs against him while his hands moved roughly, possessively across her hack. He said, 'I'm sorry I had to do that, but we have to pull ourselves together.'

  Once the paroxysm of weeping had died down, Amelia took out a rag of handkerchief and blew her nose and dabbed the tears on her face.

  `You did give me a shock,' he confessed with an attempt at normality. 'Getting out of the boat I felt so bone weary that when I saw you and heard your voice I thought I was having hallucinations! Then you exploded in my arms, and threw me right off balance.'

  `Oh, Don, I don't know what's been happening to me,' she sniffed dolefully. 'I've bottled it up for so long that I couldn't help myself.'

  `Too long,' he said huskily. Cupping her head, he tilted it up and stared into the bare, drowned look of her eyes. 'Amelia—dear God ! —I can't take it in.

  If only I'd known what was going on behind that calm little face of yours, I would have done this months ago,' and he brought his mouth down on hers in a moving, searching, sensual kiss under which she surrendered not only her lips but the whole fervent warmth of her body.

  The ravages of Fire Mountain disappeared for timeless minutes as the two figures locked together on the beach appeased their craving for each other with a desperation intensified by their recent experiences. Don buried his face in the softness of her throat and muttered : 'Amelia ... love me ...', and his hands were hot on her skin under her thin cotton sweater as he reached up to coax and fondle and mould her body to his. Amelia arched her breast, oblivious of everything except the tumult of her senses, when he suddenly shifted, caught her by the arms and jerked her away. Dazedly she gazed up at him, as if shaken out of a deep sleep.

  `No ! ... no more !' He spoke gruffly. 'Help me to hold on, for God's sake. The conditions here have been so rough that the tensions have become unbearable, and there's a very thin line of control between us.'

  But if we love each other?' she whispered.

  `Amelia,' he drew her to him and heaved a sigh over her upturned face. 'I can't get used to this—my prim, demure darling.' His lips brushed over hers lingeringly. 'You have no business to be here. This is no place

  `While you're here, I'm staying with you,' she asserted vehemently.

  His arms dropped. 'There's nothing left, nothing to stay for. Most of my tribe were blown to kingdom come in the first eruption; some of them who were cultivating their forest patches escaped only to be overcome by the fumes, and the remaining few were drowned in the tidal wave that followed. I rescued as many as I could from other tribes and got them to the camp. Since then I've been searching the ravines —it's all over.'

  Compassion welled up in her for his extreme fatigue and his bleak acceptance that the tribe he had come to know so well had been lost. She put tremulous arms about his neck and drew his head down. But they'll never be forgotten, Don. They'll be there in your book, the way they lived and thought, and worshipped Fire Mountain. And those marvellous characters you met and recorded—they'll be alive for ever, my dearest.'

  `Yes,' he conceded in a muffled tone, 'thank God I had enough time to complete that part of it.' Lifting his head, he said more firmly : 'I'll take you out of here—a few more hours. We'll try and get a plane to Waingapu tomorrow.' He rubbed a hard forefinger over the contours of her face and gave a throaty chuckle. 'You're streaked with soot and tears. And all those pink marks from my damned bristles,' he added ruefully, feeling his stubbled chin. He began to cough in a way that frightened her.

  `Don! ' She clutched at the remains of his shirt. `Don, you're ill!'

  `No, it's the results of the fumes, that's all,' he reassured her. 'My respirator gave out. I kept my nose

  and mouth masked with a handkerchief for a while, but it gets through. I've got a bit of a sore throat, but it should clear up soon now.'

  `Don, I must know the truth.' She strained closer and moaned : 'Don, I can't see you ...' She clapped her palms over her eyes. 'My spectacles, I've lost my spectacles !'

  `Don't panic,' he gave another hoarse chuckle. `They must have dropped when you fell over. Come on, we'll find them,' he said, and took her by the hand. 'Walk carefully.'

  The spectacles were half buried near the signs of her fall close by on the beach, saved from being broken by the fine layer of white ash. Donovan blew on them and passed them to her to polish on her cotton sweater, remarking laconically that his shirt was too grubby. Amelia slid them on, and for the first time saw him clearly enough to be horrified. There were burn weals on his hands, his slacks were frayed and singed and his shirt full of holes and scorch marks. He shrugged off the shirt, rolled it into a ball and tossed it near the tree stump.

  `Cinders,' he said casually, watching the anxious look on her face, 'it was pretty hot in a shirt, but it saved my skin from blistering.'

  She went on staring at him; their glances were engrossed, telling each other with their eyes what they had whispered so incoherently together a few minutes before. She stretched out a hand and pressed it gently over the smooth brown skin and dark hair of his chest. 'I love, you, Amelia,' he said unsteadily, clasping her hand and carrying it up to his lips to kiss her

  wrist and palm. 'We must be sensible, sweetheart. Wa
it here while I go and fetch my pack.'

  He walked quickly away to the edge of the sea and picked up the small oilskin package he had flung out before climbing overboard. For a moment he stood watching the boat slowly disappearing around the island through heavy, pumice-strewn water; someone signalled with both arms from the stern and Donovan acknowledged it with a wave.

  As he rejoined Amelia she could see how spent he was, and at the same time she marvelled at the stamina which had kept him going for days in the most appalling circumstances. What if he should succumb to another bout of jungle fever before they could get back to Dr Hallow? she thought worriedly.

  She was filled with overwhelming love and solicitude which must have shown in her face, for he touched her cheek caressingly and said with a hint of wry amusement : 'For the love of heaven, don't look at me like that ! '

  `A cat may look at a king,' she retorted with a shaky laugh, the first genuine laughter for many unhappy weeks.

  He smiled. 'Oh, I'm much humbler clay, my dear heart, an ordinary man with all the usual selfish needs and failings, as you'll soon find out. If there is one thing I know about you it's that you've never been catty to anyone, but if you really love me I shall feel like a king!'

  She laughed again, tenderly, a tiny well-spring of joy bubbling up inside her. 'Haven't I proved I love

  you by coming here? And I'm willing to prove it still further in any way you want.'

  `Anything?' His brows went up in mock astonishment.

  `Ask, and you'll see.'

  `Don't tempt me!' He caught her hand and turned her smartly around. Now, tell me how you got here. How long ago; and where have you been sheltering?'