Flames Coming out of the Top

by Norman Collins

  At the first shudder, panic broke out in the crowd. They all began to run. Direction did not matter; it was movement they were desperate for. And in a town of rushing people fights began. Small groups of terrified inhabitants running from some apparent danger spot would meet new groups desperately striving to run the other way. In the encounter they often fought madly, treading each other underfoot, as though life depended simply on changing places.

  Dunnett himself got trapped in a mob frantically racing down the Plaza los Toros. He had come down from his room when the hotel, without warning, started dancing under his feet, and had gone out into the open. There he was caught in the flow of refugees from the neighbouring houses. Everyone was insanely running westwards. The men led at the double, and the women, dragging their screaming children after them, brought up the rear. To resist was impossible. Soon Dunnett was running too. Then the civic abattoirs at the western end of the Plaza suddenly collapsed in a shambles of cattle and brickwork, and the crowd, in its agony of terror, reversed its movement and started pouring back again. A woman and two young children lost their lives at the moment when the motion was reversed; they were a little in the rear and simply got knocked down and trampled upon. People could feel them underfoot as they passed over them, but were powerless to stop.

  A minute or so after leaving the hotel, therefore, Dunnett found himself running past it again in the middle of a charging gang. But this time it was not only in his legs. It was in his blood. He was no longer an isolated human being. He was part of the mob by now, with a mob’s mind and a mob’s sense of power. It was an unharnessed corporate intelligence that was directing him. When at last he fell out and drew back into a doorway, allowing the rest of them to shoot past him, he felt as though he had been wrenched violently away from a part of himself.

  And the Fiery Mountain meanwhile had been getting on with things. There were flames coming out of the top, great banners and streamers of them waving there. The whole mountain was behaving like one of Señor Muras’s fireworks. It might have been stuffed with naphtha from the noise that it was making. For about two hundred yards above the summit the entire air was on fire; the atmosphere itself was blazing. Occasionally something larger and still solid at the core would be coughed up into the clouds to come down heaven-knows-where, still flaming. But for the most part the volcano behaved in the strictly regulated routine of its kind. There were three distinct phases. First there was the quiescent period during which it would be patiently working itself up for something really spectacular; during this time there would be very little to show that the volcano was not still unenergetic and dormant—a thin wisp of smoke, perhaps, a little steam and a glow, more noticeable by night than by day: that would be all. Then would come a sort of April of unrest during which anything might happen. The smoke and the steam and the glow would all increase. Fresh loads of white hot stones would be shot up. Sudden spurts of flame, like snapdragons in a Christmas pudding, only a hundred yards in height, would dart up from the centre of the crater and break away at the tips, going sailing off into the heavens and burning like a fire balloon. Lava would at last begin to appear oozing through the crevasses like scalding streamers of treacle. But that would be about all. It was the third and final phase that was important. Then the machinery would really begin to move. It usually opened with a bit more of the outer casings being shed. There would be another lurch like the first, and two or three thousand tons of rock would go up in the air again. Nor was this merely destruction without propagation. For no sooner had such a cleavage occurred than another and smaller volcano would start up where the new hole was. Soon the Fiery Mountain was emptying itself at five places at once, pouring out gushes of lava from its unimaginable cauldron. The lava itself marched down the side of the hill, a white-hot, invincible wall of death. It captured the road without pausing and went on down the quiet hillside below. And all this time the flames themselves had been increasing. They now came up steadily, roaring like a blow lamp.

  Ash, moreover, began to form. It was an infinitely thin white ash almost like sifted flour. Only it was hot. It stuck to things. Soon the buildings looked as though they had been finely powdered with snow. It added enormously to the look of the place. But it went on too long.

  The fall of ash further demoralised the inhabitants; it knocked the last bit of courage out of them. As soon as they felt this hot, insidious deposit actually touch their hands and faces they became convinced that they were being burned alive. Too terrified to re-enter their tottering houses, and unable to remain where they were, they started to flee. But all in one direction this time—away from the Fiery Mountain. The flight had the pathetic quality common to most mass retreats in that it was useless. The ash was already a mile or so out to sea before they started; and ash blown by a strong wind—a small gale had naturally sprung up as soon as the mountain top went rocketing off—travels faster than a frightened man. But the crowd did not give up. They continued to run, choking and weeping as they went. At first the men were leading only by a few paces but, as the exodus continued, they gradually outdistanced the women and children. The women came stumbling along a roadway scarred and seared by the ashen footprints of their masters.

  It was mainly the poor—the real poor—who ran away. Their houses being made only of wood were naturally the first to collapse. And fires broke out in their quarter. The rich fled, too; but they went by car, making retreat more dangerous still for the retreating poor. Next to the poor, the rich had suffered most. Their stately, porticoed villas were made for dignity rather than resilience. And when they collapsed, it was something worth talking about. Only the middle-class escaped. Having no crystal chandeliers to come crashing on their heads, and not living in pitch-pine boxes, they all but escaped. They remained where they were, standing in the shelter of their doorways watching the frantic figures pour past.

  Dunnett himself had walked back to the Avenida. He had become curiously detached. Now that he was no longer in the crowd, all sense of fear had left him. Even excitement had departed. He was merely a calm, superior Englishman watching a lot of unfortunate foreigners running away from something. And a ridiculously triumphant refrain kept running through his mind. “I have been through an earthquake and I’m still all right,” he kept saying. “I’ve seen a mountain go up in flames and nothing’s happened to me.” The mere fact of immunity seemed to confer some special distinction upon him.

  As for the Avenida, it had been fortunate. Already sagging with age, it had merely drooped for a moment and then recovered itself. A little plaster had come down in most of the rooms, the staircase had taken on a new angle of abandon and one or two pictures had come down. In the whole hotel the only thing that had suffered really badly was Señor Alvarez, the landlord. He had fallen downstairs in a mad rush from the bedroom where he had been resting, and now lay on a couch in the hall screaming that the roof was falling on him.

  Outside, the exodus continued far into the night. The streets were full of the sound of tramping feet, the creaking of wagon wheels and the noise of cars. Amricante was emptying itself. And all quite unnecessarily. For the Fiery Mountain had got the worst over. With its top gone and its sides open, it could now breathe. It was no longer a throttled terror ready to blow the whole town into space. It was merely an intensely angry fire that could not burn itself out; there was no danger to anyone who had the sense not to go too near. But no one, of course, was to know that. And, with the coming of night, the appearance of danger increased rather than diminished. The sky lit up in a great purple bowl; and the flames, the long ones, continued to leap up like pennons. Also, the lava provided its own minor spectacle. Anything inflammable that it touched was immediately ignited. Thus the blazing cone was surrounded by a ring of smaller fires. These sent up their own contributions of smoke; and the smoke in turn reflected the fire. Altogether it was as though Hell had been transplanted to a mountain top.

  At midnight Dunnett grew tired of watching and went to bed. But going to bed w
as not by any means the same thing as sleeping. The ash continued to fall and someone had closed the window against it: which meant that the room was not a chamber at all but a small, ferocious oven. The heat hit Dunnett in the face as he entered; it took his breath away, and before he had been inside a couple of minutes he was sweating again, sweating after he had thought that the last drop had been drained from him. Moreover, trying to sleep required courage of a sort. He was no longer nervous—not while he was awake, at least. But to trust the Fiery Mountain to behave itself while he was asleep was another matter.

  The coming of morning changed the face of everything. The ash that was still descending danced in the sunlight in a rich amber glow; it was as though theatrical spotlights were being trained on everything. And the whole town looked as though it had been sugared. Everything was buried in a six-inch sediment of flaky dust.

  But already life was returning to normal. Along the road, the first few stragglers and the long army of refugees were returning. They had the shame-faced, hang-dog look of people who had funked it. They shuffled through the streets with a noise like people walking on leaves, and stopped at intervals to empty out their shoes. By ten o’clock, sweepers were out clearing up the ash, shovelling it into carts by the spadeful, and one or two enterprising shopkeepers took down their shutters. Dunnett left the hotel and took a walk through the stricken city.

  It was the Plaza los Toros that had suffered most. A great crack, widening from a mere crevice a few inches broad to a six-foot chasm ran from corner to corner, as though a gigantic plough had been run clean across the square; and the Opera House had been unlucky enough to stand at the six foot end. After the second tremor it looked as though it had been shelled. The imposing colonnade of caryatids had come clean away and lay a disordered heap of marble arms and bosoms on the steps below. Not a bit of it remained; and the building looked unfinished without it. The end caryatid collapsed first. In those lurid moments, her neck broke. Soon her sister’s went too; and so on all along the line. They just gave in; and the triumphal entablature became merely a mass of jumbled masonry. Nor was this all. The fissure ran right across the town’s gas-main. The ends of the pipe could be seen sticking out of the sides of the hole with two feet of empty space between them. Someone had had the fore-thought to stuff the ends up with a wet rag, but not before there had been a secondary but still startling explosion in the neighbourhood of a man who had sauntered past smoking a cigar, and congratulating himself on his safety.

  The towering mass of the Cathedral of San Antonio appeared at first sight to be as solid as the day on which it had been built; and the religious said it was a sign. But the inside presented a picture of almost insane confusion. The painted ceiling had come down entire; and in coming down it had stripped the walls and pillars. Everything that had hung there—crucifixes, calvaries, framed Stations of the Cross, reliquaries, standard holders, collecting boxes, all lay on the floor with eighteen inches of plaster and plywood on top of them. The high altar in particular was scarcely to be recognised. The costly hangings had been the first to fall. They were already draped over the candlesticks and crosses before the ceiling came down. In consequence the downpour descended on an undulating sea of brocade; when it was all over, the east end of the nave looked more like an ant hill than an altar.

  There were also grimmer sights. At intervals groups of people were digging about in the ruins looking for things— and finding them. Sometimes it was only a household treasure —a clock or a silver tray—but just as often it was a shoe or the side of a coat. And then the digging would redouble with all the frenzy of forlorn hope. The priests simply walked up and down the streets seeing where they would be wanted first. The undertakers were inundated and mass burials were being talked about.

  When Dunnett returned to the Avenida, he felt melancholy and a little sick. For some of them, this vagary on the part of the Fiery Mountain had been a great deal more than a frontpage sensation. He remembered in particular one distracted woman, with a great coil of black hair hanging down her back, who had at last discovered a battered, unrecognisable doll in the ruins of her house and was wildly calling out that the doll had belonged to someone—he could not hear whom— who was missing.

  The earthquake and the scene of desolation that had followed had knocked all thought of Señor Muras clean out of his mind.

  When he got back to the Avenida, however, he found Señor Olivares’s confidential clerk awaiting him. The youth was as neat and exquisite as ever, as though he were immune from earthquakes. He appeared embarrassed about something and kept shifting from one brown-and-white shoe to the other. When he saw Dunnett his expression brightened but his embarrassment increased.

  “I am glad you are safe,” he said.

  Dunnett thanked him and began to brush some of the dust off himself. He looked as though he had been carting cement.

  “May I speak with you?” the youth asked. “Certainly,” Dunnett replied. “Go ahead.”

  “But not here, please. Somewhere private.”

  “Isn’t this private enough?”

  The youth shook his head. “I must ask,” he said gravely, “for us to be quite alone.”

  “Just as you please,” Dunnett replied. “We can speak upstairs if you’d rather.”

  Once in the bedroom the youth did not attempt to conceal his contempt for it. Before he sat down on the chair which Dunnett offered him he tried the legs one by one to see if they were safe. But he came straight to the point of his visit.

  “Señor Muras has gone,” he said. “I know that,” Dunnett replied.

  “Moreover he has dismissed me,” the youth continued, “Señor Olivares gave me my notice yesterday.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Dunnett told him.

  “I am therefore without employment at the moment.” The youth paused.

  “If you’ve come to me for a job, I can’t help you,” Dunnetl answered. “I haven’t got any jobs to offer anyone.”

  The youth seemed offended. “I came to offer you information,” he said.

  “What sort of information?”

  “Very important information—about Señor Muras.”

  “All right then. Let’s hear it.”

  The youth’s embarrassment returned. “But you do not understand,” he said. “I wish to sell my information.”

  Dunnett sat back and regarded him. His lavender-coloured suit flared out to high padded points on his shoulders, curved gracefully over his dancer’s waist, and enclosed his firm young hips like a mould.

  “I don’t buy information,” Dunnett told him.

  The youth appeared perplexed. The padded shoulders rose and fell. “It is highly confidential,” he said. “It affects you very closely. It is about the money Señor Muras owes you.”

  “How do you know that Señor Muras owes me money?”

  “Señor Muras owes everyone money.”

  “Well, what of it?”

  “I know where Señor Muras is.”

  Dunnett leant forward. “You do?”

  The youth did not reply immediately. He appeared to be debating inwardly within himself. At last he summoned up courage and put his proposal forward. “Mr. Dunnett,” he said, “we are both gentlemen. Between gentlemen there can be a bond of honour. If I give you my information, will you reward me when you get your money?”

  Dunnett considered the point. “How did you get your information?” he asked.

  “I was Señor Olivares’s confidential clerk,” the youth answered simply. “He trusted me.”

  Dunnett paused; this was something he couldn’t consult Mr. Govern about. “It’s not my money to give away,” he replied. “But if I get the money through your assistance I’ll see that the firm rewards you. I give you my word for it.”

  The youth bowed his head in assent. Then he came forward until his face almost touched Dunnett’s ear. “He has gone to the Canagua on business,” he said.

  “Canagua—where’s that?”

  �
�Up in the Gran Chaco. In the heart of it past Sandar.”

  “When is he coming back?”

  “He will not come back,” the youth replied decisively. “When the deal is through, he will have a great fortune. He will be too rich for anyone to stop him.”

  “Are you sure he’ll put the deal through?” Dunnett asked.

  The youth shrugged his shoulders. “He is a very good business man and there is a great shortage of arms,” he replied. “The Government cannot afford to do without him. Canagua is an arsenal by now. Every week his lorries have gone away loaded: he has had men moving stuff all the time. During the last twelvemonth he has thought of nothing else. He has not settled any debts. He has just bought and bought and bought.”

  Dunnett paused. “How long does it take to get to Canagua?” he asked.

  “About seven days: two in the train and five in a boat.” The youth allowed the point to sink in. “But the depot is not at Canagua,” he added. “It is at Subrico, up country about fifty miles.”

  “How do you get there then?”

  “By horse. There is no other way. All the cars have been commandeered.”

  “Is it a difficult journey?”

  “Not to anyone who knows the country.”

  “You mean I should want a guide?”

  “Certainly. If you travel alone you will not be seen again.”

  “But I haven’t said I’m going yet,” Dunnett reminded him.

  “It is the only way,” the youth replied. “After the deal is over, Señor Muras will disappear.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Dunnett promised.

  The youth rose. “There is no time,” he said. “The train leaves at midnight. It departs only on Tuesdays.”

  Dunnett paused. “I’ll let you know in an hour.”