by John Harris
He paused a second longer, wondering what to do as he saw the lights disappear, then realising he was too late to do anything at all, he turned tail and ran, just before the wall of water swept down on him too and carried him with it across the square and the beach, bearing all the little boats and their crews with it into the greater depths of the sea.
Thirty-nine
The lava that burst out of the mountainside after the hot water swept through Fumarola, shouldering aside walls and trees as it headed for the bay. There was no one to see its downward surge except for the few who had taken refuge on the slopes, for the village was already silent, and it poured onwards over the end of the piazza and fell into the sea which immediately exploded into a tortured roaring as the water dissolved into vast screaming clouds of steam. Gigantic waves leapt up as the sea sprang back from the touch of the white-hot moving rock and receded from the little beach, before recoiling on itself to sweep back again and carry away all the houses nearest to the waterfront. Beneath the shrieking of the steam, the waves then hurtled in whirlpools across the bay towards the Porto where the lights indicated the people being embarked on the ships.
Urged on by the crew of the Great Watling Street, the women and children of the Porto were spilling across the deck, hurrying along under the pushes of the officers, until the whole afterpart of the ship was jammed with yelling people.
The men on the shore were still struggling round the end of the gangway, trying to be in an advantageous position for the moment when Hannay gave the order for them to join their families, shouting advice to their relations across the strip of turbulent black water that separated them.
‘Hurry up,’ Hannay was shouting. ‘Avanti! Come on, let’s have the men aboard now!’
Two or three men and a youth pushed forward, then the commotion broke out again in the crowd, and Hannay saw Devoto emerge from the turmoil and struggle to the front, his shirt torn from his back, his eyes wild, his mouth bleeding.
‘Now stop me,’ he screamed up to the bridge. ‘Now stop me, you robber! If he goes, I go! If I can’t go, then he stays and suffers too and the Holy Mother of God have pity on us both!’
The crowd broke apart beneath his blows as he wrenched aside one of the men on the gangway and plunged towards the deck of the Great Watling Street.
Then, from nowhere, violent waves, stirred by the tremendous upheaval at Fumarola, began to smack against the side of the ship – rolling into the entrance of the harbour from the south, great lifting swells that shone with a weird green glow as the searchlight from the Procida cut across their tips. The Great Watling Street begin to heave so that the crowd on the after deck staggered together and a woman fell down the companionway and started to scream as though she had broken a limb; then they heard the ship groaning, and the monstrous thumps and clangs as she ground against the mole. The gangway started to swing and, jamming against a bollard ashore, buckled like a pulled bow.
Another violent wave smacked against her and everybody grabbed for a hold as a flood of water shot up over the seaward side, drenching the wailing women and children. The three on the gangway, Devoto, the youth and the other man, jumped for the ship, but the gangway shot violently upwards again, and Hannay saw Devoto and the boy, who were in the middle, lose their balance, spin round as they were flung against the slack ropes, and disappear, their arms and legs whirling like catherine wheels.
Suddenly the crowded gangway was empty, its planks still swaying, its ropes swinging as the ship slammed against the wall. A woman, who appeared to be the mother of the youth, began to shriek in a harsh animal fashion and, fighting her way to the side of the ship, hung over the rail, moaning, her hair over her face, all her neighbours supporting her as she stretched her arms helplessly downwards. The crowd on the mole moved cautiously to the edge and peered down and, for a moment, the shouting welled up round the woman’s grief.
Hannay swallowed quickly and turned to Anderson.
‘A torch ’ere,’ he shouted and Anderson directed a light downwards between the ship and the wall. But in the pit between the steel and the stone, the black water that lashed and swung ferociously was already empty.
‘They never had a chance,’ Anderson said.
Hannay drew a deep breath. ‘God ’ave mercy on their immortal souls,’ he added quietly.
Before he could let his thoughts dwell any further on Devoto’s death, the Chief Engineer appeared beside him.
‘You’ll need to get away from here,’ he shouted, ‘or you’ll be aground. The tide’s gone mad. We touched bottom just now.’
‘We’ll stay,’ Hannay said.
‘You’ll lose the ship.’
‘We’ll stay,’ Hannay repeated, and he began to shout down his megaphone again to the people on shore to hurry.
A couple of men, plucking up their courage at the sight of their families wailing on the swaying deck, made a dash across the buckling gangway as the ship settled, and flung themselves on board as she rose again to hammer herself against the sea wall on the vast rollers that smashed across the harbour and overturned the small boats and yachts on to the beach, beating them back in splintered wreckage and scattered spars.
The masts of the Great Watling Street were swinging majestically across the ugly sky and the lights of the Procida and the other ships beyond the wall rose and fell in crazy angles, crushing the mat of whalers and gigs that lay under their sides.
‘For Christ’s sake,’ Anderson yelled in alarm as he stared at the sea.
‘Shut your rattle, Mister,’ Hannay said, unmoved, ‘and get these people aboard.’
He swung an arm in the direction of the beach where the Procida’s searchlight picked out the stumbling figures splashing in the surf among the wrecked boats.
‘Take a look at that lot. We’re the only means now of getting these poor bastards off.’
He could see the flames now in the harbour area as the fires there began to catch hold. In the glare, he saw the crowd huddled in the Piazza del Mare begin to split up as they realised the boats on the beach could not possibly remove them all now, and begin to run towards the mole and the Great Watling Street, at first in ones and twos, then in groups, then in a great flood that left the piazza bare and swelled the shouting mass round the ship’s gangplank.
The gusts of wind that had started to spring up again were whipping showers of sparks into the blood-red curtain of smoke that coiled upwards to join that belching from Amarea. Then, while the people were still scrambling aboard the rolling ship, the light from the mountain died and the noise suddenly stopped and they were enveloped in a stillness over which they could hear voices calling on the beach, and the barking of dogs in the Piazza del Mare. The red streaks of lava glowed bright again at the crater and, as a new outflow spilled over the old, a swifter stream flowed down the mountain.
High above their heads, the whistling sigh seemed to fill the whole of the heavens. The scene was still tinted red like a view of hell but the glow was dying and the moon was blotted out by the smoke pall that hung over the island. The golden streaks of lava died and the glare faded out of the flames. Then the town went dark and there was no sign of anything beyond the lights of the ship and a few scattered fires.
Hannay sniffed, hanging on to the wing bridge to keep his balance as the ship rolled.
‘Sulphur,’ he said.
Almost as he spoke, there was a cry from the edge of the crowd and he felt something on his face, brushing it like cobwebs.
‘Ash!’
He could see it now, falling through the curtain of light round the ship, a drifting grey pall in which the dust motes gleamed and danced; then bigger particles began to fall, some of them as large as plums and still red hot, bouncing and clattering across the mole and the decks and falling into the sea as they hit the booms of the ship. The crowd ashore began to yell again.
‘Mister Anderson,’ Hannay shouted, ‘send someone round the ship. Close all the ports and all the ventilators. Come on, jump abou
t a bit! Push planks across to the mole. They’ve got to take their chance. Get these people aboard faster and get ’em under cover. Get ’em below. Pack ’em in anywhere. Then stand by the mooring lines. We’ll be leaving soon.’
The crowd farther down towards the Piazza del Mare had started to wail again in a high hopeless note, then they began to break away and run back along the mole, at first in ones and twos and finally in whole groups, breaking off the mass of people like the crumbling away of a landslide, holding handkerchiefs over their mouths as they scuttled along the basalt blocks to hammer at the doors of houses in the square until they were let inside, crowding into the entrances of the tumble down tenement buildings, cramming the little shops and cafés and the hovels of the fishermen which lined the beach. Their faces were already grey, the ash caking on the perspiration, and the air was thick with dust. There was a film over everything, and small pellets of hot cinder fell from Hannay’s shoulders and down his clothes every time he moved.
Then an unrecognisable figure supporting a woman appeared in front of him, their feet squeaking on the cinders that littered the decks.
‘Captain Hannay! Thank God!’
Only the voice told him it was Hayward. The lines on his face were etched in by grey dust and caked with sweat.
Hannay bawled at a scared apprentice: ‘Saloon. Take ’em to the saloon.’
‘Thank you. Thank you, Captain.’
‘You’re welcome, I’m sure.’
The air was hot enough now to catch at the throat and the few people who still remained on the mole were lifting their arms to guard their faces, while the women were shrouding the children with their shawls and their coats, even stripping off their frocks to wrap around them, as the ash left grey-white layers as it fell.
The whole world seemed to be on the move and above the cries of the people ashore Hannay could hear an ugly hissing sound from the cinders that fell into the sea.
The last few people were dragged aboard. A man who couldn’t make up his mind turned and ran for the piazza, and Hannay stared after him for a few moments longer, standing on the bridge, his eyes on the empty mole waiting for stragglers, hoping against hope that Patch would appear, then he turned and shouted to Anderson who was fighting his way through the crowd to the forecastle head.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Stand by to let go.’
Forty
The Via Pescatori was deserted when Patch arrived and as he stumbled out of the darkness, the great block of apartments where he had lived rang hollowly to the clatter of his shoes in the hall. The shouts of Mamma Meucci’s children and the cries of babies, the noise of footsteps and the slamming doors had gone. Old Tornielli’s breathy trombone was silent and there was no sound of argument, no brassy blare from the inevitable wireless set. The whole building seemed forsaken.
Then he saw Piero Tornielli huddled at the bottom of the stone stairs, his shape enormous against the chipped plaster in the light that was reflected through the doorway and off the tiles of the hall.
He looked up briefly as Patch appeared alongside him, then his head slumped again.
‘Tornielli! Where is everybody?’ Patch felt no emotion for the boy at that moment, no dislike, no enmity, in spite of his lies, only a great thankfulness at finding someone alive.
Tornielli shook his head wearily and made no attempt to reply.
‘Where is everybody?’ Patch repeated.
There was a burst of muffled drumming from the mountain that made the banisters buzz, and Tornielli jumped.
‘Tornielli!’
The boy looked up but his expression was dazed and he seemed stupefied by the noise and his own fear. As he crouched down again on the stairs, Patch jumped forward and snatched him up by the padded shoulders of his smart city suit.
‘You pathetic imitation of a politician,’ he said, losing his temper and shaking Piero so that his head rolled round on his shoulders, limp and uncontrollable. ‘Where is everybody? Answer me!’
‘They’ve gone. They’ve all gone to the mole and the beach. There’s no one left.’
As Patch brushed past him and set off up the stairs, Tornielli raised his head, his face grey with fatigue. ‘She’s not there,’ he said heavily. ‘She’s gone.’
Patch bounded down the stairs again and, grabbing the boy, hoisted him to his feet once more.
‘Where’s she gone?’ he demanded.
‘Up the mountain. Towards the Villa Forla. After the old man. He’s gone to the crater. He took his camera.’
Patch stared out into the dark street. Through the open doorway, the brutish roaring of the mountain came to him like an enraged animal.
‘Up the mountain? My God, how?’
‘He took my Lambretta–’
‘Never mind the old man. What about Cecilia?’
‘She went on foot.’
Patch threw Tornielli aside and he sank down on the stairs again.
In the street, Patch stared round him, then he saw Meucci’s bicycle standing in the hall. He dragged it through the doorway with a rattle of loose mudguards and jumped into the saddle, heading out of the Via Pescatori for the slope of the hill towards Forla’s palace.
The road out of the town was dark and narrow and several times Patch almost fell off the ancient bicycle as he ran into ruts. The air between the clustered buildings was stifling and his clothes were clinging to his body. There was no lamp on the machine but he managed to find his way by the rising and falling glare from the mountain and from the flames where a portion of the eastern end of the town was blazing. Several times he ran into bundles which had been dropped in the rush for the beach and the mole, scattered across the street and in the doorways that stood agape, empty and desolate, just as they had been flung open in the first frantic dash for the ships.
Near the Church of Sant’ Antonio on the edge of the town, he came across a cart with a broken wheel, a tasselled mule still attached to it by one twisted leather harness strap.
It looked up at him in mute appeal as he approached, so he stopped and released it. As it stumbled away, it put its foot on the front wheel of the bicycle where he had dropped it in the road, and halted again, patient, stupid and dumb, the wheel round its hoof like a broken wreath.
For a while, Patch tried frantically to disengage it but the mule refused to lift its foot and he was almost reduced to tears of frustration and impatience.
‘Oh, Christ,’ he muttered to himself in desperation as he struggled. ‘Oh, God Jesus Christ!’
Then he realised he was beginning to panic and that the din from the mountain had been acting like a spur and was making him drive himself harder and harder until he was almost exhausted. He forced himself to pause and lit a cigarette to calm himself down. Blowing out smoke, he patted the mule’s sweaty flank.
‘OK, chum,’ he said. ‘You keep it. It’s all yours. You won it in fair fight.’
A roar from the mountain made him look up and he caught his breath as he saw the lava stretching down the slopes like golden veins. It was the first time he had realised the crater had overflowed at last after all its threats, and he stood motionless, staggered by the majesty of it.
Tearing himself away as he remembered Cecilia, he set off at a stumbling run up the road and, as though in return for his efforts to behave rationally, just beyond the last of the houses he saw a little green Fiat, which he recognised by the number as the Haywards’, slewed broadside on, its rear wheels hanging over the ditch, jammed against one of the Agipgas signs that studded the roadside all the way round the island.
‘My God,’ he breathed. ‘If only I can!’
With torn and bleeding fingers, he dragged down the wall behind it and tossed the stones under the overhanging wheels until he had almost filled the ditch. Panting, he climbed inside the car and released the brake so that the weight of the vehicle pushed over the sign and flattened it to the stones he had thrown there. Climbing out again and leaving the door swinging, he jammed more stones behind the rear w
heels.
He was gasping in the hot noisy air as he dropped behind the wheel again. With a shaking hand, he put the car into gear and revved the engine until it was screaming. Then he slammed off the brake and let the clutch pedal out.
The Fiat leapt forward, flinging the stones backwards, rocked dangerously so that he thought it was going over on its side as he wrenched its nose round, and leapt out of the ditch with a jerk. Swerving madly across the road, its headlights sweeping the fields as he fought with the steering-wheel, it finally rocked back on to an even keel in the centre of the road, with Patch huddled gasping over the dashboard.
‘Thank God,’ he breathed. ‘Thank God, thank God, thank God!’
For a second, he sat motionless in the driver’s seat, alone, like an oasis of life in the deserted road, blinded with sweat and weak with exhaustion. Then he wiped his face with his hands and put the car in motion, climbing slowly up the hill, holding the wheel with trembling fingers, knowing that without the great luck he had had in stumbling across it, his attempt to find Cecilia was almost hopeless.
The road was getting steeper as he drove, winding in and out of the high-banked fields. He had left the town behind now and was heading upwards between the tall hedges of oleander and fuchsia that bordered the neat little villas strung along the mountainside. They all seemed empty, their owners left for the mole and the beach, and their doors stood open, black mouths in the glare that stretched the sooty shadows of trees across the road.
Then, as he rounded a bend, he saw Cecilia in the headlights, waving madly, a ghostly figure in the glow.
