The Angry Mountain

by Hammond Innes

  “Couldn’t you sleep?”

  “I slept for a bit,” I told him. “Then I felt ill. I’m afraid I had too much to drink.”

  “Where’ve you been—for a walk round the grounds?”

  “No. I tell you, I felt ill. Somebody was calling for Roberto and Agostino. Was that you?”

  “Yeah. That was me. Where exactly have you been? When I heard you were here I went up to your room to say Hullo, but you weren’t there. Where were you?”

  “I tell you, I felt ill. I was in the lavatory.”

  “In the lavatory?” He suddenly laughed. I think he was convinced then that I wasn’t suspicious. “Well, what do you think of the local firework display?” he asked. “Quite a sight, isn’t it? There’s tourists rubber-necking on the road between here and Avin.”

  “It’s incredible,” I murmured. “Do you think it will get serious?”

  “Can’t say. Never seen anything like this in the two years I’ve had this place. The mountain’s always been quiet as a mouse.”

  “Are you the owner of this villa?” I asked him.

  “Yeah. Didn’t Zina tell you?”

  “No.” And then I added, “I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have come if I’d known.”

  “Maybe that’s why Zina didn’t tell you. Zina’s an old friend of mine. If she wanted to bring you out here, that’s okay by me.”

  I was getting accustomed to the weird light now and I could see that his eyes were watching me closely all the time. I think if I hadn’t been so wrought-up I’d have found the situation funny. There was I with whatever it was he wanted in the hollow of my artificial leg and he didn’t know how to get it out of me. “I think I’ll go back to bed now,” I said.

  He nodded and got to his feet. “Me, too. But first I’m going to have a drink. What will you have?”

  “Nothing, thank you.”

  “Oh, come on now. You’re not going to make me drink alone, are you?”

  “I’ve had too much to-night already,” I reminded him.

  “Nonsense. I insist.” He was over at the drink table. I couldn’t see what he was doing, but I heard the clink of glass. I started towards the door, but he stopped me. “Here you are, Farrell. A straight cognac. Just the thing you need.”

  “No, really—I’d rather not.” I was edging towards the door all the time.

  “Damn it, man, it won’t bite you.” His voice had sharpened. The light caught his eyes and they glowed like two coals in the half-dark. He’d almost certainly drugged it, but if I didn’t take it I was afraid he’d try some other method of getting what he wanted.

  “All right,” I said. I took the glass.

  “Well, up she goes.”

  “Cheers,” I said and raised the glass to my lips. It was cognac all right. I tipped it up and let it spill down inside my jacket. I thought he couldn’t possibly see in the dark, but he did.

  “Why do you do that?”

  I’d slipped up and I knew it, for he’d spoken softly, almost menacingly. And there was no pretence of an American accent. It was Dr. Sansevino speaking in English.

  I didn’t say anything and we faced each other. There was a sudden void in the pit of my stomach and the hairs crawled along my scalp. We were no longer play acting now. We were face to face—I knowing who he was, and he knowing that I knew. I slid my hand to my jacket pocket. It was a mistake. He saw the movement and knew that I was armed. He dived for the piano. Propped against the music rest I caught the dull gleam of metal. As he picked it up my hand tightened on the butt of the automatic.

  And in that moment the rectangular space of the window blossomed in a monstrous flower of flame that went roaring out across the sky. With it came a noise that seemed to fill the heavens with sound. It was like fifty thousand express trains thundering through a tunnel. It was like a tornado sweeping over the open gates of Hell. It was a lion’s roar magnified until it shook the earth. The villa trembled to its foundations. The ground on which it was built rocked. It was as though the world were splitting open under the impact of another planet.

  I saw Sansevino standing with the revolver in his hand staring at the window as though transfixed. His features shone with sweat in the ruddy glare. I followed the direction of his gaze and saw that the whole summit of Vesuvius was on fire. Two great fire gashes streaked the mountainside and from the crater a great column rose, red at the base with the reflected glow, but darkening to a hellish black as it opened out, writhing and twisting as though in agony. And where it blackened and spilled outwards across the sky it was criss-crossed with vivid flashes of forked lightning.

  The noise went on and on, prolonging itself unbelievably. It was the noise of an angry mountain—a mountain breaking wind from the distended bowels of its rock stomach. Its gases and lava-excreta were being sprayed out of its crater orifice—thousands on thousands of feet upwards.

  I stood absolutely motionless, unable to move, the sight was so staggering, the noise so terrifying. In a mental flash I saw Pompeii, buried under its millions of tons of hot ash, men and women caught and held in the midst of their daily life to be exhibited to tourists two thousand years later. Was this the same? Was this noise the roof of the mountain being blown to airborne fragments? Were we to be buried here for the benefit of archaeologists years hence?

  All these thoughts and half my life poured through my mind as I stared up at that ghastly sight, the noise dinning in my ears so that it seemed as though there never could be any other sound in all the world.

  Then, as suddenly as it had started, it ceased. The abrupt stillness seemed somehow more frightening than the noise. The noise had died to a faint, whistling sigh high up in the black sky. It was as though it had never been and all living things were dead and silent. Through the rectangular frame of the window the world looked just the same, the vineyards and orange groves serene and tranquil. But the light had changed. The scene was no longer saffron-tinted. It was red—red as Hell itself. The moon had been blotted out. The scene was lit only by the end of the red glow of the mountain.

  And then slowly the fires died down. The light seemed to go out of the scene, as though I were watching the sunset glow and the rim of the sun was sinking below the horizon. I looked up towards the mountain. The red streaks of the lava flow were gradually fading. A curtain was being drawn over the mountain, veiling the terrible red anger of it. In a moment it was black as the pit. And as the glow vanished all the world went black. I could see nothing—no sign of the vineyards or the orange trees, not even the shape of the window outlined against the night outside.

  And then the gentle hissing sound of something falling— continuously and relentlessly. It was like the sound of hail. But it wasn’t hail. It had a heavy, sulphurous smell. It was ash raining down from the mountain above.

  I knew then what to expect. This was it—the rain of ash that had buried Pompeii. The history of the mountain was repeating itself. I felt suddenly calm, almost detached. There is a moment after you have been badly frightened when you accept death as the inevitable, logical conclusion. That was how I felt as I stared at the black, sulphurous night with its sifting sound of falling ash. I accepted it, and once having accepted it I didn’t mind so much.

  And now I became conscious of other sounds. A woman was screaming. A door banged and footsteps ran along the corridor overhead. The villa seemed suddenly to have come to life. It was like the relief of the jungle after it has been frozen to stillness by the hunting roar of a lion. Sansevino came to life, too. He turned and ran to the door. As he passed me he cried, “The cars. Presto! Presto!”

  I turned and followed him. A torch was bobbing towards me down the stairs. The beam showed a grey curtain of ash sifting down from the top of the villa. The tiny particles gleamed and danced in the light. The torch flashed on my face and Zina’s voice said, “Che dobbiamo fare? Che dob-biamo fare?”

  I could hear Sansevino shouting for Roberto. “They’ve gone for the cars,” I told her.

  “We must get
away from here. Where is Roberto? Roberto! Roberto!” Her voice was a scream. “We must get to the car. We must drive away quick before the roads are blocked.”

  I thought of the cabriolet’s canvas hood. Hot ash would burn through it. Anyway, how could any one drive through it? It’d be worse than driving through a sandstorm. The ash would be like a solid wall reflecting the light of the headlights. “Better to stay here,” I said.

  “Stay here!” she screamed at me. “Do you know what it is like to be buried alive? Did you not see what happen to Pompeii? Dio Santo! I wish to God I never come ‘ere. Albanese of the osservatore tell me something will happen. But I have to come. I have to come.” She was literally wringing her hands. I’d heard of people doing it, but I’d never actually seen it before. Her hands were locked together, her fingers twisting and twining so tightly that she seemed to be trying to squeeze the flesh out from between the bones. “We must get away. Dio ci salvi! We must get away.”

  She was on the edge of hysteria. I caught hold of her shoulders and shook her. “Pull yourself together,” I said. “We’ll get out of it somehow.”

  She shook my hands off. “Let go of me. Idiota! Do you think I am a peasant and am going to scream? It’s only that I need—” She didn’t finish, but in the light of my torch I saw that her eyes had a feverish, starved look.

  There was something about her face that was quite frightening. She looked as though she were in hell. “What do you need?” I asked her.

  “Nothing.” Her voice was high and harsh. “We must get to the car. Hurry!” She pushed past me and flung herself at the front door. When she found it was locked she turned like an animal in a trap. Then she darted towards the servants’ quarters. A candle glimmered in the darkness of the passage. “Agostino!” It was Sansevino’s voice.

  The candle halted. “Sì, signore?”

  “Get upstairs and shut all the windows.” Sansevino came through into the hall. “It’s hopeless,” he said. “Thick as hell.”

  “We must get to the cars.” Zina started to push past him, but he caught hold of her arm. “I tell you, it’s hopeless. You’ll only get lost if you go out. I’ve told Roberto to start the light plant. We’ll have to stay here till the ash lets up a bit.”

  Zina sagged against the wall as though all the stuffing had been knocked out of her. Agostino’s wife had joined us now, passive as a buffalo, one hand holding a candle and the other fingering the beads of her rosary. Her lips moved as she reiterated again and again, endlessly, “Mamma mia! Mamma mia!” as though that in itself would keep the ash at bay. The little girl I’d seen when we arrived clung to her skirts, her eyes enormous in her white, frightened face.

  The bulbs in the chandelier glowed into life, flickered and then brightened. We stood blinking at each other in the sudden brilliance. Sansevino was almost unrecognisable, he was so caked in ash. The air was thick with dust. A white film covered everything. We might have been in a building that had just been hit by a bomb.

  Roberto came in then from the servants’ quarters. His hair and face were powder-grey and pellets of cinder slid from the shoulders of the leather jerkin he’d flung on over his singlet. Zina clutched at him. “We must get the car, Roberto. If we can reach the autostrada we—”

  But he threw her off. “Impossibile,” he grunted.

  “But it must be possible,” she blazed at him. “It must be.” She caught his arm and shook it. “Will you stand there and let us all be buried here alive?”

  He shrugged his shoulders, dragging down the corners of his mouth and spreading his hands in that inevitable Italian gesture of resignation.

  “Go and get the car! “she ordered him.

  He stood there, staring at her.

  “Go and get the car! “she shouted. “Do you hear? I want my car.” Then as he didn’t move: “You are a coward. You are afraid to—”

  “If you want the car, go and get it,” he said sullenly.

  She stared at him as though he’d struck her. Then she turned to Sansevino who was standing by the table, his fingers stroking his upper lip. “If the car is no good, there is still the aeroplano. Where is Ercole?”

  “He went into Napoli in the jeep,” Sansevino replied. “It’s no good, Zina. We’ve just got to stay here.”

  I thought for a moment she was going to break down. Instead she went towards him and in a quick whisper said, “Then give me some morfina.”

  “Later,” he said quickly. “Later.” His eyes had glanced in my direction.

  She began to plead. Her voice was an abject whine and now I knew what that feverish, starved look in her eyes meant. He had started to move towards the stairs when suddenly there was a violent banging on the front door. Somebody was calling out, asking us to open.

  It was Sansevino who opened it. A man staggered in with a blast of hot air and a rolling cloud of choking dust. He had his arm flung up to guard his face. He was white with ash, and cinders as big as peas rolled off the shoulders of his overcoat. As Sansevino flung the door to I had a momentary glimpse of a world that was black like a pit, a world that stirred and moved and was alive with an ugly hissing, sifting, drifting sound. The man shook himself like a dog. “I sure am glad I found your house,” he said to Sansevino. And as the ash fell away from him I saw who it was. “You’ve had a lucky escape, Mr. Hacket,” I said.

  He stared at me. And then his face creased in a smile. “Well, if it isn’t Mr. Farrell. Well, well—we just don’t seem to be able to keep away from each other, do we? And the Countess. Wonderful!” He was coughing and beaming at us at the same time. I introduced him to Sansevino. “A fellow countryman of yours,” I added and tried hard not to sound sarcastic.

  “Glad to meet you, sir.” He wrung Sansevino’s hand. “I motored up to Santo Francisco. They told me it was the best place to see Vesuvius at night. Well, I certainly seen something. The folks at home will never believe me when I tell them. I was right there in Santo Francisco when it started.” He shook his head in wonderment. “Stupendous! Just stupendous! I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. No, sir! And I’ve been down to see the volcanoes in Mexico.”

  “Is it possible to get away by car?” Zina asked him.

  He shook his head. “Not a chance, lady. Countess, I mean. When it started all the villagers came out into the streets. At first I thought they were rubber-necking, same as me. But then they started loading up their carts and I only just got out before the road was blocked with screaming horses and bullocks and humans. I’d got the idea by that time that it was going to be dangerous and I started to drive back down towards the autostrada. Then the ash began to fall. Couldn’t see a damn thing. Not a damn thing. It was like trying to drive along a pit shaft just after they’ve blown the coal face. Black as hell!” He turned to me. “Remember those two people we saw at Pompeii—a man and a girl?”

  I nodded.

  “They were out there. I ran slap into the back of their convertible.”

  I glanced at Zina. She was looking at Sansevino. “What were they doing?” she asked.

  “Just looking at the mountain, I guess. They were parked outside the gates to your place. They told me there was a villa up here so I came along. Didn’t fancy the hood of my little beetle-car would last long if the ash got hot.”

  “Who are these people, Zina?” Sansevino asked.

  “Remember John Maxwell?” I asked him.

  His eyes flicked to my face. They were narrowed and wary. He didn’t say anything, but he nodded. “If it is the two people we met at Pompeii this afternoon,” I added, “it will be John Maxwell and a girl called Hilda Tuček.”

  “Hilda Tuček!” His voice had a sudden note of surprise. “No—I don’t think I know her. But I remember Maxwell, of course.” The speed with which he covered up was amazing. “Well, since we can’t do anything we’d better have a drink.” He opened the door of the room where we’d faced each other only a few minutes ago.

  But Zina caught hold of his arm. “Walter! Are you
going to do nothing? Do you wish to be buried here in your villa?” The urgent, panicky note was back in her voice.

  Sansevino shrugged his shoulders. “Tell me what I ought to do and I’ll do it. In the meantime you’d better have a drink to steady you.” He had caught hold of her arm. But she flung herself free. “You want me to die. That is it.” Her eyes were blazing. “You think I know too—”

  “Shut up!” His eyes slid to my face.

  “I tell you, you cannot do this to me. I do not wish to die. I will—”

  He had hold of her arm again and she cried out as his fingers dug into her flesh. “Shut up—do you hear?” What you need is one of your injections.” He turned quickly to the drink table and poured her a stiff cognac. “Drink that and get a hold on yourself. What about you, Mr. Hacket? Cognac?”

  The other nodded. “So you’re an American, Mr. Shirer?”

  “Italian by birth, American by nationality,” Sansevino answered, handing him his drink. “After the war I bought this place and settled down to producing wine. Would you care for another cognac, Farrell?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “And what part of America do you come from?” Hacket asked him.

  “Pittsburgh.”

  “You don’t say. Well, isn’t that a coincidence! I’m from Pittsburgh myself. Do you know that little eating-house off Dravo Street—Morielli’s?”

  “Can’t say I do.”

  “Well, you go right over to Morielli’s when you’re next in Pittsburgh. Wonderful hamburgers. I thought all Italians knew Morielli. And that other place. What’s its name? Pugliani’s. Just inside the Triangle near Gulf Building. You remember Pugliani’s?”

  “Seltz?”

  “Er—yes, make it a long one, will you. Of course, Pugliani’s has changed hands now. They’ve put a dance floor in and—”