The Angry Mountain

by Hammond Innes

  “How deep was the ash when you came up to the villa, Mr. Hacket?”

  “The ash? Oh, about three or four inches, I guess. It must have been that because I got some inside my shoes.” He took a pull at his drink. “Do you reckon it’s going to be like it was the time Pompeii was destroyed? About three foot of ash fell at first and then there was a breathing space. That’s why most of the inhabitants were able to escape. It was only those that came back later who got buried. If it lets up at all I reckon we ought to get out while the going’s good, eh?” He shook his head. “Incredible what this mountain can do!”

  There was a sudden pounding on the front door. Hacket turned at the sound and then said, “That’s probably the rest of the party. I told them if I didn’t come back it would mean I’d found the villa. They said they’d follow me if it got worse.”

  Shirer sent Roberto to open the door. A moment later two dusty figures were shown into the room. It was Maxwell and Hilda Tuček all right, but they were barely recognisable under the film of ash that covered them. The lines on Maxwell’s forehead were etched deep where ash and sweat had caked. For a moment they stood quite still in the entrance, their eyes searching the room. The contrast between Hilda and Zina was very marked. Zina was still clean, but she was trembling and her eyes bulged like a startled rabbit. Hilda, on the other hand, was quite calm. It was as though Vesuvius and the falling ash were nothing to her.

  Sansevino went forward, his hand outstretched. “It’s John Maxwell, isn’t it? My name’s Walter Shirer.”

  Maxwell nodded. He was looking across the room towards me. The white mask of his face looked old and very tired.

  “You remember, we met at Foggia—before Farrell dropped me over Tazzola?”

  Maxwell nodded. “Yes, I remember.”

  “Come on in and have a drink. Guess I wouldn’t have known you in that make-up if Hacket here hadn’t told me you were coming up. Cognac?”

  “Thank you.” Maxwell introduced Hilda Tuček and then Sansevino turned to me. “Perhaps you’d get them a drink, Farrell?”

  It was clear he wasn’t going to give me a chance of talking to Maxwell alone. I hesitated, on the point of blurting out the truth—that the man they thought was Shirer was Sansevino and that I had what they all wanted tucked away inside my leg. Sansevino was standing slightly apart from the others so that he could command the whole room. One hand was thrust into the pocket of his jacket and I knew he had a gun there, the gun he’d taken up from the piano. The atmosphere of the room suddenly seemed strained and on the edge of violence. I went over to the drink table and in the sudden burst of conversation that followed my movement I sensed relief.

  “Tell you who came to see me the other day—Alec Reece. You remember Alec Reece, Maxwell? He was with us.…” Sansevino was talking to ease the tension—talking too fast, and he shouldn’t have called Maxwell by his full name. He’d been Max to everybody on the station at Foggia.

  I got the drinks and then Hacket was talking—talking about the mountain again. “It’s incredible to think what that mountain can do. Why in the eruption of 1631 heavy stones were thrown a distance of 15 miles and one weighing 25 tons fell on the village of Somma. And only a hundred years before the volcano was dormant with woods and bushes growing on the slopes and cattle actually grazing in the crater. There was one eruption in the early eighteenth century which lasted from May to August and covered Naples.…”

  He went on and on about Vesuvius. He was chock-full of guide-book statistics. It got on my nerves. But it was Zina who suddenly screamed at him—“For God’s sake, can you not speak of nothing but your damn mountain?”

  Hacket stared at her open-mouthed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Guess I didn’t realise.”

  “You do not realise because for the moment you are safe inside this villa and cannot see what is happening outside.” Zina’s eyes blazed with anger—anger at her own fear. “Now, please shut up, will you. Everything that you have described may happen to us at any moment.” She turned to Roberto. “Go and see what it is like outside, please. As soon as the ash ceases to fall we must get away from here quick.”

  Roberto left the room. He was back a moment later, coughing and wiping his face with a dirty rag. “Well?” Zina asked him.

  He shook his head. “It is still falling.”

  Sansevino had been watching her all the time. Now he said, “Zina. Suppose you play to us. Play something gay—something from Il Barbiere.”

  She hesitated. Then she went over to the piano. She began to play the scandal song. Shirer looked at Maxwell. “You like Rossini?”

  Maxwell shrugged his shoulders indifferently. Hacket moved over towards Sansevino. “I suppose you were pretty fond of opera, even as a kid?”

  Sansevino nodded abstractedly. “Trouble is I didn’t get much of a chance to hear it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Good God, man—I was a miner, until 1936. Then I got a job with the Union and moved to New York.”

  “But the miners had their own operatic company.” Hacket was looking at him with a puzzled frown. “They gave shows free.”

  “Well, I never went. I was too busy.”

  Sansevino took my empty glass and went across to the drink table. I could see Hacket watching him. “That’s queer,” he murmured.

  “How do you mean?” Maxwell asked him.

  “The opera company was sponsored by the Union.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Funny how some people never know what’s going on in their own home town.”

  Maxwell was watching Sansevino and as he came back with another brandy for me, Maxwell said, “By the way, Shirer, you remember that message I gave you for Ferrario at Tazzola?”

  The other shook his head. “I don’t remember much about that mission. I was suffering from loss of memory by the time I reached the Swiss frontier. My memory is very patchy.”

  “But you remember me?”

  “I tell you my memory is patchy. Another cognac?”

  “I still have some, thanks.” Maxwell was swilling his drink round in the bottom of the glass. He didn’t look at the other and his voice was casual as he said, “Remember the fellow who was with you the night they arrested you at Polinago?”

  “Mantani?”

  “Yes. I always meant to ask you this if ever I met you again. Did he take you to Ragello’s trattoria or did you take him? When I interrogated him, he swore that he’d warned you Ragello was a Fascist and that you’d just laughed at him. Did he warn you?”

  “He did not. I think it was I who told him it was dangerous. Miss Tuček—another drink?”

  She nodded and he took her glass.

  Maxwell was standing right beside me and quite softly he said, “You were right, Dick.”

  “How do you mean?” I asked.

  “The man who owned the trattoria where they were picked up was called Basani, not Ragello,” he answered.

  I didn’t say anything, but Vesuvius seemed suddenly remote. The volcano was right here in this room and at any moment someone would touch the spark that would send it off. My hand slipped to my jacket pocket, folding round the cold, smooth metal of Zina’s automatic. Only Hacket was outside it all. He was still the tourist with his mind on Vesuvius. But the others—they were all tied together with invisible threads: Hilda and Maxwell searching for Tuček, Sansevino searching for what rested in the shaft of my leg. And all the time Zina played—played Rossini, flatly, without any life, so that the music had the quality of tragedy. And over by the door Roberto stood watching her. I felt my nerves tightening in that electric atmosphere so that I wanted to shout out that I’d got what Sansevino wanted—anything to break the tension which was growing all the time. And all I could do was wait—wait for the moment when it would reach snapping point and break.

  Chapter VI

  It was Zina who expressed the mood of that room. She suddenly switched to the Damnation of Faust and the angry, violent music throbbed through the room. No one was talking now. We were
all watching her. Her eyes were fixed on her hands and her hands expressed all the bitterness and hate that was in her and us. I shall always remember her sitting there, playing that damned piano. Her face was white and shiny with sweat and there were lines on it I hadn’t noticed before. Her hair was damp and sweat marks began to show at her armpits, and still she went on playing and playing. She was playing the same piece over and over again as though condemned to play it for the rest of her life, and she was playing it as though her very life depended upon it, as though if she stopped she was doomed.

  “I think your Contessa is going to break soon,” Maxwell whispered to me.

  I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. It was as though the music had mesmerised me. It seemed to clutch at my nerves, stretching them, yet holding them at the same time.

  Then suddenly it happened. She looked up. For a moment she was staring straight at me. Then her eyes roamed the circle of our faces while the notes of the music died under her fingers. “Why do you all stare at me?” she whispered. And when none of us answered she crashed her hands on to the keys and through the thunder of the chords she screamed out, “Why do you stare at me?” She bowed her head over the piano then and her shoulders shook to the violent gust of passion that swept through her.

  Sansevino started towards her and then stopped, glancing over at me. I could see his dilemma. He wanted to quieten her and the only way he could do that was to give her the drug her nerves were screaming out for. At the same time he didn’t dare leave me alone in the room with Maxwell.

  And then, as though he had been waiting for his cue, Agostino came in. He stood blinking in the doorway, his old peasant face beaming and his eyes alight as though he’d seen a vision of the Blessed Virgin. “Well, what is it?” Sansevino snapped at him.

  “The ash, signore. It is finished. We are saved. La Madonna, ci ha salvati!”

  Sansevino went over to the window at the far end of the room and swung back the shutters. Agostino was right. The ash had stopped falling and now we could see Vesuvius again. A great glow burned in the crater top, igniting a pillar of gas that writhed up over the mountain and spread in a black cloud across the sky. And down the slopes ran three wide bands of fire. The hot glare of the lava flow invaded the room with a lurid light.

  Sansevino turned to face us. “Maxwell—you and Miss Tuček better get back to your car right away. You, too, Mr. Hacket. The sooner we’re out of here the better.”

  “It sounds like good advice, Mr. Shirer.” Hacket was already moving towards the door.

  I glanced at Maxwell. He hadn’t moved. He was watching Sansevino. “I’ll come with you,” I told him.

  Hilda Tuček moved close to me. Her hand gripped my arm. “Please, Mr. Farrell—is he up here?” Her eyes were fixed on the horrid glare of the mountain slopes. “I must know.” I could feel her trembling and I began to think of Tuček. Was it possible that he was here in this villa?

  But before I could decide what to do Zina had rushed forward. “Quick!” she said, clutching hold of my hand. “We must get out of here. Roberto! Roberto, where are you?” Her voice had risen to a note of hysteria. “Get the car. Presto, Roberto—presto!

  Her fear seemed to paralyse the others. They stood rooted to the spot, staring at her. I could see her breasts heaving at the thin silk of her dress, smell the sweat of her fear through the strong scent of her perfume. Her eyes were bulging as she tugged frantically at my hand. She swung round on Roberto who was standing quite still, staring at us, his face sullen and passionate. “Don’t stand there,” she screamed at him. “The car, you fool! The car!”

  Sansevino moved then. He moved very quickly. “Control yourself,” he hissed at her in Italian. Then he was at the door. “There is no hurry. We can make an orderly evacuation. Maxwell, will you take Miss Tuček to your car. Hacket, you go with them, too.”

  But Zina’s terror was too great to stomach any delay. She dragged at my hand, screaming at Roberto to get her car. And I went with her for my one desire was to get out of the villa where I could talk to Maxwell alone. Roberto was moving towards the door now. The three of us were converging on the door and Sansevino stood there with his hand on the handle, his eyes narrowed to two angry slits that seemed to bore into me as though he were saying—“You will have no anœsthetic. First the knife, then the saw.…” I felt the blood hammering in my ears. And I knew suddenly that this was the moment that all that night had been leading up to.

  Sansevino shut the door in our faces. “Pull yourself together, Zina.” He took her by the shoulders and shook her. Then he whispered something to her. I heard the word morfina. She seemed suddenly to relax and I felt her fingers slide out of my hand. His eyes were staring into her face, willing her to be calm, hypnotising her into a state of relaxation. “Now,” he said, “go and get the car, Roberto. You can go with him, Zina.” He had the door open and I was about to follow Zina when he stopped me. “You will come with me, Farrell.”

  All my fear of the man returned as I stood there staring into his eyes.

  “No,” I said, and I could hear the tremor in my voice. “No, I’ll go with Zina. I think she needs—”

  “I am the best judge of what she needs,” he snapped. “Kindly stay here.”

  But Zina had turned and caught hold of my hand. “Come quickly, Dick,” she said.

  Sansevino caught hold of her hand and with a twist forced her fingers to release their hold on me. “Go to the car, Zina,” he ordered. “Farrell comes with me.”

  “No, no,” she cried. “I know what you are going to do. But I will not—”

  “Shut up!”

  “Then let him come with me. You want him to stay with you so that—”

  “Shut up—do you hear?”

  “I will not go without him. I will not let you—”

  He caught hold of her and pushed her roughly back into the room. “Very well, then. Stay here until our guests have gone. Hacket. Will you please go now. And you, Maxwell. I am afraid the Contessa is not herself.”

  I saw her face set hard. “You cannot do this thing. Do you understand? I will not be responsible—”

  “You are not responsible for anything. You can stay here with him, since that’s the way you want it.”

  Her eyes widened in sudden fear at his tone. “I know what you are going to do,” she screamed at him. “You will let us all be buried alive up here. You can do that to the two you have at Santo Francisco. I do not care about them. But you cannot do that to—”

  “Shut up—damn you!”

  Zina stamped her foot. Her mood had slid from fear to anger. “I tell you you cannot do this to me. I do not wish to die. I will tell these—”

  Sansevino hit her then, hit her across the mouth with the back of his hand. “Shut up, will you,” he hissed. His ring left a streak of blood across the pallor of her right cheek.

  There was a sudden, stunned silence. I felt my fist clench. A desire to smash his face to pulp, to hammer him to bloody pulp welled up inside me.

  But before I could move Roberto had hit him. He hit him with all the force of pent-up passion. His face was bestial with the desire to kill. It wasn’t human. It was something primitive and violent. I heard the crack of bone breaking as Roberto’s fist smashed into the centre of the man’s face. The force of the blow flung Sansevino across the room. He stumbled against Hacket and fell sprawling on the floor.

  For a moment he lay there, staring across at Roberto. The young Italian was breathing heavily and licking his bloody knuckles. Then he began to move in on Sansevino. He came forward deliberately and with relish, his face coarsened by some urge that was akin to lust. Sansevino saw him coming and reached into his jacket pocket. His hand came away with a glint of metal. There was a spurt of flame, an earsplitting crash and Roberto checked as though he’d been stopped by a blow in the stomach. His mouth fell open and a look of surprise crossed his face. Then with a little choking cough his knees folded under him and he crumpled up on
the floor, his eyes open and staring.

  Zina started forward, but I caught her by the arm. Sansevino was on his feet again now and the muzzle of the gun was pointed at her, a thin twist of smoke coming from the end of it. His eyes had a murderous look. “Mascalzone! Sporco schifoso mascalzone!” Zina poured her hate of him out in a spate of Italian. And then suddenly she was crying. “Why did you have to do that? It wasn’t necessary. There was no need. I would have stopped him from hurting you. Why did you do it?”

  It was at this moment that Hacket intervened. He cleared his throat as though about to address a meeting. “This is a very terrible thing you have done, Mr. Shirer. I don’t know how you stand in Italian law, but in America at best you’d be guilty of third degree murder. Better hand over that weapon before anything else happens.” I saw Sansevino trying to collect his wits as Hacket came towards him. Then suddenly he had him covered. “Stand back!” he ordered.

  “Come, Mr. Shirer. Be sensible. You’re a fellow countryman of mine and I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to you.” Hacket walked straight up to him. There was something impressive about his complete fearlessness. For a moment he dominated the room with his quiet, almost suburban matter-of-factness. Sansevino hesitated and in that moment Hacket had reached him and had taken the gun out of his hand. Sansevino stood there with a dazed look on his face, rubbing his twisted wrist. Hacket glanced at the weapon curiously and then with the calmness of a man who did this every day of his life, he pointed it at a corner of the room and emptied it by firing. The room shook with the sound of the gun. It seemed to go on and on. Then suddenly there was silence and all we could hear was the sound of gases escaping from high up on the flaring top of the mountain. Hacket tossed the empty gun into the corner and walked over to where Roberto lay, a smudge of blood staining his singlet. He knelt down and lifted the man’s head. Then he got to his feet, wiping his hands. “I guess we’d better have a drink now,” he said. “Maybe it will help us to decide what ought to be done.” He went over to the table and began to pour drinks.