A Canoe In the Mist (8 page)

Then he read the passage in St Luke’s gospel about
Jesus being crucified between two thieves, ending with the words:

‘And the thief said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy Kingdom.

‘And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with me in Paradise.’

Lastly Edwin prayed again, ‘O Lord, be with us now. Our lives are in thy hands. Should we meet thee at this time, have mercy and forgive. Amen.’

For a few moments there was a stillness in the room, through which the uproar of the devil’s rain, the wind, the earthquake and the volcano came like an intruder. Then several of the listeners went up to thank Mr Bainbridge, including Willie Bird, who had added his own prayer to be reunited with his wife and baby.

But now, from the unseen distance, came the last and greatest roar which boomed across the lake and set the hotel shuddering from end to end.

The southern end of the grim mountain had split wide open to make a chasm eight miles long. This would not be known for many days. But in his little whare Tuhoto, quite alone, knowing well that the mud and stones were piling up over his hut, heard the roar and knew.

Tama-o-hoi had broken out. No one would ever see him, but the old demon was taking his vengeance as the legend promised, on the descendants of Ngatoro-i-rangi.

H
ow long d’you think this place will hold, Joe?’ asked Charlie Humphreys as they started up the stairs, each with a lantern.

‘Longer than your place at least. I can see what you’re after, Charlie. We’ll take a look from the far end.’

They ran and slid down the corridor to the end room whose windows faced away from the mountain, and looked out into nothing but blackness as thick as the pit of a coal-mine. And then came a shower of fireballs that lit up the scene in flash after flash like rapid lightning. The Temperance Hotel stood out, lonely, abandoned, leaning drunkenly into a mess of mud with the volcanic load weighing down its roof and chimneys.

‘It’s a goner, Joe,’ said Charlie heavily. ‘And all our plans with it. The wife will break her heart.’

‘Be thankful you didn’t stay inside it,’ said Joe. ‘We’ll all
be ruined before the night’s out. Look at Falloona’s store! Willie Bird hasn’t got a hope, it’s too ramshackle. And I daren’t look at the stables. What those poor creatures are suffering I can’t imagine, but what can we do? We can’t bring them inside like Lollop. How deep would you say that muck is?’

‘It’s up to my windows, but the roof must have shed some of that. Say, eighteen inches on the road? It’s hard to tell.’

‘Easily that. And these fireballs mean business. I can see three whares on fire. No, four.’

‘There’s a light at Sophia’s. A lantern hanging on the porch.’

‘Aye, so there is! How far that little candle shows its beams! So shines a good deed in this naughty world.’

‘What’s that you say, Joe?’

‘Shakespeare. Never mind that. I trust Willie’s wife will be there. It ought to stand, it’s a sturdy place with a good pitch to the roof. Willie’s put on a brave face, but it’s a hard thing to be parted from her now. Come on, this is no time for sentiment. We’ve work to do. This place could be afire while we’re talking.’

‘We wouldn’t even smell the smoke with all the sulphur in the air,’ said Charlie.

They filled two buckets from the upstairs tank and went back along the corridor. The first four rooms, without guests, were a shambles. The beds were askew and washing
basins, lamps, books and pictures were scattered and broken all over the floors. It didn’t seem to matter. But in Mrs Hensley’s room, usually so neat, the mess was like an insult and Joe couldn’t resist picking something up.

‘Hey! Look out!’ yelled Charlie.

A red-hot boulder as big as a saucepan came straight through the window. Joe leapt to one side, Charlie to the other as the hideous thing landed fair on the bed, and both buckets spilled on the floor. ‘The devil!’ yelled Charlie and ‘God preserve us!’ yelled Joe as they rushed for more water, holding desperately to their lanterns. The damask counterpane was aflame by the time they got back, and glass was still flying across the room, driven before a sudden and furious gale. They doused the flames and retreated, closing the door, leaning on it, breathing hard.

‘We were lucky not to be sliced by that glass,’ said Joe. ‘What do you make of that wind? It’s coming down the valley,
towards
Tarawera.’

‘Drawn by the heat of the volcano,’ Charlie said. ‘Like a draught in a room with the fire going.’

‘Then it’s low on the ground and won’t keep the stuff away.’

‘No. Makes things worse. Suffocating.’

‘I heard another window break. We’d better keep going.’

They put out ten fireballs in all, none as big as the first, and in ten minutes every window on the valley side was
broken. ‘There’s no end to it, Charlie,’ said Joe. ‘You’d better go back to your wife and keep an eye on the downstairs windows. The balcony shields them, but this gale—and the air’s so foul—it must be a trial to them all. As for the lassies—’

‘They’re as steady as any of them, Joe. I’m proud of Lillian. Didn’t know she had it in her.’

‘Aye, but they’re in our care, and that wee Maori boy too. They’re all in our care. Go down now, I’ll have one more look and follow.’

That final check showed nothing but rushing wind. If the next fireball sets fire to the place there’s no help for it, said Joe to himself wearily as he faced the stairs and saw them leaning sideways; heard a cracking sound above, looked up and saw the ceiling bulge towards him.

‘Stand away!’ he bawled as if this was a wild beast facing him, and seized the banister, and swung himself down, hand over hand, dropping the lantern.

The ceiling broke open. Mud, stones and pieces of roof poured through, the stairs gave way and Joe was hurled forward on to his hands and knees in a clatter of broken timber. A door opened and Bridget’s voice rose in a high-pitched wail:

‘The boss is killed! Oh, what’s to become of us, the boss is killed!’

Joe raised his head, drew what air he could into his lungs—that foul, sulphurous air—and bawled with all
the strength he could muster, ‘No, no! Don’t worry, there’s life in the old dog yet!’

‘And the young dog too,’ said Willie Bird with a chuckle as Lollop, whining anxiously, tried to get to his master.

The men were lifting the timber off Joe’s back, getting in each other’s way with the door jammed half open making it hard to shift the pieces. He straightened up, saw the faces crowding to watch, full of concern; looked up and saw the ceiling beginning to give way here too. ‘Hold back!’ he shouted, ‘hold back, for God’s sake!’ and shooed them before him like a flock of poultry, into the farthest corner.

They were very close together.

‘I’m sound and whole, never fear,’ said Joe. ‘We can’t stay here. We’ll try the drawing room, for that’s the newest part of the house and the strongest, though a little cramped and no drinks for the thirsty.’

‘We can’t get through the corridor,’ said Mr Humphreys.

‘Aye, but there’s the verandah. It’s blowing a gale out there but we’ve only a few steps to go.’

‘Come on men, help us get the French doors open,’ sang out Willie Bird.

It took a lot of effort to push them open against the weight of mud, to shove the stuff aside and edge the gap steadily wider. The icy-cold, evil-smelling wind surged into the room. Bridget bustled about, making sure people had
hats and jackets and shawls and rugs, beating out the last embers of the open fire.

‘We’ll form a chain,’ shouted Joe. ‘Protect your heads. Hold on to the coat tails of the one in front. Men, space yourselves out between the women and children. Charlie, you come last. Count them and give a shout when you’re ready.’

After some shuffling Charlie answered, ‘Twenty-one including the baby. Are we leaving the dog?’

‘No, no!’ cried several voices. ‘I’ll look after him,’ Lillian volunteered.

‘No, Lillian, you’ll hang on to the one in front like I said. Lollop must look after himself. Everybody ready? Right then.’

Joe set off, breaking out a track through the muck with his strong legs, fighting the wind, taking no notice of the flying rocks and fireballs, till he stood by the entrance that led to the drawing room. He had judged rightly. This part of the hotel was standing firm. Cracking, crashing and tearing sounds from the broken roof came after them, mingled with the thudding and whistling and hissing of the mud and stones, noises more intrusive through their nearness than the everlasting roar of the craters.

He counted as the chain passed him, making them say their names. They had to feel their way in. There could be no light at all until Charlie came with the lantern. Moans, gasps, curses and prayers marked out the different people.

Lillian waited towards the end of the line. Ahead of her was Mr Stubbs, ahead of him her mother. Behind her was Tamati pulling so hard on her shawl that it came free. ‘No, it’s my dress you hang on to,’ she said, and showed him how. His hand was trembling. ‘Courage,’ she said. His grandfather behind him said something in Maori which might have meant the same thing.

She put the shawl over her head and knotted it tightly. Her heart was thumping with impatience. It was going to be awful out there, but in here the ceiling was cracking; what if it came down before they moved? Mattie was somewhere up front. The dog was whining. She didn’t want to think about these things, she wanted to get moving.

Mr Stubbs took a step, and another. Her hand gripped his coat and he was pulling her through the French doors. She stumbled into a cold and creepy mess of mud before she got into the track that bigger feet had made. Even then the mud was clinging to her dress and spattering her hands. No, the spattering came from the sky, there were stones too, she could hear them thudding, blown by that icy wind. Lillian turned her face the other way and felt the horrible sticky mud hitting her shoulders, and the stones stinging. Tamati cried out and his grandfather replied in a stern get-on-with-it tone. Later she learned that his ear had been split and was bleeding.

Up ahead, Sean Falloona shouted: ‘Haszard’s! Haszard’s is on fire!’

Lillian looked up. Yes, that blaze on the hill, it must be the schoolhouse! Her desk would burn, the sums she did yesterday waiting to be marked, the
Illustrated London News
with the elephants Mattie talked about, all would be curled up and blackened. But how silly to think of that! She’d never go back to that school again; where they’d go she didn’t know, they had no home left. And the Haszards, they must be outside in the storm, watching it burn.

Cries of distress and concern followed Mr Falloona’s call and as Lillian was dragged through the drawing room door she felt others pushing past her to go back to the verandah and see.

Inside it was cold, dark and windy. Mr McRae touched her on the shoulder and said, ‘Lillian, isn’t it? Fifteen.’ A few minutes later she heard Mr Humphreys say his name, but he’d lost the lantern. Somebody said, ‘twenty-two’ with a laugh as Lollop brushed past. So everyone was there. Matches flared briefly as Bridget tried to light the hanging lamp, but the wind wouldn’t allow it. The matches gave just enough light for her to see the Hensleys by the sofa and to grasp her mother’s hand and lead her there.

‘Did you get hit, Mattie?’ she asked.

‘No, but I’m so smelly I hate myself,’ said Mattie.

‘I managed beautifully,’ said Mrs Hensley proudly. ‘I think all this has chased the last of my bruises out of me. Or maybe this is curative mud. I’ve collected my full share. How do to you feel, Mrs Perham?’

‘Freezing! That awful wind.’

‘Snuggle up then, all on this sofa, close together. That’s what the Eskimos do, I believe, in their igloos.’

‘Do they have sofas in igloos, love?’ said Mr Hensley.

‘You know what I mean,’ she said gaily. ‘I feel quite light-headed after coming through that, and all of us safely here, even the dog.’

‘Haszard’s is on fire,’ said Lillian. ‘They’re talking about it.’

‘Is there anything we can do?’ called Mr Hensley.

‘No, nothing,’ Joe said firmly. ‘We’ve enough to do taking care of each other here. They’d be outside before we could get near, which would be impossible anyway.’

‘May our Heavenly Father guard and keep them,’ said Edwin.

‘Amen,’ said three or four people, and ‘They’re a good Christian family,’ said a woman.

‘That’s Mrs Humphreys,’ said Mattie. ‘I can tell nearly everyone from their voices now.’

‘We’ll all have to do that,’ said Mrs Perham.

‘Are my ears deceiving me, or has the storm eased out there?’ said Mr Hensley.

The whole room listened. There was indeed a lull, but a very short one before the roaring, booming and clattering was renewed and the cracking sounds with it.

Mr Humphreys began striking matches to see if this ceiling too was sagging. It appeared to be holding together,
but for how long? A short time, or a long time, or until the eruption ceased? Who would know when it really had ended? There were no possible answers and nothing to do but wait, a waiting that dragged on and on.

When at last the matchlight revealed that this ceiling also was bound to give way, the new crisis was almost a relief.

‘Listen carefully, everyone. Can you hear me?’ said Joe McRae in his strong voice. ‘We have got to go. Our best hope is Sophia’s place. It’s well constructed and she’s hung a lantern outside—or she had when we last saw it. We’ll never stay linked together out there, but I’ll keep calling to give you directions. Grab something to protect your heads—a cushion, a mat, a plank, anything to keep off the stones. It doesn’t matter whose it is or what it is. If we fail with Sophia’s, then the first Maori house you see standing. Do you all understand?’

‘Yes!’ came a chorus of voices.

‘The children. Lillian, Mattie? Te tamaiti, e pai ana kia haere ki waho?’

‘Ready!’ answered the girls together, and after a quick exchange in Maori it seemed Tamati was ready too.

‘Mrs Hensley?’

‘I can manage.’

‘I’ll see her through,’ said Mr Hensley.

‘Nora?’

‘With me,’ said Bridget.

‘Give us a minute to find that head protection,’ said Willie Bird. ‘We’re all in each other’s way.’

‘I don’t fancy going out in that,’ ventured Mr Stubbs.

‘Take your choice,’ said Willie. ‘Stay here and be crushed or go out and be battered.’

Lillian wasn’t the only one who gave a chuckle.

‘Give me your arm, Charlie, let’s go,’ said Mrs Humphreys.

‘And God go with us,’ added Edwin Bainbridge.

‘Abandon ship! Women and children first,’ said Mr Hensley gallantly.

‘
I
go first and don’t you forget it,’ said Joe McRae.