The Angry Mountain (27 page)

I went down the street towards the mule. He stood quite still, watching me. His ears were laid back, but the whites of his eyes weren't showing and there was nothing vicious about his expression. He was standing by a door leading into one of the houses. I opened it and went in. The mule followed me. And when he followed me like that I wouldn't have parted with that mule for anything. I swear the animal seemed almost human. It was probably just that he'd lived all his life close to people and was used to going in and out
of houses. But at the time I didn't bother to try and explain it. I just knew that his presence gave me courage like the presence of another human being.

The door led to a stables and on the far side daylight showed through the cracks of big wooden doors. I slid back the securing bar and we passed out into a track. The mule turned right. I hesitated. I was completely lost. I hadn't an idea where the monastery was. In the end I followed the mule. The track was narrow and flanked by the tall backs of houses with here and there the open doors of stables. It swung away to the right and then I saw it was blocked by the lava.

The mule turned. Pain was shooting up my leg from the grit that was being ground into the flesh. Big stones jutted out from the wall of the building I had stopped beside and this gave me an idea. I caught hold of the halter of the mule and it stopped at once. I got it close to the stones, climbed up and so on to the animal's back. A moment later I was trotting comfortably back along the track. The animal seemed quite placid now.

The track led out into a wider street. I tugged on the halter and the mule stopped. “Where now, old fellow?” I asked. Its long ears twitched. The monastery was up towards the lava so I turned left, kicked the animal's ribs and started off at a trot. I passed a trattoria where an overturned cask dribbled wine into the grey ash that covered the floor. The little wooden tables looked grey and derelict. Close by on the wall of a building was a life-size statue of the Virgin Mary. It was surrounded by tinsel and coloured lights, and at the foot were jam jars full of flowers that had been killed by the sulphurous air. Nearby a rude figure of Christ hung from a wooden cross. This, too, had jam jars of dead flowers and there were one or two sprays of artificial blooms under a cracked glass globe.

The street swung to the right. The tall houses seemed to close in on it as it climbed. And then it ended abruptly in a
wall of black cinder nearly as high as the buildings. I had a sudden sense of being trapped. Every street seemed to lead up to the lava. It was like being in a partially excavated Pompei. All I could see was the façade of the houses flanking the street and the abrupt, unnatural end of it.

The mule had turned of its own accord and we trotted back the way we had come, past the decorated figure of the Virgin Mary, past the trattoria. And then I heard my name called. “Dick! Dick!” I pulled up and looked back. It was Hilda. She had come out of the house next to the trattoria and was running towards me, her dress all torn, her hair flying. “Thank God you're safe,” she gasped as she reached me. “I thought I heard somebody screaming for help. I was afraid—” She didn't finish. She was staring at my face. Then her eyes dropped to my clothes. “Are you hurt?”

I shook my head. “I'm all right,” I said. “What about the others? Where are they?”

“I couldn't find them.” Her eyes were frantic with worry. “I went all through the monastery—they weren't there. What do you think has happened to them?” And then in a rush. “We must find them. The lava's almost reached the monastery. I called and called, but they didn't answer. Do you think—” She didn't finish. She didn't want to put her thought into words.

“Where is the monastery?” I asked her.

“Through this building.” She nodded to the house next to the trattoria. I turned the mule and slid off at the door. The smell of the trattoria made me realise how parched I was. “Just a minute,” I said and dived inside. There were bottles behind the counter. I reached over and took one, knocking the top off against the counter edge. The wine was warm and rather sharp. But it cleared the grit from my throat. I passed the bottle to Hilda. “You look as though you could do with some.”

“We haven't time to—”

“Drink it,” I said. She did as I told her. When she'd
finished I threw the bottle away. “Now, let's get to the monastery.”

She led me through the open doorway of the next house. Broken wooden stairs climbed to the floor above. “I was at the top of this house when I thought I heard you call,” she said. We passed the foot of the stairs and along a stone-flagged passage. There was a clatter of hooves behind us. “What's that?” She turned, her eyes wide and startled. I realised then how near to breaking she was.

“It's only George.”

“Oh—the mule. Why do you call him George?”

We were out of the house now and crossing a dusty patch of garden. Why had the name George come automatically to my mind? My mascot, of course. “George was the name of my mascot,” I said. It had been a little shaggy horse Alice had given me. It had gone all through the Battle of Britain and then flown all over France and Germany. Some bloody Itye had pinched it just before that last flight.

We were in the next row of houses now. “Funny the way he follows us through the house.” She was talking to keep control of herself.

“George is used to houses,” I said. “He's lived all his life in a house, in the same room as the family.”

We were out in the street now, and there was the piazza with the cart leaning drunkenly on its broken wheel. In the instant of recognition I glanced to the left. The lava had moved a long way down the street since I'd last seen it. The twenty-foot wall of black, heat-ridden cinder was not a dozen yards from the main archway of the monastery. I stood there, staring at it, realising that in half an hour the face of it would be about where I was standing and the monastery of St. Francis would have disappeared. “Hurry! Please. We must hurry.”

I caught her arm as she turned impatiently towards the main archway. “Steady,” I said. “We must decide what we're going to do. You say you've searched the monastery?”

“Yes.”

“Every room?”

“I do not know. I cannot be quite sure. You see it is very confusing inside.”

I hesitated. “Did you go round the outside of the buildings?”

She shook her head. “Why should I? I was searching—”

“Most of the rooms will have windows, or at least gratings. They will have hung something out to attract attention.”

She stared at me, her face suddenly lighting up with hope. “Oh, why did I not think of that for myself. Quick. There is a way through to the back by the entrance they went in.”

I limped after her, the mule following at my heels. But the clip-clop of his hooves ceased just before we reached the archway. I looked back. He was standing in the middle of the road, his ears laid back, sniffing at the smoking cinder-heap of the lava. “You stay there, George,” I said. “We'll be back later.”

Hilda was running across the courtyard as I passed under the arch of the entrance. The stone square of the courtyard was beautifully cool after the heat of the lava-blocked streets. I glanced up at the windows. They were sightless eyes staring down at me unwinking. No sign of a scarf or handkerchief or anything to show that the others were in any of those rooms.

I entered the monastery buildings. It was almost dark inside and full of the damp coolness of stone. I felt suddenly fresh and full of vigour. Hilda called to me. I crossed a big refectory room with high windows and a long table laid for breakfast. Then I was in a wide stone passage and the walls were echoing the limp of my leg. Hilda was calling to me to hurry and a moment later I passed through a heavy, iron-studded door into the monastery grounds. There was a small flower garden and then vineyards flanked with orange-laden trees. I joined Hilda who was staring up at the monastery.

Parts of the building were very old, especially the section
away to our left where a great rounded tower was falling into ruins. The building had been added to at various periods and though it was all constructed of tuftstone it presented a scattered, haphazard appearance which was enhanced by the fact that the stone varied in colour according to the extent to which it was worn. There was a chapel with some fine stained glass and a line of outhouses ran out in a long arm. Smoke still curled up from one of the chimneys here and even in the sulphurous atmosphere I could detect a smell of burnt bread. Evidently the eruption had started whilst they were in the middle of baking.

“I bet Hacket has the full guide-book history of the place,” I said. I had to say something to cover my disappointment, for the windows were all as blank as those in the courtyard. “Better try the side nearest the lava.” I was just turning away when Hilda caught my arm.

“What is that?” She was pointing towards the great rounded tower. There were no windows in this ruined keep, only narrow slits. And from the topmost slit something hung limp. In that unnatural twilight it was impossible to see what it was. It looked like a piece of old rag.

“Did you have a look at that tower when you searched the monastery buildings?” I asked her.

She shook her head. “No. I did not find it.”

I pushed my way through some azaleas, skirted a sewage pond and reached the base of the tower by a footpath that ran through coarse grass. There was a garbage heap there and the flies buzzed and crawled amongst broken bottles, rotting casks and all the refuse thrown out by the monks. Looking up I could just see that the piece of rag was clean and new and bright blue. I remembered then that Hacket had been wearing a blue silk shirt. I cupped my hands round my mouth and called up, “Max! Max! Zina! Hacket!” I called all their names. But when I stood listening, all I could hear was the sifting, spilling sound of the lava, punctuated by the rumbling crash of falling buildings.

“Can you hear anything?”

Hilda shook her head.

I called again. In the silence that followed my shouts I could hear the lava move nearer. I glanced back across the huge, buzzing pile of the rubbish heap to the brown line of the outhouses. Reared up above them was the advancing wall of the lava.

Hilda suddenly gripped my arm. “Look!” She was pointing upwards to the slit. The piece of cloth was moving. It waved gently to and fro and then suddenly seemed to take on life as though the end of it were being violently shaken. Sleeves fell out towards us. “It is Hacket's shirt,” I cried. Then cupping my hands I shouted up, “How do we get to you?”

The shirt waved. I thought I heard somebody shouting, but the noise of the lava drowned it and I couldn't be sure. Hilda tightened her grip on my arm, tugging at me. “Quick! We must find a way to reach them.” I loosened her grip on my arm. “Wait,” I said. “Max will try to get a message down to us.”

I was staring up towards the slit. There was a great, rumbling crash and I heard Hilda say, “Oh, my God!” I glanced down at her and saw she was gazing towards the outhouses—or rather where the outhouses had been, for they were gone completely. A rising cloud of dust marked the spot where they had stood and in their place was the shifting, red-shot face of the lava.

Something struck my arm and fluttered to the ground. It was part of the silk lining of a coat, one corner of it weighted. I picked it up and untied the corner. The weight was a silver cigarette case and inside the case was a note.
We're all here. To reach tower enter by arch in courtyard, turn right in refectory room and follow passage to chapel. There is a flagstone with a ring bolt in robing room to right of altar. This leads to passage connecting Chapel to tower. We are in the top cell. Door is wood and can be burned down. Spare can of petrol in my car. Bless you, Max.

I glanced up. The shirt was no longer hanging from the slit. But there was something there that shone dully and I realised that it was a mirror being held out on the end of a piece of wood. They couldn't look down at us from the slit, but they were watching us through a primitive periscope. I waved my hand in acknowledgment and then turned back along the path. “Run and get the can of petrol,” I told Hilda. “I'll go straight to the chapel.”

She nodded and with one terrified glance at the lava front ran back into the monastery. There wasn't even a dust haze now to mark where the outhouses had been and the frightful slag heap had slithered half across the flower garden where we'd stood, blistering the trees with its heat and withering the flowers. The first section of the main monastery building was crumbling as I dived into the coolness of the interior.

I found the passage leading off the refectory room and reached the chapel. There was no difficulty in finding the robing room or the flagstone with the ring bolt. I had lifted it up and thrown it back by the time Hilda arrived with the jerrican. Stone steps led down into a dank, cold passage. I switched on my torch. The walls were solid lava rock, black and metallic-looking. We passed right through the foundations of the Chapel and then we were climbing stone steps worn by the tread of men who'd come this way centuries past.

The tower was clearly a ruin. The wood of the big iron-studded doors was powdery with worm. One we passed had almost no wood at all and was just a lacing of wrought-iron and studs. I shone my torch in as I passed and caught a glimpse of mouldering floorboards and rusty iron chains secured to the wall and what looked like a rack standing beside some rotted iron implements of torture. The tower had evidently been a religious prison.

At last we reached the top of the spiral staircase and my torch showed a new door of plain oak. Beyond it a builder's
ladder led to a square of dim light that was the roof. Here the smell of sulphur was strong again and ash had sifted down on to the stone platform outside the door. I pounded on the wood. “Are you there, Max?”