by A.D. Winch
Chapter 25 - Escape to Pompeii
Before the sun rose, everyone in the Meyer villa woke and got ready. Eric walked to the window and peered outside. As he looked he thought of the rhyme he had been taught at school, ‘red sky at night, shepherd’s delight.’ It was true. This morning the outside world looked glorious; the sun was bright and the sky clear. It was a wonderful start to his first day of freedom. He put on black jeans and a dark blue, sports top and went down to the kitchen.
Alexander was already there. His salt and pepper stubble had been stylishly trimmed. He was wearing a crisp V-necked T-shirt along with his trusty red cap. Like Eric, he was full of nervous energy and the two ‘prisoners’ talked happily about their planned escape.
Ursula joined them in the kitchen soon after. She was still half-asleep. Her favourite ripped jeans were not done up properly, and an orange cardigan that her grandmother had knitted her hung scruffily from her shoulders. Andrea did not join them.
Once breakfast was finished they all went up to the hallway where Andrea was waiting. She was dressed as usual in leathers, but this time wore a Hives T-shirt.
Arranged neatly on the floor were two rucksacks and three large black hold-alls. Andrea lifted one of these and one rucksack while Ursula took the other rucksack.
Outside the villa, it was still a little chilly, but the blossoming trees and daffodils that lined the driveway had not withered. The bags were put into the back of the Range Rover and Andrea returned to the house to collect the remaining two hold-alls.
While she was gone Ursula cart-wheeled to the front of the vehicle and picked up some stones from the drive. When she stood upright again, she looked extremely upset. Her face was tense, and her eyes were filling with tears. She jumped up and down; her fists clenched tightly around the stones and her eyes fixed on the trees fifty metres in front of her. Suddenly she started to scream and threw the stones at a point just beyond the trees. As soon as she had used up the ammunition in her hands, she picked up some more and threw them, then some more and more and more.
Her screams turned to words, and she yelled over and over again, “Leave me alone! What have you done to Eric?”
Meanwhile, Andrea placed the remaining two bags in the boot of the Range Rover.
Beyond the trees, Ursula thought she saw some movement but kept screaming, yelling and throwing stones anyway.
“Ursula do not do that. It is time to go,” snapped Andrea falsely.
After unleashing one last stone, Ursula left the scene of her outrage and got into the car with a huff. Andrea followed, and they immediately drove off.
Two large men were hiding behind a tree near the Meyer villa. Nearby were scattered stones that they had ducked away from when Ursula had thrown them.
One man put his finger to his ear and spoke, “This is Agent Delta. The street kid has gone wacko, and the two birds have flown the nest. We are in pursuit.”
From a distance, it looked as if a soft breeze had just blown the leaves on the tree. Behind it, the men had gone. They left only footprints.
Within ten minutes, Andrea was on the motorway and heading to Prague airport. Outside the car window, the countryside whizzed by, and Ursula watched the fields come and go. She had calmed down and was smiling to herself.
“Time to check, Ursula,” instructed Andrea.
Ursula turned away from the window, pulled the arm rest down and placed her head beside a slender gap to the boot.
“Hi Eric, hi Alexander, are you comfortable?”
From two of the hold-alls came muffled responses in stereo, “Hi Ursula. No.”
Ursula giggled and faced the road.
As she checked her mirror to look at Ursula, Andrea saw two black motorbikes in the distance slaloming between cars.
“We are being followed. We will stick to the plan. It is highly unlikely they know anything about Eric and Alexander,” she announced loudly.
Fifteen minutes later the Range Rover pulled into a space in the multi-story car park opposite Prague’s Terminal 2. Andrea and Ursula jumped out the moment the handbrake was on. Ursula took a rucksack; Andrea took a hold-all, and they walked briskly out of the car park, towards the terminal building. In front of the entrance, they strode past two helmeted motorcyclists who watched them as they entered and then drove away. Waiting in the terminal was the rest of the PAIS school party; Andrea and Ursula were the last to arrive.
Two hours later the flight to Naples, complete with thirty-one children, Miss Evans, three other teachers and Andrea, took off.
Alexander looked at his watch. This was not particularly difficult as it was squashed right up against his nose. The flight had left, and he announced quietly that it was time to go. He undid the zip of his hold-all and beside him Eric did the same. Every muscle in their bodies screamed as they moved. Painfully, they tried to remove themselves from the bags. Their heads appeared first, and Eric used his periscope to check that the car park was empty. It was. Alexander managed to reach the boot and flipped a switch to open it. They rolled out of the bags, out of the car and landed with a thud and a groan on the tarmac.
They worked as fast as they could and filled the two hold-alls with items that Andrea had hidden inside the Range Rover including a tent, ropes and harnesses. When the bags were packed, they put on a polyester dress and grey wig each, locked the car and hobbled off with the bags like two very old women. They did not need to pretend.
Instead of Terminal 2 they headed towards the Freight Terminal. Gradually their legs came back to life, their backs straightened and their necks lost their kinks. By the time they entered the building, they were walking normally again.
Big cardboard boxes, wooden tea chests and plastic covered packages littered the vast hanger of the Freight Terminal. Forklift trucks scooted around them, picking up pieces and moving them to the aircrafts outside near the runway.
A yellow path had been painted on the concrete floor, and a dark arrow pointed them towards a portacabin office situated next to the furthest wall.
Sitting beside the door on an upturned box, was a grey-haired gentlemen reading Le Figaro. When he noticed Alexander and Eric walking towards him, he carefully folded his newspaper and without rushing, stood up.
“Greetings gentlemen, I trust you have had a successful journey thus far,” he said and placed his newspaper under his arm.
Alexander replied first, “Well I am not sure my spine will ever straighten fully again but, as luck would have it, we weren’t followed here. So, it has indeed been successful.”
Eric had turned red and blurted out, “I’m sorry about what happened on the plane last time we met, Captain Hudson. I’ve changed since then.”
A warm smile raised Captain Hudson’s salt and pepper moustache slightly, and he nodded slowly.
“I know you have Eric, Ursula has been very complimentary about you. Now onto other things. I have arranged everything here for our departure. May I suggest we move on tout de suite, as they say in France. I believe time is of the utmost importance, and we can talk during the journey.”
Without rushing, he led them out of the freight terminal. His plane was standing close to the door and stopped Eric dead in his tracks the moment he saw it.
“Are we flying in that?” he asked incredulously.
He gazed at the twin prop plane in front of him. The wing was placed high on the fuselage, and it did not look modern.
“It’s an antique!”
“Apart from the engines cutting out every half an hour and the loose propellers, it’s more than air shape.”
Eric’s mouth dropped open, and Captain Hudson laughed. “Don’t worry. This craft is an N262 Frégate, built in France in nineteen sixty-eight and the first plane I ever flew. When she was taken out of service by l’Armée de l’Air I was able to purchase her, and she has served me well since then.”
“It looks like it should be in a museum,” said Eric, following the ad
ults towards the plane.
“Your father thought she was a wonderful old bird,” said Captain Hudson in a throw-away manner.
“My father!” Eric stopped dead again. “You knew my father?”
“Oh yes. I knew your father for many years and was deeply saddened to hear of his untimely death. I am very sorry for your loss.”
“He was murdered,” stated Eric angrily.
“It would not surprise me young Mr Meyer. Your father had many enemies, and they were unfortunately, rich or powerful or, in most cases, both. He was a good man, but he was more comfortable with cards than with people and did not always leave a good impression. It was why we agreed that he would disappear from the public spotlight.”
“You helped him with this?”
“I did, and not long after I met you for the first time. You were only a few weeks old so I would be very surprised if you remember me.”
“What?”
“Come on. If we have time, I will tell you more on the plane,” replied Captain Hudson slowly winking. “Let’s go! My co-pilot is waiting.”
Eight hours later, and after one long fuelling stop in Slovenia for both the plane and the people on board, they landed at a small, forgotten airport just outside Naples. It was almost dusk, but the temperature was considerably warmer than in Prague.
The plane came to a standstill next to a large shed with a corrugated iron roof. Somebody had written ‘arrivals lounge’ over its doorway in spray paint, but there was no one around. Parked next to it was a dark green, Fiat hatchback with a trailer, which Andrea had organized for them. Eric and Alexander agreed to meet Captain Hudson back at the plane in two days’ time, at ten in the morning, and then they drove off.
The PAIS school party had arrived six hours earlier. They had unpacked their bags and eaten a quick snack. After lunch, they began a guided tour of the main sights of Pompeii.
Ursula had never been so close to the sea nor to such a historic area. As she stood on a slope leading into the ancient Roman city, she didn’t know where to look. If she looked out from the entrance, she could see the sea glistening only a few kilometres away. If she looked to her right or left, she could see buildings older than she had ever seen before. And if she looked above the entrance she could see Mount Vesuvius, the volcano whose fury had brought about the end of Pompeii. Green shrubs and trees grew on the low slopes and out of the grey, lava beds that rose towards the summit. Near the top, there was nothing but loose volcanic stone. Occasional wisps of smoke blew from the hidden crater. To be so close to such a powerful beast, Ursula found both nerve-racking and exciting.
She could have gazed at Vesuvius or the sea for much, much longer, but her Year 7 peers were walking off and Miss Evans was calling. Andrea trailed behind them and kept a careful eye on Ursula.
The weather was perfect: blue skies, fluffy white clouds and a warm, comfortable temperature. They spent the rest of the day touring the ancient city, but it was impossible to walk around it all. The cobbled roads on which they walked were thousands of years old and had grooves where Roman carts had been pulled down them. Occasionally, large stepping stones in the road blocked their path. Their guide explained that these were for people to cross the road without stepping into the free flowing sewage. When she said this, everyone immediately jumped onto the stones.
All the houses beside the roads were still standing, and it was hard for Ursula to believe that they were two thousand years old. They looked as if they had been abandoned only ten or maybe twenty years ago but not two millennia. The interiors of the houses contained beautiful mosaics showing Roman Gods and customs in well-preserved rooms.
Down one of the streets, they found an ancient theatre. The stone seats were still in a perfect C shape in front of the stage, and small, lion statues marked the aisle between them.
On the edge of the city, they visited the amphitheatre, the home of the city’s gladiators and staged battles. Ursula stood in its dusty centre and imagined being a gladiator. She pictured thousands of Roman spectators surrounding her and waiting for the Emperor to give his thumb up or down to decide her future. She wondered where her future lay. Would she ever return to Saint-Denis? Would the relationship with her grandparents change? Would she have a normal life like other people? These thoughts and more passed through her head as they walked back towards the centre of Pompeii.
On their way, they made a brief stop to look at the Castellum Acquae, where water had entered the city. While they stood there, a group of large and loud American tourists, on a Pompeii tour, joined them. Ursula noted, with some concern that two of the group spent most of the time looking at her rather than the Castellum Acquae. This had not been missed by Andrea, who by the time they left, had already sent a photo of them to Alexander, via her phone.
That night, as she lay in her hotel bed, Ursula recalled all the fantastic things she had seen that day. Meanwhile, Eric lay next to Alexander in their two man tent, unable to sleep, thinking about what the next day would bring.
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