The Trembling Hills

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  “I had time, so why not?” Sara told her lightly. “There’re some fires around town. And there might be another earthquake. I thought I’d get ready to move.”

  Nick said he wanted a better look at those fires and climbed to the tower. When he came down a few moments later his face was grave. He spoke to Mrs. Jerome.

  “I believe I’ll go down to the office. It’s on the south side of Market and there’s no telling whether those fires will get out of hand. I suggest that you fill every bathtub in the house with water, while it’s still to be had. Sometimes a main breaks when there’s an earthquake and we don’t want to be left without water.”

  He went off to dress and Sara helped her mother fill the tubs. Ominously the water gave out halfway through the second tub.

  Before he left, Nick gave orders that no fires were to be lit in stoves or grates. Some of the chimneys were damaged and no risk must be taken. By now Susan had gone to take the ferry to Oakland where her family lived. And the other servants hadn’t come to work. Only the coachman had stayed with his horses. Mrs. Jerome and Sara managed to serve a cold breakfast, which they all ate together at the table in the kitchen.

  Judith seemed like a sleepwalker today, as if what was happening to San Francisco was a dream from which she expected to waken. Her left hand was bare of any ring, though this was something Mrs. Renwick had apparently not yet noticed. Ritchie had found that by giving all his attention to Mrs. Renwick, he could ignore both Judith and Sara.

  In the kitchen Mrs. Jerome moved with a calm capability, restoring order out of a chaos of pots and pans and broken crockery. She had the air of a woman who knew how to meet trouble, and the others in the house had begun to lean on her.

  There had been two or three mild temblors since the big shock, and now any stirring of the earth made them fly to dubious outside safety, only to troop sheepishly back indoors when the shock had passed. As time went on, however, everyone began to take the after quakes somewhat more for granted and find them less terrifying than at first. Though more bricks fell from the chimneys from time to time, no further serious damage was done.

  After a hurried breakfast, Ritchie went out to stand on the front steps, watching the smoke cloud in the valley. Nick had not suggested that he come along to the office and he was plainly bored at being left behind with the women. After a time he decided to see for himself what was happening, and went down the hill toward Market Street. Judith hardly appeared to know that he had gone.

  All over Nob Hill people stood in upper windows, in towers, even on the rooftops, watching through field glasses as the fires spread through the low area. Sara and her mother and Allison climbed to the tower to watch the spectacle. Judith stayed in Mrs. Renwick’s sitting room, while her mother moved from door to window, wanting to miss nothing. Mrs. Renwick remained confident that all would soon be well.

  From the tower Sara could see that the lower end of Market Street was hidden by smoke and all the Mission district looked to be on fire. The clouds, boiling straight up on the windless air, pulsed with light on their under side and the roar and crackling could be clearly heard.

  “It’s out of control,” Mrs. Jerome said without emotion. “This is more than the fire department can handle.”

  Streams of refugees had begun to leave the danger area and pour toward the hills. They made a black tide along the streets as they turned toward the west and north for safety. Once Sara ran downstairs to talk to some who had climbed Nob Hill in their anxiety to put height between themselves and the fire. Then she went back to the tower with her disquieting news.

  “They say the water mains were broken by the quake,” she told the other two. “There’s no water to fight the fire except close to the bay. All electricity went off at once and the fire stations didn’t receive orders as quickly as they should. People are saying that the whole section south of Market will burn before nightfall.”

  “Will the fire come up here?” Allison asked.

  “Not right away, dear,” Mrs. Jerome said. “I think we can stay where we are awhile longer.”

  At least there was the heartening news that General Funston had brought in his men from the Presidio and they were helping to get people out, setting up fire lines. Union Square, one man said, was so crowded you could hardly get through. Somebody had seen the great Caruso there, sitting on his trunk like any other refugee.

  It was Allison who first spied Nick climbing toward the house, burdened by a huge wastebasket filled with ledgers and papers. Sara and Allison hurried downstairs to meet him, while Mrs. Jerome followed more slowly. Allison called to her mother as they went out, and Mrs. Renwick and Judith joined them on the front steps.

  Nick set his burden down on the sidewalk and rested on the steps.

  “Of course no one showed up at the office,” he told them. “Merkel lives across the bay and probably couldn’t get in. The ferries are still running, but they’re only taking people out, not in. This stuff is all I could manage to carry of our records and papers. I’m afraid our side of Market Street will go like the rest.”

  “But won’t the firemen make a stand and keep the fire from crossing Market?” Sara asked.

  He glanced at her wearily. “They’re doing their best, but there’s no water to be had except from the bay. Lines of hose are being stretched the length of Market, but the pressure weakens to a trickle at that distance. And it all takes time. Time is what we lack most, along with water. At least I brought some records out. They’re more important than ever now. People are going to need insurance money when this is over.”

  Judith seemed to come momentarily out of her trance. The look she exchanged with her brother was filled with some grim meaning which Sara didn’t grasp. She hoped Nick would stay with them now, but already he was rising from his brief rest on the steps.

  “Keep an eye on this stuff, will you?” he said, gesturing toward the basket. “I’m going back. Every hand is needed. You’re all safe enough up here—don’t worry.”

  “You—haven’t seen Ritchie?” Judith asked.

  “No. I probably wouldn’t see him in the crowds. People are streaming both ways down the middle of Market—going toward the ferries and toward the hills, depending on which appeals most. And there are hundreds more turning up the side streets.”

  Allison pointed suddenly. “Look! Here comes that Chinese servant from Geneva’s!”

  Ah Foong had evidently come all the way from Van Ness on foot. He bobbed a silent greeting to the group on the steps as he handed Nick an envelope.

  “Geneva has been worried about us,” Nick said, opening it. “Her aunt sends word that we are all to come to her house if there’s any danger.” He smiled wryly. “I can see that the role of host to refugees might appeal to Miss Varady’s sense of the dramatic. I’ve never known her to miss a chance of playing the grande dame.” But he shook his head at Ah Foong. “Tell Miss Hester we’re a lot safer up here than where she is. One of the fires got across Van Ness near the Market Street end. Though I believe it’s under control by now. Tell Miss Geneva we’re safe, Ah Foong, and if their house is in danger she and Miss Varady must come here.”

  “Miss Valady stay,” said Ah Foong calmly. Today he had bound his pigtail in a neat coil at the back of his head where it would not get in his way. His only concession to disaster, apparently.

  When he had gone an officer rode up on a horse, looked them over and spoke to Nick. “You got an automobile here? We need volunteers to haul dynamite.”

  The women stared at him, but Nick said quietly that he did have one and he would drive it if he was needed.

  “Not dynamite!” Mrs. Renwick cried. “Surely you won’t take dynamite into the fire area, Nick?”

  “We’ll do what has to be done,” said Nick. “I’ll get the auto now.”

  “What are they going to do with dynamite?” Allison demanded, beside herself with excitement.


  The man on horseback gave her a lopsided grin. “Blow up a few buildings maybe. If they can ever agree which ones to sacrifice. That’s one way of fighting a fire. But it will take a lot of dynamite to do the job.”

  Sara looked toward the tall buildings of Market Street, standing strong and high, with the fire bright behind them. In only a few minutes, the scene seemed immeasurably worse. The air was growing warmer from the heat.

  “Could be we’ll need your horses too,” the officer said to the women. “We’ll use all the help we can get to pull and haul. They’re plenty of earthquake injured lying on the grass in Portsmouth Square. We’re setting up refugee camps in Golden Gate Park and the Presidio. You folks better start trekking out there if the fire comes this way. But go on foot. We need cars and carriages for those who can’t walk.”

  “The fire won’t climb Nob Hill,” said Mrs. Renwick stanchly.

  Nick had driven the auto into the street from the side drive and he heard her words as he stopped at the curb. “The laws of gravity don’t impress fire very much, Mother. Better keep a lookout posted. I’ll get back when I can.”

  Sara stood up to watch them go—Nick toward the Presidio for his first load of dynamite, the officer toward the fire. She felt both excited and alarmed. She wished that she could volunteer for some useful job as a man had the right to do. When you worked you could forget worry. When you did nothing, anxiety ate at you, wouldn’t let you rest. She wouldn’t be at ease again until she saw Nick safely returned from his assignment.

  Before Nick left he told the coachman to take the horses where they could be used, and drive the carriage as a rescue vehicle if he wished. The man was eager enough to be a part of what was happening and he had gone shortly after Nick. So the women were alone.

  So far the one thing in favor of the fire fighters had been the lack of wind. But now a breeze stirred from the southeast, rising to a wind, blowing strong. The clouds of smoke and flame began to billow as they had not done before, rolling eagerly toward new fuel. The wind dropped cinders and bits of char on Nob Hill, and now they could feel the fierce heat of the fire on their faces. The smell of it was hot and choking.

  When the first blast of dynamite came, it startled them all. A flash ripped the smoke canopy, there was a roar and a shower of sparks. Then black bits of the building which had blown up dropped back to earth. A new tide of refugees said the fire fighters had had to retreat from Market Street. The wind had sent the fire bearing down upon them, driving them back with its heat. Hundreds of feet of hose were being sacrificed because the fire was too close, too fierce.

  Again the women in the Renwick house managed a cold meal. Then they went inevitably back to watch the fire from either windows or tower. The roaring was closer now and the furnace heat flushed their cheeks. They dipped their handkerchiefs in water and kept applying it to their faces to ease the burning.

  All about the Palace Hotel the fire raged, but the building withstood until late afternoon. Then, with the last defender fled, flames broke through every bay window so that the entire structure flared like a torch. No one spoke now as they watched. Even the refugees in the streets were silent, dazed, the mark of horror in their eyes.

  Never, Sara thought, would she forget the sound of those crowds pouring away from the fire. Not only the steady drum of feet, but the constant rattle, the scraping noise of possessions being dragged across cobblestones. Anything on wheels had been put to use, from doll carriages to wagons. Trunks bumped along on roller skates or wagon wheels, or scraped harshly as they were pulled by the handles. There was no panic, no tears, no wailing. Just this vast, stunned exodus.

  Still Mrs. Renwick said, “It won’t touch Nob Hill. This is William’s house. He would want us to stay.”

  By evening, when the sun was red in the west—red as the sky and the sea beneath—Ritchie came home, blackened, weary but strangely alive, as Sara had never before seen him. Market Street was lost, he said. And the refugees would have to get out of Union Square and Portsmouth Square too. The fire was already eating that way. But there was no hurry here on Nob Hill. He was going to drop into his own bed and sleep till the fire wakened him. Mrs. Jerome took him some food, but he fell asleep, too weary to eat.

  A man who identified himself as a member of the Citizens’ Patrol came around and warned them to light no fires, no candles. The Mayor had ordered those citizens who had not been evacuated to stay at home when night fell. Looters would be shot without mercy. The Mayor’s Committee of Fifty was in charge—made up of leading citizens—and the city could count on a continuance of rescue and patrol work.

  With all telephone and telegraph services out, San Francisco might be isolated from the world, but law and order was being maintained. A great tragedy and handicap had been the injury of Fire Chief Sullivan, who was said to be near death due to the collapse of the fire station where he had his living quarters.

  While there was still daylight, Mrs. Jerome suggested that they get packed and ready for the worst. They should be prepared to leave at a moment’s notice if the time came. She had taken over the guardianship of Nick’s wastebasket full of papers and she placed it in the hall near the front door so that it could be saved first if necessary. Sara found herself in the role of aide to her mother and she did her bidding without question.

  Once, when Sara went into Mrs. Renwick’s rooms to see how she was managing, she found Nick’s mother standing on the sideboard in her small dining room, taking the Japanese plates down from their rack on the wall.

  “What are you doing that for?” Sara asked.

  Hilda Renwick clasped a delicate gold and red plate to her bosom. “I really must save these plates, Sara. If William’s house burns, this is all I will have that he treasured.”

  “Perhaps you could let Allison carry the plates when the time comes to leave.”

  Mrs. Renwick stared. “Allison? But it was Allison who broke one of these very—”

  “But don’t you see,” Sara tried to explain patiently, “it would be good for Allison to be trusted with them.”

  With a cumbersome effort Mrs. Renwick sat down on the sideboard. But it was not the subject of Allison which most interested her.

  “Sara, have you any idea what’s happened between Judith and Ritchie?” she asked. “When I noticed that she wasn’t wearing her ring, I pointed it out, thinking she might have laid it down somewhere. But she told me Ritchie had it and after that she wouldn’t say another word.”

  “Then perhaps you’d better ask Ritchie,” Sara suggested, moving toward the door.

  “Wait, Sara! Ritchie won’t talk about it. He looks like a thundercloud if I mention Judith. And usually he’s so sweet.”

  “I don’t know anything about it,” Sara said and escaped from her questioning.

  No one slept very much that night. Not wanting to go upstairs to lonely bedrooms, the women gathered in the library, clearing a space among hundreds of books which had been jarred from the shelves. They napped uneasily on the leather couch, and on mattresses dragged down from their beds. The room never grew completely dark because of the fire glow in the sky. Dynamite blasts shattered the air with their constant recurrence, and began to seem frighteningly close. Orders had been given for all windows to be left partly open so that concussion wouldn’t blow out the panes. This made the night hotter and more noisy than ever. The after tremors continued and added to the general uneasiness, though now no one rushed outside when they occurred.

  Mrs. Renwick had wrapped her precious plates in pillowcases and brought them into the library with her. Somehow, to his wife, they seemed to embody the strength and decision of William Renwick, and there were moments when she regarded them with an expectant air, as if they might speak with his voice and direct them all.

  Mrs. Jerome and Allison shared a mattress, with Comstock at their feet. It was Mary who finally got Allison to settle down and go to sl
eep. Judith spent most of the night at the tall southeast windows, staring at the fire. Her crown of pale hair took on a reddish hue in the glow and she seemed like a woman in some spell of enchantment. Sara, stirring now and then from her own fitful sleep, saw her and wondered what she was thinking. Why must she stand without cease, watching the fire? How did she feel about Ritchie?

  In the red, glaring dawn, Sara climbed once more to the tower to see what was happening. All the sky was hidden by smoke and flame. She held her ears against the roaring, winced at the blistering heat. Now fire lapped the low streets below Nob Hill. Chinatown was burning. All the downtown area had been swept to skeleton ruin. In the red light she could see the Chinese making their way uphill in an endless line—differing from other refugees in their bright costumes and the strange burdens they carried. She saw one old man who moved haltingly, bearing in his hands a porcelain statue of some Chinese goddess. And there were those with tiny cricket cages, others with lacquer boxes. Here were not only servants in their blue linen, but mandarins in handsome robes, and gaudily dressed women tottering along on tiny “lily feet,” leaning on attendants.

  “Sara!” That was Allison calling. “Sara, come down. I’m frightened.”

  No longer was this an adventure for Allison. She still lugged Comstock, and while he rebelled now and then and pushed her away, he always returned to comfort her. Sara climbed down to the glass-strewn room where Allison waited. The little girl drew her at once from this high place where the fire lit every corner. The upper hallway of the house was dark, comparatively cool. Allison shut the door upon the fire glare, groped her way to the top step. The distant sounds were muffled here, the darkness soothing to smarting eyes. She slipped her hand into Sara’s and they sat in silence for a few minutes, each comforted by the human touch of the other.

  “This house is going to burn too, isn’t it?” Allison whispered.

  “I’m afraid so,” Sara said. “Mama says we must leave soon. I keep hoping Nick will come and tell us what to do.” The thought of Nick and his dangerous work had never been far from her mind through this long night. He had said he would come back when he could. And he had not come. If he had been hurt, even killed, they might not know for a long time. She dared not let her mind follow that frightening path.