by Paul Gallico
“There you are,” he said, “snug as a bug.”
He went on to do the same for the lion and the black panther, though he did not take similar liberties with them. He then went charging off, for there were still dozens of other friends to be looked after.
Although it was only just past six of a summer’s afternoon when the light would have lasted until nine almost, it was now as dark as midnight. No one had thought to switch on the illumination and activate the strings of white and coloured bulbs outlining the tents and hanging between them, so rapidly had this unholy night fallen upon them.
A flare of lightning silhouetted the long horse tent for an instant, and within Mr. Albert caught a momentary glimpse of a sea of moving figures and tossing heads and manes as the tethered animals reared in fear, and his imagination supplied their wildly rolling eyes and bared teeth. But the flash had also outlined for a moment the tall, lean figure of Fred Deeter and the shorter ones of the two grooms. They were in there working to calm and soothe their beasts.
When the explosion of thunder had ceased and rolled away, Mr. Albert heard the miserable howling of dogs and the barking and whining of the foxes.
He hurried on to the menagerie. The monkeys huddled in one corner, whimpering in an indistinguishable cluster of brown and grey arms and legs. Pockets, the kangaroo and the other exhibits were all in smaller cages which had rolled-up canvas flaps and Mr. Albert worked feverishly loosening these, dropping them and making them fast. Then, with his breath wheezing, his ancient lungs burning from the effort, he went speeding off to Judy.
At that moment the circus lights came on in full yellow and multicoloured glory, causing the black, lowering demon of the sky to retreat for a moment and throwing the empty aisles between the tents and the circus wagons into eerie relief. The terrified elephant chained at the edge of the lot saw Mr. Albert come flying to her like a bat out of the night, and stretched out an anguished trunk to him so that it stood straight out like an arm reaching for him.
Mr. Albert ran to her and almost literally took her in his arms, murmuring, patting, soothing and scolding her, and they fondled one another like lovers. The elephant was testing, touching, and feeling Mr. Albert all over his face, chest, and body with the sensitive tip of her trunk, or coiling it about him. She was, with her great ears flapping, as huge as a mountain but, within her, her fears and her nervousness made her no bigger than a vole which Mr. Albert could hold cupped in his hands, to soothe and protect.
Mr. Albert was worried too, for by now he had had time to pause and see that this was going to be a cataclysm such as he had never encountered before. Yet now that the two were together—man and beast no longer alone—they could give one another comfort, and as the first fireball exploded over their heads, the elephant went to her knees gently in the posture she assumed in the ring when she covered her trainer. Mr. Albert quickly crawled beneath her belly, sheltering between her front legs.
Judy closed her eyes and bowed her broad front a little lower, as overhead the thunder and lightning were continuous, bolt following upon bolt, the noise unremitting, booming, rolling, and reverberating, paining the eardrums with sharp, splitting explosions, addling brains with the continuity of shocking sound, and shaking the very marrow when the thunder descended to bass diapasons almost unbearable by the human body. The very air stank of the storm and its effect upon those enduring it; the smell was of ozone, urine, animals, and fear.
The coming of the hail was heralded by an even more appalling blast as though a thousand pieces of artillery had been discharged simultaneously, and the next instant stone-hard, walnut-sized bullets of ice were raining down upon the circus encampment to the sounds of the shattering of glass and the screaming of women. For an instant, Mr. Albert who well remembered the war of his youth felt as though a gigantic shrapnel shell had burst over their heads.
Nearly all the windows in every caravan, trailer, lorry, or living wagon were smashed, windscreens shattered, and the glass of headlamps and searchlights cracked and splintered. The electric lighting system was put out of action at once, and bulbs were popping against the deep and unbroken kettle-drum symphony of the thunder, like cheap fireworks on Guy Fawkes Day.
The projectiles of ice rattled off the hide and skull of Judy with the dry, crackling sound of burning. She remained motionless and uncomplaining during the battering and disposed herself somehow to afford even more protection to the man crouched inside and beneath her forelegs and under her lower jaw.
Mr. Albert tried to withdraw all of himself within the armoured encirclement of elephant. He removed his spectacles and pocketed them for greater safety’s sake, and huddled even more closely to the big beast who, as if she had guessed the weakness of her friend and keeper, now curled her trunk down over his head as further protection. The love manifested by her sent a surge of happiness through him.
The strange thing was that now all those who had run and hidden from the bogyman of thunder emerged stupidly and bewildered from their homes when there was real danger to life and limb. The smashing of their windows brought them out—the clowns, riders, acrobats, trainers, all of the performers—in dressing gowns or sweat shirts, some still with streaks of make-up lining their faces.
The hailstones bombarded them cruelly, striking them on the tops of their heads, bruising their cheekbones, arms, and fingers so that they began to cry, “Ow!” and “Christ!” and “Oh, oh!” in pain, and ran about in circles nervously, unsettled, not knowing where to go or what to do, and in their paint and mixed costumes looking like a rout of mediaeval demons against the white glare of the lightning. Already the ground was covered with the white residue of spent ammunition that had been fired at them and through which they were slipping and sliding.
Harry Walters, who had lost his head, was bawling contradictory orders to the members of his family, and the two girls, Angela and Lilian, were screaming as the hail began to hammer them through their thin peignoirs. Walters wrestled them roughly by the elbows shouting, “What are you standing here for? Do you want to get killed? Go on, get away from here!” But he did not tell them where to go. His fat wife had a hand over her eye and was whimpering from the pain.
“Get boards! Board up the windows! Turn her around!” he shouted to Jacko, and to Toby and Ted: “What the hell do you think you’re doing here? Why aren’t you looking after the horses? Who’s looking after the horses?” Shielding their faces and heads with their forearms, Jacko and Ted made off in the direction of the horse tent, but Toby moved off the opposite way.
“Hoi!” shouted Walters. “Where the hell do you think you’re going? Chasing that cheap tart who’s got her eye on you!”
The rage that flamed up in the boy negated the storm, the hurt of the hailstones—everything. He said, “I’m going to look after Judy.” But he did want to go to fetch Rose. The end-of-the-world cataclysm of the storm had the strange effect of exciting him sexually, and he would have wished to wade through the shards of broken glass and ice balls on the ground to her wagon, snatched her therefrom and had her then and there while the lightning glared and the thunder saluted his entry into manhood.
Walters screamed at him, “Blast Judy! Get over to the horses before I kick that itching arse of yours!” The elephant was no concern of Harry Walters. She belonged to Sam Marvel and he didn’t care what happened to her. He watched Toby change direction and stumble over after his brothers in the direction of the horse tent.
Sam Marvel huddled at the desk of the little office built into his comfortable private living wagon, shifting an unlit Schimmelpenninck from one side of his thin mouth to the other. The windows on one side of his caravan had likewise been smashed and they let in the hail which struck objects, those of metal giving off sounds like the iron plates behind the targets of shooting galleries, or rattling around on the floor. For the first time in his life he was aware that there was something bigger than Samuel Marvel and that it appeared to be out to get him. He had fled to the safety of his carav
an; it had broken his windows and now was coming inside to fetch him. There was no longer any place to hide.
He had a curious flashback of recollection to the turning point in his life which had brought him to this pass, the day some fifteen years before when he might have bought one of the then rare bowling alleys that was going for a bargain, or the circus, and he had acquired the latter. But he thought of it now seemingly illogically, except that the rolling thunder was like the rumbling of the heavy balls speeding down the wooden alleys, and the great explosions that followed each lightning flash were like that first shock as the missiles plunged into the heart of the ninepins for a strike. Bowling was a craze now, a good, solid business unaffected by heat, cold, wind, or lightning, or even television. And for an instant, Marvel saw himself as he would have been that night had he chosen the other path: snug and secure inside a building sitting at the cash desk selling cigars and soft drinks on the side, raking in the coin.
Another flash, another appalling explosion, another heaving gust of wind propelled the hailstones through the shattered window, one of which struck him violently on the ankle, causing him to leap to his feet and shout, “Christ Almighty!”
The big top had become possessed. It shook and swayed, shivered, shuddered, swelled, and contracted, as though it had become endowed with life and was flinching and ducking like the humans from the fearful assault of the elements.
It was the wind, and Joe Cotter had never before encountered anything like it. For it tore at his tent from all quarters as well as with up-draughts and down-draughts. At times it seemed even to move in opposite directions and in almost visible layers. There was no beating it or outguessing it.
Unmindful of the stinging hail and the uproar, Cotter stood a little outside the main entrance to study its vagaries, to be prepared to ease a rope here, tauten stays there, as the need might arise. Like the captain of a sailing vessel in a typhoon, he watched his canvas and tried to calculate to the last ounce how much the straining masts would bear. He had managed to assemble a baker’s dozen of helpers under the big top: three English tentmen plus four of the Spaniards, who had been driven from beneath the wagons where they had sheltered by the hail and flying glass and had run to the big tent for protection. The rest of his crew was made up from members of the oriental Yoshiwara-Fu Tong and Albanos-Hunyadis troupes who had come to offer their services as anchor men in the tug-of-war. The language barrier was an additional handicap, for Gogo, the only one who spoke fluent Spanish, was not there. He was engaged with Panache and Janos in defending the battered fortress of their clown wagon and calming and controlling the performing dogs who were nearly out of their minds with terror.
The rocking tent was following no orthodox pattern of behaviour with which Cotter could cope. One moment it ballooned like a gas bag about to take off from a fair ground, and then the ropes strained frayed against the iron stakes driven into the hard earth and the base of the two king poles moved and lifted from their contact with the ground as though trying to escape. The next it seemed as though all the air had been sucked out of the enclosure, slacking off every rope and stay, causing the king poles to slant crazily towards one another, while the queen and side poles swayed loosely, the tent wallings flapped, and the pulley blocks, guys, and bale rings atop the king pole set up a rattle and clatter and jangling to add to the general bitter orgy of sound. There were times when the tent boss thought he had caught the rhythm of the thing. Then with himself and his three compatriots leading the action he pushed and shoved the Spaniards into doing what was wanted, only to have the bucking canvas imbued with some new frenzy.
Cotter was aware that both men and materials were being subjected to strains and stresses which neither flesh and blood, wood, cast iron, or cotton fibre had been intended to withstand. He was certain that unless the tornado slacked off his equipment would not survive, and he was as concerned with seeing to it that his men would not be injured when the crash came as with trying to evade it.
And then, as suddenly as it had begun, as anti-violent as the violence that had been raging, the wind and hail abruptly came to an end as the cold front passed. Inside the tent the workers were left stunned by its sudden cessation, breathless, close to exhaustion, unable to credit the fact that they were no longer called upon to haul and strain at ropes with blistered palms and aching backs. Within the space of an instant, the tent had left off its plunging and rearing and become as docile as a child, and they looked at one another in dazed bewilderment, holding the ends of ropes unexpectedly slackened in their hand. Only Joe Cotter was still as wary and mistrustful as a prize fighter who has knocked his opponent down but is waiting to see in what kind of shape he will arise before conceding himself the winner. Was this the end of the blow, or merely the pause before a stronger onslaught?
They waited, counting the seconds, but there was not so much as a stir to the top or sidewalls. “Okay,” said Cotter, “take a breather,” and started to walk to the entrance of the big top when the first of the two lightning bolts struck.
C H A P T E R
1 1
It hit the right-hand king pole, splitting it down the middle; and simultaneously, with the frightful thunder crack that signalled the strike, a curl of flame appeared at the base of the pole as well as at the top around the edge of the canvas. The two small fires, if caught in time, might have been extinguished, had not an instant later a second bolt, in the form of a fireball, ripped down through the tent and exploded at the base of a pile of the wooden seating planks and their supports.
Instantaneously, the tinder dry wood with a crackling roar burst into yellow flowers of flame, which simultaneously spread upwards, devouring the canvas walls of the tent.
“Out! Out! Git out! Git out!” Cotter shouted. He had been inside the enclosure at the moment of the two strikes and was half stunned by his nearness to them and the impact of the detonation hammering down from the sky. Yet he recovered sufficiently to shove and harry the figures of the shocked and dizzied men remaining within the tent, pushing them, beating upon their backs, at the same time keeping up his half-hysterical cry of “Git out! Git out! Git out from under, you bloody fools! She’s going up!”
By the time they were all outside the racing flames had circled the enclosure and the heat of the burning benches was driving them back. Still Cotter kept his head, shouting, “Git those beast wagons out of there! Come on, lend a hand!” And between them they hustled the big cages containing the wildly excited cats out of range of the flames.
The fire brought out all of the members of the circus to stand huddled together, the blaze lighting up the horror on their faces.
The passing of the wind and hail had swept away the panic that had so badly rattled Sam Marvel and enabled him to get a grip on himself, when the frames of his broken windows were filled with a bright orange glare that lit up the whole of the interior of the living wagon.
He shouted, “Christ-all-bloody-mighty!” and ran. His momentary cowardice had passed, for the magnitude of the disaster that was befalling him was greater than his fear of the storm, which was still firing its electrical discharges and unending artillery salvoes overhead, as though from then on this was the way the world was to be and must be endured.
He burst from the wagon, a bandy-legged little figure still in his ringmaster’s dinner jacket and bowler, like one going to a party. He came at once upon Cotter and the group that had moved and manhandled the beast wagons to a place of safety.
Tufts of burning canvas now began to detach themselves from the main tent and float down to the ground. Both Cotter and Sam Marvel immediately became aware of this new danger and shouted at the members of the company, “Don’t stand there, you bloody fools! Move your wagons! Get them off the tober! Wet down the horse tent!”
Fred Deeter and the grooms and horsemen, as well as two of the Walters boys, who had come out from the horse stalls at the first burst of flame and the cries of the tent boss, now went back to try to blindfold the more hys
terical of the horses within and loop them to leaders, attaching four at a time so that they could be led forth in case the fire spread.
Toby and the acrobat Joe Purvey of the Birdsalos scrambled up on to the top of the horse tent, and the taut surface enabled them to take gigantic leaps as though they were on the trampoline or spacemen on the moon, and bat to the ground pieces of burning canvas before they could ignite the enclosure. Others ran to fetch buckets of water to wet down the side nearest the blaze.
The main tent was an inferno. Fed by the furnace of the crackling seats below, the flames shot into the sky. Burning ropes writhed through the air like incandescent snakes; and the roaring of the blaze drowned out the shouts of the performers running about to save their possessions and drag the cages of the animals to safety. Even had there been a sufficient supply of water at hand—one tap to which endless trips had to be made supplied the whole circus—the forming of a bucket brigade to fight the blaze would have been as useless as to try to put out a burning city with a child’s toy.
The fire was a beautiful and fearful thing as it crawled up the masts of the poles whose stays had not yet been consumed, and roared from the white heat of the furnace at the bottom through pale yellow to deep orange flames; awe-inspiring and eerie too. For there was something missing from this blaze. Fire called for fire sounds, the clanging of bells, the wailing of sirens, the thumping and pumping of apparatus, the tearing slosh of water.
There were none.
No bells of alarm rang from the centre of the palm-lined Plaza de los Reyes Católicos; no wagons rumbled through the streets. Zalano had no fire-fighting equipment. The town was built of blocks of fieldstone and roofed with uninflammable tile. A bucket brigade of neighbours was enough to put out the occasional oil-stove or kitchen fat fire.
From the nearest house on the far side of the road opposite the tober, roughly garbed men, women in black shawls, and children in pinafores appeared and stood gazing white-faced at the flaming tent. But no one came from the town. Zalano, too, was being shelled by lightning which was striking belfries and houses, knocking stones off chimneys and cornices, while the hail had left hardly a pane of glass intact. In addition, the people were too horror-stricken and involved in this catastrophe bombarding them from the heavens. The fire lighting up the sky to the south was none of their concern.