by Jim Eldridge
And with that, I ran away from him as fast as I could.
CHAPTER
4
I headed towards my uncle’s house, but the earthquakes were getting more violent and it was hard to walk. Buildings were shaking and cracks were appearing in their walls. With another shake the cracks would suddenly get bigger. Whole sections of wall would fall away into the street, causing the building to come crashing down. Everywhere I went I could hear screams.
It was impossible to move fast. I had to watch all the time, that each building I was passing wasn’t about to fall on top of me.
My progress was made harder by the dust that flew into the air whenever a building collapsed, creating a thick choking cloud that filled the street.
I headed for the richer part of the city where the buildings were better built, stronger and not so close together to try to get to my uncle’s house that way. It would take longer, but it was safer.
The cloud that had brought the warm flakes from Vesuvius now rained stones upon our heads. They were pumice stones, so they were lighter than normal stones, but some were as big as melons so they still hurt when they hit. At first this rain of pumice stones was light, but it got heavier. The stones made walking difficult because, in the thick clouds of dust, it was hard to see where they were, and I kept tripping and stumbling.
Most of the fountains had split open and water was gushing out. As I passed one, the water splashed me and with a shock I realized it was hot! It also stank of rotten eggs. Why? Was this the work of Vulcan, or was it being heated by the fires underground, just like my father said? If my father was right, then the priests and everyone else were wrong. It was too confusing – could the priests really be wrong?
I tore the bottom part of my tunic off and dipped it in water. I tied it around the lower part of my head to cover my mouth and nose and stop the dust from choking me.
Slowly, slowly, I made my way back to my uncle’s house. The air seemed to have cleared a bit here, although the lumps of warm pumice were still raining down. As I got closer, I saw Uncle Castus and Aunt Drusilla hurry Fabius and Julia out into the street, then go back inside to get their belongings. Then, it happened so suddenly, there was a huge tremor and the whole street beneath my feet seemed to lift up, the cobbles shooting upwards. As I fell I saw a massive crack appear in my uncle’s house; and the next second, before I could shout a warning, the roof crashed down and the whole house disappeared in a cloud of thick smoke.
CHAPTER
5
I stood there, horrified, frozen to the spot. I felt sick. What had happened? Were they dead? Surely no one could survive the roof falling down on them like that.
A huge part of me wanted to run away, but I knew I couldn’t just leave them. I ran into the cloud of orange dust and smoke. Fabius and Julia were by what remained of the front of the house, clinging to one another, terrified and crying.
“Stay here!” I told them.
The dust had begun to settle and I could see the ruin of the house – it was just a pile of broken bricks and roof tiles. My heart was pounding as I edged forward through the broken wall. What would I find? Was there any way they could have survived? My uncle and aunt were lying half-buried beneath the rubble. I ran to them and began pulling bricks off them. They weren’t moving.
Uncle Castus’s arms and feet were sticking out. As I lifted away the bricks, which were covering his head, I realized he was dead. The falling roof must have killed him instantly.
I went to Aunt Drusilla. The bricks and roof tiles had landed on her too, crushing her. She was also dead.
I looked at them, feeling stunned and sick. These were people I’d known all my life, my family, and their lives had been ended in a matter of seconds. What on earth could I say to Fabius and Julia?
Another tremor shook the ground, making me lose my balance and fall. I knew we couldn’t stay here. It was too dangerous. With my father gone, and my uncle and aunt dead, I would have to be the grown-up.
I went back outside to where Fabius and Julia were standing, holding one another and crying.
“I’m afraid your mother and father are dead,” I told them.
It was brutal. I should have said it better, but there was no time to lose if we were going to get away to safety.
At my words both of them let out howls that were awful to hear, making me feel even more guilty about the way I’d told them. I knelt down, wrapped my arms around them and hugged them tightly.
“You can cry later,” I told them. “Right now, we have to get away.”
The shaking had stopped, but for how long?
The flakes and lumps of pumice that had been coming down were now joined by a sleet of warm ash that was falling on the city. It must be coming from the thick clouds that were gushing up from the volcano. The ash was starting to pile up on the ground like thick snow, and it was getting thicker all the time.
I stood, holding the twins by their hands, and wondered what to do next. I didn’t want to leave the bodies of my uncle and aunt where they were, but I didn’t know what else to do. The bricks and rubble covering them would take too long to move, and even if I managed it, what would I do next? Everyone was running around in a panic. No one would help me take the bodies to a proper place. I knew we couldn’t stay here. We had to get to safety.
My father had talked about getting to higher ground, but would that be any safer? Then a thought struck me: perhaps if we went to higher ground, we might find my father and he would take care of us.
As we stood there a crowd of people came past us, battling their way through the piles of fallen ash that clogged up the streets.
“Where are you going?” I called out to them.
“To the docks!” one man shouted back. “We’re going to get boats to safety!”
Of course! The sea!
“Come on!” I told Fabius and Julia. “Follow me! We’re heading for the boats.”
I joined the crowd and half-led, half-dragged the twins along with me. Even though the ground had stopped shaking, walking was difficult because of all the rubble lying around from the fallen buildings, and the ever-increasing ash. Trying to walk through the ash was harder than walking through snow, it was like walking through sand.
“Keep going!” I urged Fabius and Julia.
Finally, we reached the docks. It was an incredible sight. There were hundreds and hundreds of people crammed together, all fighting to board the boats tied up at the quayside. But the most amazing thing was the sea. Instead of it stretching away, blue in colour like usual, lumps of pumice of all sizes bobbed about on its surface. As I watched, more lumps of pumice rained down from the sky, and some with smoke and fire trailing behind them.
Some of these fiery rocks landed on the boats, setting light to the wood and the sails. What were we going to do? Even if we did manage to get on a boat, it might catch fire!
Suddenly I heard a shout close by.
“That boy was with the man who caused this! The man who insulted Vulcan!”
I turned and saw a man pointing angrily at me.
“It’s his fault!” the man yelled. “Don’t let him on the boats or Vulcan will strike that boat with fire!”
A crowd was gathering to see what the commotion was.
“Kill him!” shouted someone else. “Show Vulcan we are sorry! Kill the boy!”
CHAPTER
6
Without pausing to think, I grabbed Julia and Fabius and ran. From the looks of terror and anger on the people’s faces, I knew it was a waste of time trying to tell them it wasn’t my fault, that I didn’t agree with what my father had said about Vulcan. I ducked into a narrow side alley and kept running. It was hard going because of the deep layers of ash. Fabius and Julia fell over a couple of times, but I tugged at their hands and shouted at them to get up and run. All the time I was glancing over my shoulder expecting to see people chasing after me.
Finally, I pulled to a halt beside a ruined building and looked back. No
one had followed us. I guessed that they were more worried about getting on one of the boats and escaping.
“What are we going to do?” asked Julia, looking at me, terror showing on her face.
“We’ll go to Herculaneum,” I said.
It was an instant decision, a reaction to the crowds chasing us. I still wanted to find my father, but now I knew we couldn’t stay here in Pompeii in case someone else recognized me.
Herculaneum was the next city along the coast and, like Pompeii, had a port with lots of boats. The people there wouldn’t know me or my father. We might be able to board a boat there.
“How will we get there?” asked Fabius.
“We’ll walk,” I said.
“But it’s miles!”
That was true. Herculaneum was about eight miles away. But I was trying to stay positive for the children.
“There are villages on the way,” I told them. “Villages with fishermen. We might get lucky and find someone with a boat who’ll take us to safety. And we’ll be safer out on a country road that we are in the city. There won’t be any buildings or statues to fall on us.”
As I said the words, I knew I’d said the wrong thing. I could see the eyes of both Fabius and Julia fill up with tears as they thought of their house falling down on their parents.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to upset you. Please, I know it’s hard for you, but try not to think about it for now. We need to focus on getting to safety.”
It felt strange, me giving orders. I was used to being told what to do by adults. But now, at twelve years old, I found myself in charge of my young cousins, because it didn’t look like anyone was going to help us.
We headed away from the docks and made for the coast road to Herculaneum. Walking was still difficult, and I quickly realized it would take us longer than normal to get to Herculaneum, but we didn’t have much choice. Normally it would take about three hours to walk from Pompeii, but with this ash slowing us down, it might take four times as long. But we couldn’t stay at the docks, and if we stayed in Pompeii we would be in danger from collapsing buildings if there were any more shocks or tremors.
By now it was early evening and dusk was falling. Not that it made much difference – it had seemed like dusk all that afternoon because of the dark clouds from Vesuvius that still hung over Pompeii.
We weren’t the only people trying to escape along the coast road to Herculaneum. Lots of empty carts had been abandoned on the road. The thick piles of ash and the pumice that had been thrown out from the volcano made travelling by cart almost impossible. There were also big cracks in the road, and the wheels of some of the carts had sunk into them. People had unhitched the horses from their carts, piled as much as they could onto their backs, and travelled on. But even the horses were having difficulty, struggling along in these terrible conditions.
The situation was made worse because there were lots of people coming from Herculaneum towards Pompeii, so I guessed things were just as bad there. I began to wonder if it was such a good idea us heading for Herculaneum after all. The coast road was jammed with people, which made travelling even harder.
“We need to get off this road,” I told the twins. I pointed to where the fields went up into the hills inland. “We’ll go across country.”
“It’s getting dark,” said Fabius, worried. “There are wolves out there!”
The same fearful thought had occurred to me. But then I remembered the dead sheep my father and I had seen when we first arrived on the outskirts of Pompeii.
“The bad smell coming from the mountain has frightened the wild animals away,” I assured him.
I didn’t know if that was true, but I knew I had to persuade them to leave the road, otherwise we’d never get to Herculaneum.
As we left the mass of people struggling along the road and began to climb the hill, I thought of the other dangers we might encounter. Wolves. Bears. Wild dogs. I thought of my father. Was he still alive? Was he somewhere looking for safety like us?
I gripped Fabius and Julia tightly by their hands.
“You’ll be alright,” I promised them. “I’ll look after you.”
CHAPTER
7
We climbed up the hill and came to an olive grove. Here the ash that had fallen wasn’t lying as thick on the ground as in the city, so we set off between the trees, still heading north towards Herculaneum. I kept us walking at the very edge of the olive grove because I was worried that there might be dangerous wild animals hiding among the trees, but there didn’t seem to be any about. I remembered that my father had once told me, that when there was going to be an earthquake or a big storm, all the wild animals and birds feel it before people do, and leave the area. If he was right, we should be safe. But then my father had also said things that I thought were crazy. Like when he said there were no gods. If there were no gods, then where did everything come from? The sky, the land and trees, the oceans and rivers – someone had to make them.
Because the ground was uneven, I let Julia and Fabius walk on their own, so they could keep their balance. But suddenly Julia tripped and fell. She half-rolled and half-slid down the hill, and the next second she had disappeared!
“Julia!” shouted Fabius in alarm.
He and I ran to where she’d disappeared, and saw that an enormous hole had opened up in the ground and she’d tumbled into it. There was a dreadful smell coming up from the hole, the same smell there had been in the fields of dead sheep. The air coming up from the hole was hot.
Even though it was getting dark, I could see that Julia had landed on something big and bulky in the hole, which had stopped her falling any further.
She was about two metres below the ground, and the thing she’d landed on looked as if it was rocking.
“Are you alright?” I called down to her.
“I’ve hurt my leg!” she called back, tearfully. “I think I twisted my ankle!”
“What are you lying on?” I shouted.
“It’s a broken cart,” she called back. “It’s wobbling! I think it’s going to fall!”
“Stay there and keep as still as you can!” I told her. “I’ll come down and get you!”
I looked into the hole. Even in the dim light of dusk I could see that the sides of the hole were steep. There didn’t seem to be any places I could use as handholds or footholds.
I wished there was someone who could help us – an adult. Someone big and strong. But there wasn’t. It was down to me.
I looked around, wondering what I could use to save Julia. And then I had an idea.
“I need your tunic,” I told Fabius.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because I’m going to make a rope.”
I took off my own short robe and tore strips off it. Then I tore Fabius’s tunic into strips and tied them all together to make one long rope. I tied one end to the thick branch of an olive tree, then dropped the other end down to Julia.
“Can you get hold of that and climb up?” I asked.
“No!” Julia shouted back. I could hear the fear in her voice. “The cart is really wobbling. If I move, it’ll fall down even more! And I don’t know how deep the hole is! I think it goes right down into the Underworld!”
“Don’t panic. Stay there and I’ll come and get you!” I called.
I tested the rope by pulling at it. It seemed to be strong enough, but I didn’t know if it would take my weight.
“I’ll hang on to it,” offered Fabius.
I shook my head.
“No. If the rope breaks and you’re hanging on to it, you’ll be pulled down with us. And, like Julia says, we don’t know how deep down the hole is.” I went to the edge of the hole and took hold of my homemade rope. “Fabius, listen to me. If it goes wrong and we both end up in the hole, go back to the road and follow the crowd. Head for the sea. Someone will find a place for you in a boat.”
Fabius suddenly grabbed me and hugged me, looking terrified.
; “I don’t want to be left alone without you and Julia!” He began to cry.
“I don’t want that, either,” I told him. “But I have to try to save Julia.”
I eased myself out of his arms as gently as I could and then began to climb carefully down the rope. The smell in the hole was awful, the same stink as before, but the heat coming up from below made it even worse. It was as if I was actually climbing down into Vulcan’s forge, deep below the ground. I had no idea if I would be able to reach Julia and get us both back to the surface again.
CHAPTER
8
I climbed down slowly, all the time aware that the rope was only made of cloth and it might tear at any moment. If that happened I knew I’d fall on top of Julia and take her, and the cart, right down to the depths.
At last, I made it to where Julia was sitting on the broken remains of a cart. It was certainly rocking. I saw that it was balanced on a rock that was jutting out. If it slipped off that rock it would fall much further into the hole. The pit was so deep I couldn’t see the bottom. And the smell coming up from it was really horrible – so bad it made my eyes water.
“Can you slide towards me and grab my hand?” I asked.
“I’m scared!” shouted Julia.
I braced my feet against the side of the hole and, holding on to the rope with one hand, stretched out my other hand as far as I could.
“Come on!” I urged her. “Hold my hand!”
Nervously, Julia reached out. I reached further until our fingers were almost touching.
“Make one last stretch,” I said. “Come on, Julia.”
As she stretched a bit more, so did I, and I was able to get my fingers round her wrist. Suddenly I saw the cart shift and then edge off the rock it was balanced on. I tightened my grip on her wrist and pulled her to me just as the cart fell away. As it did, I saw that the body of a woman had been caught beneath the cart, and she went down with it, her dress fluttering in the gloom as she, and the cart, disappeared into the darkness below.