Saddle the Wind

by Jess Foley

  Blanche poured a little wine and water for Gentry, which she gave him along with some of the bread and a hunk of the swede. Sitting on the edge of the mattress beside him she drank some wine and water, and ate the bread and the swede, carving off slices with the knife. Neither she nor Gentry spoke. When she had finished she set down the glass and the knife on the floor and moved quietly across the room to where Lisa and Adriana lay. They had eaten and drunk everything she had given them and now lay sleeping. She tucked the folds of the blanket about them and then moved back to Gentry. Softly, so as not to waken Marianne, she inquired as to his own injuries. His arm was all right, he said, but he had to admit that his knee was very painful. He pushed aside the covering of the blanket, sat up and tried to pull up his trouser-leg. He could not; the fabric was too tight. When Blanche touched his knee he flinched and she saw that his leg was very swollen.

  Having no alternative, Blanche took the knife and slit the seam of his trousers – and was horrified to see that his knee was swollen and inflamed to the extent where it ballooned out grotesquely. Clearly he had wrenched it so badly that he had torn ligaments and muscles.

  Taking another of the tea cloths, she tore it into strips and bound his knee. Then, at her urging, he lay back down on the mattress beside Marianne, and she covered him again with the blanket and the coat. Try to get some sleep, she urged him.

  He nodded and closed his eyes. Blanche remained standing there. She felt absolutely helpless. Four people – Adriana, Lisa, Marianne and Gentry – all were dependent upon her – and she did not know what to do for any of them. And she was so tired. She sighed with weariness; she seemed to ache in every bone and muscle of her body. It would be so easy to lie down beside Adriana and Lisa and just sleep. She could not, though. There were too many responsibilities. Standing there with the low-burning oil lamp in her hand she thought back over the events of the past two days. And it was not finished. The horror was continuing. She raised her left hand and pressed it to her eyes as if she would blot out the images that ran through her brain. For a moment there was the threat of tears; she forced them back; tears at such a time would be an indulgence, and there was no time for such a thing.

  Gentry lay with his arm across Marianne’s body. As Blanche gazed down he opened his eyes and looked up at her. ‘Try to sleep,’ she whispered. ‘We’ll be safe here. And tomorrow we’ll go away.’ He gave a little nod and closed his eyes again.

  Her gaze shifted to take in Marianne’s still face, and as she looked at her she thought back to how she had been in earlier days. She saw her as she had been that Christmas, when she had fallen in love with Gentry, so pretty and so full of hope for the future. She saw her as she had been as a schoolgirl at Clifton, as a child on the heath around Hallowford …

  She moved away, walking on soft feet towards the passage, and the stairs that led up to the street level. Setting down the lamp she climbed the stairs. The atmosphere of the subterranean kitchen was oppressive; she felt she had to get some air.

  At the top of the stairs, emerging from the shattered doorway into the devastation of the ruined villa, she found the rain still teeming down and driven by a hard, cold wind. Up in the sky the crows and ravens flapped, occasionally swooping down towards the earth where lay the bodies of the dead. A movement over to her left drew her eye and she saw a large rat scuttle out of sight amid the debris. And still could be heard the cries of those who lay buried beneath the ruins, voices sharp with pain, dull with despair. Raising her hands, she pressed them over her ears, blotting out the sound. Would the voices never be still?

  After a few moments she turned from the lashing rain and made her way back down the stairs and into the kitchen. Moving to where Marianne and Gentry lay together on the mattress she stood gazing down at them. As she did so Marianne suddenly opened her eyes and gave a little cry, while her features were distorted in a sharp spasm of some mental anguish. Gentry awoke, raised himself on his elbow and looked at her in concern. Perspiration stood out on Marianne’s brow while at the same time she shivered. With her eyes closed again, her head turned from side to side on the mattress while her hands, the knuckles white, clutched at the blanket.

  Crouching beside her, Blanche laid her hand on Marianne’s cheek and murmured her name. After a moment Marianne turned her head and looked at her. At first she gazed at her blankly with no recognition in her eyes. But then, quite suddenly, it was as if some curtain in her mind was lifted, and the blank, empty look left her eyes and they were filled with fear.

  ‘Blanche …’ As her dry, cracked lips opened to speak Blanche’s name, her hand loosed its grasp on the blanket and clutched at Blanche, gripping so tightly that the rings on her fingers pressed into the bones of Blanche’s wrist.

  ‘Blanche …’ she muttered, ‘Blanche …’

  And then her hand left Blanche’s wrist and fell back, spasmodically gripping the blanket, while her eyes clenched tightly shut again.

  Over her prostrate body Blanche’s eyes caught Gentry’s and she read there the plea in his gaze.

  ‘I’m going for help,’ she said softly. ‘I’m going to see if we can get on board a ship today. We can’t wait for tomorrow. We need help now.’

  Gentry nodded. ‘What can you do?’ he whispered.

  ‘I’ll find somebody from one of the English ships. Those young sailors said there were doctors and other men from the ships bringing all kinds of supplies ashore, and setting up a hospital in the Piazza Mazzini. It’s not far. I’ll go there and bring somebody back. They must come and fetch you and Marianne and take us on board one of the ships so that we can leave.’ She straightened. ‘I’ll go now, before it gets dark.’

  With a final glance down at Marianne, she turned and hurried softly to the shadowed place on the far side of the kitchen where Adriana and Lisa lay. She was relieved to see that they were still asleep. Seconds later she had set down the lamp and was out in the passage and moving towards the stairs.

  As she emerged into the open the driving rain struck at her, and in minutes her hair was plastered to her head and her dress was wet through. Unaware of the discomfort, though, she pushed on, making her way over the piles of rubble that choked the narrow streets as she headed for the Piazza Mazzini.

  As she picked her way among the ruins her attention was drawn to two dogs digging in the debris. They were wet, bedraggled, and covered in mud, and she was afraid of their wild appearance as they snapped and scrabbled at something in the rubble. But they were not interested in her. As she watched, the larger of the two dogs backed away, dragging something held in its jaws, while the other dog, snarling, tried to wrest it away. Then Blanche saw that they were fighting over the corpse of a baby.

  She trudged on. And still as she passed there came to her the muffled cries of those still buried, while in whichever direction she looked she could see dead bodies, corpses either lying on top of the rubble, or partly buried beneath it. Sometimes just a foot or an arm would be visible above the debris. In the end such sights ceased to shock.

  Even though the Piazza Mazzini was situated not very far away, traversing the almost impassable streets took a very long time. As she continued on her way she passed many little groups of people effecting rescue operations, many of them trying to dig out survivors who were still buried beneath the rubble. The shock of the catastrophe had initially stunned many of the citizens into a numb apathy, but in some cases this had now, thankfully, given way to a realization of the necessity for action. Not in every case, though; far from it; many still wandered or sat about, silent, with dull, vacant looks in their eyes. It was the same look that touched Marianne, Blanche thought. Others, pushed even further by the horror of their experiences, had gone quite mad. One man whom Blanche came across was moving about the ruins in the rain singing and doing some strange dance; his mind, unable to take any more, had given way, saving him from knowledge of the continuing horror.

  As she drew nearer to the Piazza Mazzini there were more and more signs of activity
. At one point she came upon some Italian soldiers collecting the dead for burial, loading the corpses onto a donkey-driven cart. Frequently she came across rescue parties hard at work, and she heard the familiar and comforting sounds of English voices from blue-uniformed British sailors working there, and the strange tongue of those seamen whom, she assumed, were from the Russian ships. As she passed by the groups of men she saw them digging perilous tunnels through the rubble, sawing through beams, carrying away heavy pieces of masonry. They worked tirelessly, drenched in rain and sweat, and covered from head to foot in dirt and mud. In some instances she saw them bringing out survivors from the ruins, and she gazed in awe and admiration at the tenderness displayed. As she passed she heard the words of comfort murmured by two young Scottish sailors as they carried out from the ruins an old man and covered his nakedness with a blanket. Further on she saw a burly Russian sailor emerge from the wreckage carrying a tiny naked child, a little creature looking so small in the arms of his saviour whose bearded face, streaming with tears, bent over the baby.

  Entering the open space of the Piazza Mazzini she found that the rescuers had erected makeshift canvas shelters from the pouring rain, and that as many as possible of the injured had been placed beneath them. There was not room for all of them beneath the shelters, however, and many of them were forced to sit or lie out in the rain. They were there in their hundreds, sitting and lying in row upon row, while the air was filled with their cries and their moans; and all the time more of them were appearing, either limping in on the arms of others or borne on stretchers.

  Amongst all the figures moving about Blanche could see the ships’ surgeons going back and forth. Accompanied by attendants they were doing whatever they could with their limited resources to bring some kind of succour to the poor creatures who lay in such desperate straits. And witnessing the scene, Blanche knew that all her hopes of getting immediate help for Marianne and Gentry would be in vain. Nevertheless she had to try, and after a moment’s hesitation she hurried to a tall, bespectacled man whom she took to be one of the surgeons. As he straightened from his examination of a woman who lay on the ground Blanche spoke to him in English.

  ‘Sir – please – forgive me for bothering you, but – is there someone you can send to help me … ?’

  He frowned, while observing: ‘You’re English …’ and then added: ‘Help you? In what way?’

  ‘I’ve got two friends who are both lying injured, and I need help for them.’

  ‘Injured? How badly?’ He spoke quickly, impatiently, as if resenting even the time it took to converse with her.

  Blanche replied, the words pouring from her:

  ‘One of them has a broken arm. And his leg is wrenched so badly that he can’t walk. He’s in a great deal of pain. His wife is hurt in some other way. I don’t know – she’s in great shock. Oh, please, can you help … ?’

  ‘Where are they? Are they near by?’

  ‘Well – they’re some little distance away, but –’

  He broke in: ‘Are they under cover right now? Have you got blankets for them? And food? Water?’

  ‘Well, yes, but –’

  He frowned. ‘They’re under cover – and you’ve got food and water for them?’ He shook his head in astonishment. ‘Good God, young woman, don’t you realize what’s happening here?’ He gestured with a swift, short movement of his arm. ‘Look around you. There are people dying here for want of attention – and we can’t even bring most of the poor wretches under cover! Look at them – lying out in the rain – and they’ve already spent almost two days out in the open, in near-freezing conditions! Even with our ships and the Russian ones we haven’t got enough blankets or enough food for those who are already here. And they’re still being brought in every minute.’ He bent slightly to her, lowering his voice to an intense whisper. ‘So many of these poor devils are going to die – d’you realize that? And there must be two or three thousand who are still trapped. Did you hear me? Two or three thousand, they reckon. And we haven’t got a hope of getting them out before most of them die of their injuries or cold and starvation and madness. Oh, yes, other help will be here soon, we can only hope and pray, but until then whatever we do isn’t enough.’ He shook a hand in front of her, as if brushing away some bothersome creature. ‘Look at you – you’ve got clothes. You’re even wearing a dress – when most of these poor people haven’t got a pair of drawers to cover their nakedness. You don’t know how fortunate you are. And your friends are in the dry, you tell me – and they’ve got blankets and food.’ He shook his head. ‘How can you come here asking me for help? Can’t you see? – we haven’t got it to give.’ He turned away from her.

  Blanche had stood in silence throughout the onslaught, and all the time she had known he was only speaking the truth. Then, in a great trembling gasp she sucked in the air and sobbed, and stood there in the rain while the tears poured down her cheeks.

  The man turned back and saw her standing there, a young woman with a bruised face, clenching and unclenching hands that were cut and raw; a young woman in a torn and filthy dress, her wet hair hanging loose and in strings about her shoulders. His face softened suddenly. He reached out, put a hand on her saturated, muddy sleeve. ‘I do understand,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry for speaking so harshly – but if you knew how desperate our situation is …’ He shook his head in a little gesture of hopelessness, then asked: ‘Are they British, your friends?’

  She nodded, unable to speak.

  ‘And you obviously want them taken off the island. Well, maybe tomorrow it will be possible – but at present …’ He patted her shoulder. ‘Go on back to them. Perhaps tomorrow real relief will be here – hospital ships, more supplies. Or perhaps you can get them aboard one of the ships that will be leaving. Until then they’re better off where they are. There’s nothing that can be done today.’

  He gave her shoulder a final pat and moved away. She stood looking after him for a moment and then turned and started off through the rain.

  It was almost dark. The woman moved on near-silent feet over the rubble that strewed the corner of the piazza. As she moved past one ruined villa her eye was attracted by the faintest glow of light amid the ruins. She halted and stood there, peering into the shadows of the house’s shell. There was no doubt; a very faint glow of light was coming from somewhere. After a further moment she moved quickly and quietly forward. In her mid-fifties, she was heavily built and wore the coarse clothing of a gypsy. In her hand she carried a stout piece of wood.

  After clambering over the ruins she found herself standing at the opening to the villa’s basement. There were steps leading down, and a pale glow of light coming from below. After a moment she took a grip on the piece of wood and silently began to descend.

  The stairs ended in a passage, but there was a room to the right, and it was from here that the light shone. On her silent feet she came to a halt in the doorway and stood there, taking in the scene. The room, what looked to be a kitchen, was very large, and with only one small lamp burning on a table nearby the space was so dimly lit that it was difficult at first to make out what was there. Then she saw that there were two figures lying on a mattress. They lay very still. Without making a sound she crept forward. As she drew near she saw that the figures were those of a man and a woman. They lay with their eyes closed, unaware of her presence. Was anyone else near? She turned, looking about her. The other side of the room was in shadow but after a moment or two she could make out what appeared to be the shape of another mattress lying on the floor. She froze, waiting to hear from it some cry of alarm – but none came.

  After some moments of absolute quiet, in which she could hear the breathing of the couple who lay nearby, she became emboldened and took a step nearer to them. In the dim light she could see that the woman was young. Her eyes flicked to the man and she saw that his arm was in a sling. Also in the faint light she saw the gleam of metal at his side and saw his watch lying on the floor beside the mattress. She move
d forward and bent to pick it up. As she did so there came the child’s cry, a scream of fear. At once it brought the man’s eyes open.

  As the woman grasped the watch, his hand shot out and clutched at her wrist, and in the same moment he cried out in alarm.

  With the watch still in her hand, the woman struggled to pull away, but the man’s grip was too strong and he refused to let go. She did not hesitate another moment. Raising the piece of wood in her free hand, she swung it, bringing it down with a cracking thud across his skull.

  While the child screamed again, the man groaned with the shock and pain of the blow. But still he held on. She raised the wood again. In the same moment there was a flurry of movement beside him, and more screams, and the young woman, quite naked, was rising up, reaching for her. Easily evading her clutching hands, the gypsy brought down the piece of wood again onto the man’s head, and this time his grip on her wrist relaxed and he fell forward, sprawling half off the mattress, half on the floor. Not content, the woman raised the wood again.

  ‘No! No! No!’

  Her shrieks of denial rending the air, the younger woman launched her feeble strength at the attacker, leaping forward, one hand snatching at her arm, the other hand clutching at her face, nails digging into the soft flesh. The watch fell, smashing on the tiles. Ignoring the man, the gypsy turned her attention to the younger woman. Raising the piece of wood she struck out with it with all her force.

  Twilight lasted so little time. It was almost quite dark by the time Blanche reached the piazza. Relieved to have got back safely, she picked her way across the rubble towards the entrance to the stairs.

  She heard the voices from below as she started down the stairs – a sudden eruption of sound, screaming from Adriana, joined immediately by cries from Gentry and Marianne – all the voices set against the sounds of violent movement.