I went out into the kitchen. Hilda had a bowl of warm water. I carried it in while she got some hot water for the instruments.
When I got back Hacket and Reece were standing over the doctor. As soon as Hilda had brought in the hot water and he had sterilised his instruments, he began work. He was deft and quick and he worked with complete concentration. I watched, fascinated, as the long sensitive fingers moved over Maxwell’s flesh. It gave me a horrible, almost masochistic sense of pleasure. It was as though I could feel them on my own leg, only this time I knew there’d be no pain for me.
Gradually the broken limb took shape. Then suddenly he was bending over, straining at it, forcing the bone into place whilst a high, thin scream issued from Maxwell’s mouth. He straightened up at last, wiping the sweat from his face with a towel. “It’s all right. He will not know anything about it afterwards. He is drugged.” After that, splints and bandages, and then he was pulling the blankets up and rinsing his hands in the bowl.
“He will be all right now,” he said, wiping his hands on the towel. “Would you be good enough to give me a drink, please, Mr. Hacket?”
Hacket passed him a stiff cognac. I became conscious again of Zina playing and realised she had been playing all the time. Sansevino gulped noisily at the liquor. “You see, I have not lost my touch.” He was smiling at me. There was no double meaning intended. He was genuinely pleased that he’d done a good job. “When we get back to Napoli we will have that leg in plaster and in a few months it will be as good as ever.” He paused, searching our faces with his dark eyes. “I take it you do not wish to die here in the lava?”
“Just what are you getting at?” Hacket asked.
“I, too, do not wish to die. I have a proposition to make.”
Reece took a step forward. “If you think—”
Hacket caught him by the arm. “Wait a minute. Let’s hear what he’s got to say.”
“I think I can arrange it so that we all get out,” Sansevino said. “But naturally I expect something in return.”
“What?” Hacket asked.
“My liberty—that is all.”
“All!” Reece exclaimed. “What has happened to Petkof and Vemeriche? And probably there are others.”
“They are alive. You have my word for it. I do not kill unless I have to.”
“You didn’t need to kill Shirer.”
“What else was I to do? The Germans make me do their dirty work for them. When they lose the war I know what will happen. I shall be arrested and sentenced to death by your Allied murder courts. I do not like to be killed. If it is a question of my life or someone else’s—” He shrugged his shoulders.
“It was not a case of your life with Roberto. You did not need to kill Roberto.” Zina had stopped playing and had come towards us.
Sansevino looked at her. “Roberto is a peasant,” he said contemptuously. “What does it matter to you? You use him as an animal. There are plenty more animals.” He turned to Hacket. “Well, now—what is it to be, signore? We can all die here together—or we can come to an arrangement.”
“How do we know you can get us out?” Reece asked. “If you know how to get away, why haven’t you gone already?”
“Because I cannot go without you. As for whether I know how we can get away—if I do not, it will not be necessary for you to keep your side of the bargain. Well?”
“All right,” Hacket said.
Sansevino looked at Reece and myself. I glanced at Hilda. Then I nodded. Reece said, “All right. How do we get out?”
But Sansevino didn’t trust us. He got a sheet of paper and made Reece write out a statement that we were convinced he was really Shirer, that he’d done everything possible to help us to locate Tuček and Lemlin and that Roberto was shot when crazed with fear. It was so much a repetition of what had happened at the Villa d’Este that it seemed unbelievable that we weren’t back again in that hospital ward.
“Very well.” Sansevino pocketed the piece of paper. “And I have your word, gentlemen?” We nodded. “And yours, Miss Tuček? And you all agree to hold Maxwell and the other two to this promise?” Again we nodded. “Good. Then I think we had better start. There is a plane in the outhouses halfway towards the road.”
“A plane?” Hacket echoed in astonishment.
Hilda had jumped up. “Oh, what a fool I am! Of course. That is what Max was trying to tell us when he was on the cart. We saw it land whilst we were waiting out there on the road.” I remembered then Zina saying—What about the aeroplano, Walter? and Sansevino reply—Ercole has gone to Naples in the jeep.
“But who’s to fly it?” Reece asked. “Maxwell can’t. Have you got an antidote to the drugs you’ve given Tuček and Lemlin?”
Sansevino shook his head. “No. Mr. Farrell will fly us out.”
“Me?” I stared at him, sudden panic gripping me.
“You are a flier,” he said. “Didn’t you land Reece and Shirer behind our lines?”
“Yes, but—” I wiped the sweat out of my eyes. “It’s a long time ago now. I haven’t flown for—” God, it was ages since I’d flown a plane. I couldn’t remember the position of the instruments. I’d forgotten the feel of the stick. “Damn it,” I cried, “I had two legs then. I haven’t flown since—”
“Well, you’re going to fly now,” Reece said.
“I can’t,” I said. “It isn’t possible. Do you want to crash? I’d never get her off the ground.”
Hilda came over to me. She had hold of my arms, gripping them. “You’ve been one of the best pilots in Britain, Dick. When you get into the machine it will all come back to you—you will see.” She was looking up into my eyes, trying desperately to communicate her sense of confidence.
“I can’t,” I said. “It’s too risky.”
“It’s either that or stay here till the lava wipes us out,” Hacket said.
I glanced round at the ring of tight, set faces. They were all watching me, seeing my fear, blaming me now for not getting them out. I suddenly felt I hated them all. Why should I have to fly the damned plane to save their skins?” You must get Tuček to do it,” I heard myself stammering. “You must wait till he comes out of—”
“That is not possible,” Sansevino cut in.
Hacket stepped forward and patted my arm. I could see the level set of his dentures as he forced a smile. “Come on, now, Farrell. If we’re prepared to risk it—”
Reece thrust him aside. “Are you going to let us all die here?” he said angrily.
“I can’t fly the plane “—the words seemed to be forced out of me. “I daren’t.” I was half-sobbing.
“So we’re all to die here like rabbits in a trap because you’re scared. You rotten, yellow—”
“You’ve no right to say that.” Hilda hauled him away from me. “How dare you?” she stormed. “He has done more than any one. Ever since the eruption started he has been fighting to save us. Did you go to get Dr. Sansevino for Max? No. You were too busy getting the dust out of yourself. And you didn’t go near the lava. Dick has faced death twice to-day. And you have the nerve to call him a coward. You have done nothing—nothing, I tell you.”
She stopped then. She was breathing heavily and she wiped her hand across her hair. Then she took my arm. “Come. We will go and get clean. We shall feel better when we have had a wash.”
I followed her upstairs to the bathroom in a sort of daze. I wanted to crawl into a corner and hide. I wished I was back on that roof top. I’d welcome the approach of the lava now. If only it would come. I wanted it to end—quickly. “I can’t fly that plane,” I told her.
She didn’t answer and ran the tap of the bath. “Take your things off, Dick,” she said. And as I hesitated, she stamped her foot angrily and said, “Oh, do not be so stupid. Do you think I don’t know what a man looks like without his clothes. I have been a nurse, I tell you. Now get those filthy things off.” I think she knew that it was my leg I didn’t want her to see, for she left the room saying she’
d find me some clean clothes. She flung them in while I was getting the dirt off in the bath. Then whilst I dressed she washed her face in the basin.
“Now do you feel fresher?” she asked as I did up the buttons of one of Sansevino’s shirts. She was rubbing her face with a towel and she suddenly began to laugh. “Please, don’t look so tragic. Look at yourself.” She thrust a mirror in front of my face. “Now smile. That’s better.” She caught hold of my arms. “Dick. You’re going to fly that plane out.”
I felt an obstinate dumbness welling up inside me. “Please, Dick—for my sake.” She stared at me. Then her face seemed to crumple up. “Don’t I mean anything to you?”
I knew then what I’d known all day—knew that she meant all the world to me. “You know I love you,” I murmured.
“Then, for heaven’s sake.” She was laughing at me through her tears. “How do you imagine I’m going to bear your children if I’m buried under twenty feet of lava?”
Suddenly, I don’t know quite why, we were both laughing, and I had my arms round her and was kissing her. “I shall be right beside you all the time,” she said. “You will make it. I know you will. And if you don’t—” She shrugged her shoulders. “Then the end will be quick and we shall not mind.”
“All right,” I said. “I’ll have a shot at it.” But my heart sank as I committed myself to the nightmare of trying to fly again.
Chapter VIII
My recollection of the journey down to the plane is confused and vague. My mood had changed from panic to intense excitement. It had changed the moment I’d returned to the room where Maxwell lay and Hilda had told them I’d agreed to fly them out. They had looked at me then with a new respect. From being an outcast I had become the leader. It was I who ordered them to fix up a stretcher for Maxwell, to hitch George to the cart again, to bring Tuček and Lemlin down. The sense of power gave me confidence. But with that sense of power came the realisation of the responsibility I had undertaken.
I had time to think about this as we crunched down the ash-strewn track to the vineyard. And the more I thought about it, the more appalled I became. The sudden mood of confidence seeped away, leaving me trembling and scared. It wasn’t death I was scared of. I’m certain of that. It was myself. I was afraid because I didn’t think I’d be capable of doing what I’d said I’d do. I was afraid that at the last moment I’d funk it. I was in a sweat lest when I sat in the pilot’s seat with the controls under my hands I’d lose my nerve.
I think Hilda knew how I felt for she held my hand all the way, her fingers gripping mine with a tightness that seemed to be trying to give me strength.
We were a queer cartload. The mule moved very slowly, Hacket holding the reins. Maxwell was coming round and moaning with pain under his blankets. Lemlin was unconscious, but Tuček, propped against the side of the cart, had his eyes open. They stared vacantly in front of him, the pupils unnaturally large. The little Italian boy was playing with Zina’s hair while she lolled like a courtesan against Reece, her skirt rucked up to show her naked thigh, a dreamy smile on her lips. It was insufferably hot and the sweat trickled down between my shoulder blades.
I remember as we left the villa a little mound of ash by the front door with a swarm of flies buzzing over it. I didn’t have to ask what it was, for there was a hand sticking out of the ash. Roberto’s grave started in my mind a picture of the twisted wreckage of a plane and the flies buzzing in clouds about our swollen bodies. It was all mixed up in my mind with the flies that had crawled in swarms over my smashed leg up there in the Futa Pass so long ago.
I felt my mind drifting over the edge of reality into fantasy. Hacket was swearing at the mule and I found myself identifying myself with the animal’s reluctance to reach its destination. I wanted to go jolting on into infinity, just moving steadily on and never reaching the plane. And then I saw Sansevino watching me curiously. I could see him following the antics of my mind with a cold, professional interest. And then for a moment anger and hate blended in the sweat of the heat and I wanted to be transported in a flash to the cockpit of the plane and go roaring out over the lava with a wild shout of laughter as I proved to them I could do it.
We were down by the rows and rows of planted bush vines now and Hilda’s fingers clutched more tightly at my hand. “Where shall we live, Dick?” Her voice sounded a long way away as though I was hearing her talking to me in a dream. “Can we have a house by the sea somewhere? I have always wanted to live by the sea. I think perhaps it is because my mother was a Venetian. The sea is in my blood. But the frontiers of Czechoslovakia are all land frontiers. It will be nice to live in a country that is surrounded by water. It is so safe. Dick. What sort of house shall we have? Can we have a little thatched house? I have seen pictures—”
So she went on, talking about her dream home, trying to fill my mind with thoughts that lay beyond the nightmare of the present. I remember I said, “First I shall have to get a job—a job in England.”
“That will not be difficult,” she answered. “My father plans to build a factory. He has patents, and the money for the factory—” She stopped then. “What happened to the things that were in your leg?”
I remembered then and my mind seized with relief on something immediate and practical. I leaned forward and grabbed Sansevino by the arm. “You took something from my leg—up there on that roof. Give it to me.” I saw cunning and hesitation in his eyes. “Give it to me.” My voice was almost a scream.
He put his hand in his pocket and for one awful moment I thought he’d got a gun and I half rose to fling myself at him. But his hand came out with the little leather bag and I remembered he hadn’t got a gun. He handed it across to me. It was quite light and as I shook it the contents rattled like a bag of dried peas. I undid the neck of it and poured the contents into Hilda’s lap. Zina’s eyes opened wide and she leaned forward with a hiss of excitement. It was like a stream of glittering fire as I poured it on to Hilda’s dust-caked skirt. Diamonds and rubies, emeralds, sapphires. They lay there winking and glittering, all the wealth of the Tuček steelworks condensed into that little pile of precious stones.
I was angry then, angry because Tuček had committed me unwittingly to smuggle his wealth out of the country. He’d come to my room that night with the intention of asking me to help him, and when he’d found me drunk he’d seen my leg and slipped the little leather bag into the hollow shaft, He’d realised that if I didn’t know what I carried I’d be more likely to get through. But he’d no right to do it without my permission. He’d committed me to a danger that I hadn’t known about.
I stared at him angrily. But he met my stare with vacant eyes, his head rolling mindlessly with the jolting of the cart. Then I remembered the other package. I demanded it from Sansevino. And when he’d handed it to me I knew why Tuček had done it without asking me. The little oilskin roll contained a dozen small metal cylinders, light as feathers. I knew what they were at once. They were rolls of films—microfilms of blueprints. There in my hand were the details of new equipment, arms and machinery, in production at the Tuček works. He’d done exactly as he’d done in 1939. I understood then. I closed the package and passed it across to Hilda.
She stared at the tiny cylinders for a moment and I saw that she was crying. Then slowly she poured the pile of precious stones back into the leather bag, tied it up and handed me the bag and the oilskin package. “Keep them, please, Dick. Later you can give them to my father.” It was a gesture of trust and I suddenly felt like crying too.
Sansevino was talking to Hacket now and the cart lurched off the track, dragging slowly through the vineyards towards a big corrugated iron barn half-buried in an orange grove. When we reached it Sansevino jumped down and he and Hacket and Reece slid back the doors. Inside was an old Dakota, its camouflage paint worn to bright metal in places by the constant impact of air. My heart sank at the sight of it. It had been dragged in tail-first by the tractor that was parked under the starboard wing.
; I sat there staring at it, quite unable to move. I was conscious of them carrying Maxwell’s stretcher off the cart, of Zina clapping her hands with joy at the sight of the plane, of the child sucking its thumb and staring in awe. Even when Tuček and Lemlin had been got off the cart I still sat there. My limbs seemed incapable of movement.
“Dick.” Hilda was tugging at my arm. “Dick. Please.”
My gaze shifted from the plane to the mountain behind. It seemed to lean right over the improvised hangar, the great, black column of gas surging up from its crater, billowing, swirling, rising till it spread like a hellish canopy across the sky. And between us and the mountain was a thick, sulphurous haze, “Dick!” Hilda’s voice was suddenly urgent and my body shook as though I were possessed of some horrible devil. Memory stood at my side, the memory of the last plane I’d flown, a crumpled heap of burnt-out wreckage. “I can’t,” I whispered. Panic had seized me again and my voice came like a sigh from deep down inside me.
Her hands gripped my shoulders. “You see that haze? You know what it means?” I nodded. She twisted my shoulders round so that I was facing her. “Look at me.” Then she took my hands and put them about her throat. “I can’t face that lava, Dick. Either you fly that plane or you kill me—now.”
I remember I stared at her in horror. Her throat was soft beneath my fingers. And then the softness of her flesh gave me strength. Or perhaps it was her grey eyes, staring straight into mine. I got to my feet. “All right,” I said. I jumped to the ground. I stood there, trembling. But she followed, caught hold of my hand and led me towards the machine. “When you feel the controls—you will be all right then.” She looked up at me and smiled. “Are you very tired, Dick?”
I bit on my lip and didn’t say anything. We walked to the plane then. I remember my feet seemed a long way away, almost beyond my control. They had the door of the fuselage open and were getting Maxwell’s stretcher in. It was Reece who pulled me up into the plane. He patted my shoulder and grinned. I stood there, staring at the familiar details in the half dark. It was just as it had been when it had carried parachutists to half the countries of Europe—the canvas seats, the oxygen notices, the Mae Wests and collapsible dinghies.
The Angry Mountain Page 24