But she was sitting on the ground, had in fact been forced into it by the impact. Desperately she tore at the grass with her fingers, sawed her bottom to and fro, worked her heels and her legs, as best she could, sawing and dragging at her body.
Something dropped on her hand, and she shook it off with a wail of pain, for it was a glowing ember. She looked up at the branches which still whirled above her head, saw them glowing as a fresh cascade of embers and burning debris rattled through them, screamed again as she was burned on her cheek and on her shoulder. She rolled on her face, attempting to shield herself, attempting to gain some air to breathe, for now she was entirely surrounded by the swirling smoke.
She dug her fingers and her toes into the earth, pressed her body against it, gasped ... but she was on her face. She had managed to roll over.
She gave a convulsive surge forward and came free, reached her hands and knees, and was forced flat again by the billowing smoke which robbed her lungs of air.
Which way to go ? She might well crawl into the fire. But how could she avoid crawling into the fire when it was all around her?
Yet she would survive. She was determined about that. Even if she had to crawl through fire. She had survived too much already just to lie down and die now. Besides, not to survive would be to admit that the mamaloi was right; the earth had trembled when she had been born, now it sought to take her back again, for ever.
She dug her toes and fingers into the ground, inched her way forward. Branches scraped at her shoulders, completed the destruction of her clothes, caught in her hair and jerked her head backwards so that she had to claw upwards to free herself while all the while the burning embers scattered around her, striking the grass with giant hisses and setting it alight.
Air, and light. She discovered herself free of the tree, kneeling, peering at the zinnias which lined the hotel driveway. And peering too at a woman, a maid, she guessed, from the girl's white gown. But the gown ended at the waist, and there were only legs. The trunk lay farther on. She had been cut in two by a gigantic piece of corrugated iron, torn from the roof of the hotel.
Meg vomited without warning. Then she rose to her feet, staggered, and actually tripped over the ghastly corpse. Once again she was sick, but even while the bile dripped down her chin she was again on her feet and running down the driveway, leaping over a gigantic rent which had appeared in the tarmacadam, reaching for the safety of the street.
There was no safety in the street. The air was still filled with dust and with fumes and with swirling smoke. Bladings' Hotel was not the only building that had caught fire, while in contrast the drains had burst and water ran across her toes as she looked from right to left.
People screamed and wailed and howled and begged and shouted and gave orders and asked for orders. Dogs barked and ran to and fro. Horses shrieked their terror. Two black men emerged out of the smoke and attempted to seize her arms. Even as she struck at them she realized they were attempting to take her to safety rather than molest her. But she did not wish to see anyone, speak with anyone. Save Alan.
Alan. He had gone to the docks. Oh, my God, she thought, the docks. In the earthquake of 1692 Port Royal had disappeared beneath the waves.
She staggered down the street, was suddenly accosted by a white woman, hair wild, clothes torn, face blackened with smoke.
'Meg,' she shouted. 'Meg Hilton. Oh, my God, Meg Hilton.’
Meg attempted to shake herself free, but the woman continued to hold her, and now she looked closer she discovered that she was Anna Phillips.
'Anna,' she cried. 'Anna? Oh, Anna. Where's John?'
'I don't know,' Anna Phillips wailed. 'I don't know. He had just set off on his rounds when it happened. Oh, my God, Meg. I don't know.'
'You'll find him,' Meg promised her. 'You'll find him. I know you will. Please let me go. I must find Alan.'
'John,' Anna cried. 'I don't know where he is. Oh, my God, Meg, have you ever known anything like it ? Oh, my God...'
Meg pulled herself free, ran down the street, rounded the corner and stumbled into an overturned automobile, its doors flung open and a man half in and half out, his face a mass of coagulating blood.
This time she was not sick. She did not suppose she had any sickness left. She tumbled down the street, pushed someone away when he would have spoken to her, tripped over the body of a dead dog, and reached the docks ... but the docks were no longer there, the timbers dissolved into the still seething waters of the harbour.
Meg wiped sweat from her face and peered at the ships. But they at least were still all right, although most had steam up. But the Dreamer still rode to her anchors, and as she watched, a boat pulled for the shore. Had it then been so short a time since the earthquake ? Now for the first time she saw the sun, just beginning its afternoon droop towards the waves, before it was obliterated by the drifting smoke.
She found herself on her knees, watching the approaching boats. Most of them were from the American warships, filled with white-jacketed seamen, staring at the stricken town as if they were seeing the end of the world.
But one of the boats was from the Dreamer and in the stern was Alan McAvoy.
'Alan!' she screamed, nearly hurling herself into the water as the boat came alongside.
'Meg.' He scrambled ashore to hold her in his arms. 'Oh, my dearest Meg.' He held her away from him. 'Are you all right?'
She was in fact just realizing how bruised she was; her stomach and her breasts were aching, as was her right leg, while her back felt as if she had been whipped. But none of those seemed particularly relevant. She was alive, and as far as she could tell, she had not even broken anything.
'I am all right, my darling,' she said. 'I climbed down the tree outside our window.'
'My God,' he said. 'The sight of it. I'll never forget it to my dying day. It was as if a giant had taken a rug and jerked one end of it. These docks ... they just rose in the air and fell away again. Meg, are you sure you're all right ?'
'Yes,' she said fiercely. 'Yes. Alan ... could you see the prison?'
'Only the roof,' he said. 'It disappeared. But then, so did most other roofs.'
'We must look there,' she said. 'We must, Alan.'
'But ...' He hesitated, but she knew what he had been going to say: why risk our lives looking for a man who has been condemned to death?
'We must,' she said. 'I must.'
'And we shall,' he said. 'Supposing we can get through the town.'
‘I have already been through the town.'
She held his hand and went forward, towards the smoke pall which lay across the stricken city, to be stopped by an armed American marine.
'You can't go in there,' he said.
'But I must,' Meg said. 'My husband is in there.'
'The whole town centre is on fire,' the marine pointed out. 'And buildings are falling like matchsticks. Anyone who hasn't got out isn't coming out. Believe me, lady.'
'But...' Meg stared at an officer, white uniform blackened with smoke, coming towards them. 'I must find my husband.'
'In there?' The lieutenant looked over his shoulder. 'Where should he be, ma'am ?' 'Well...' She bit her lip. 'At the prison.' 'The prison? Holy Jesus. It's collapsed, ma'am.' 'Collapsed? But...'
'The walls just caved in. They're saying not a one survived, and if anyone did, why it's been burning now for half an hour.'
'Oh, my God,' Meg said, and sank to her knees. 'Oh, my God.' Poor, poor Billy. No doubt he would have died anyway, even had he never met her. But it was she who, in pursuit of her own ambitions, had taken him from his comfortable middle-class existence and made him a Hilton. And it had been she who had brought him down again when he had tried to act the part. Poor, poor Billy.
She felt Alan's arms round her shoulders. But he did not speak. There was nothing he could say.
'Now then, lady,' said the lieutenant. 'We'll get you to one of the ships, and you'll be able to lie down ...'
'No,' she said, using Ala
n to pull herself to her feet. 'No. I'd like two horses.'
'Horses, ma'am?'
'Can you get me two horses?' she insisted. 'I have a plantation. I must get out there and see what has happened.'
The lieutenant scratched his head.
'Maybe it would be best, sir,' the marine suggested. 'Anything is better than staying here.'
'And there was that stable just outside of town,' the lieutenant said, half to himself.
'Well, then ..Meg cried.
'But this whole place has gone wild, ma'am,' the young man explained. 'These black people are figuring the end of the world has come. I couldn't let you ride off by yourself.'
'She won't be by herself,' Alan said. 'I'll be with her.'
'Yeah ...' Once again the officer hesitated. 'Okay. I'll get you two horses. But you'd better take this, Captain.' He gave Alan his service revolver. 'And take care, for God's sake.'
It was a blessing to be away from the smoke cloud and the unthinkable stenches that lay beneath it, from the crackle of the flames, from the shrieks of the wounded and dying, the rumble of the collapsing buildings. But there was no relief from the fact of the earthquake. Meg rode astride, urged her mount on to the road which led up into the mountains, and discovered that there was no road, the embankment having subsided into rubble, so that the stream which ran beside the original surface was the most practicable route.
But the stream itself was a place of death, a trapped horse, which had drowned, the body of a child, floating on its face, while from above them now there came the hoarse cries of the crows, already beginning to gather.
'My God,' Alan muttered. 'My God.'
The horses picked their way over shattered trees, round fallen bridges. In the first shanty town they came to, a mile from the smoking city, all the lean-to houses had collapsed, but there were at least no dead bodies.
Although there were several live ones. Half-crazed black people, men and women, ran at them, shrieking, and Meg had to use her crop to drive them back, with no success until Alan drew his pistol and fired once into the air. Then the mob hesitated long enough for them to hurry their horses through and gain the open country beyond.
'We'll avoid townships,' Alan decided.
'Will they ever be normal again ?'
'Everyone forgets,' he said. 'In time.'
At the first rise they reined to look back at the smoke pall.
The death of a city. Her city, Meg realized. Her home. How she had always loved coming back to Kingston.
The desolation reached into the mountains. In fact it seemed to increase to suggest that the tremor had begun there, and thence found its way down to the sea. Some places she was unable to recognize. A cliff face which had always been a landmark had dissolved into two, and they picked their way through a sudden ravine. Trees were either down or bent at amazing angles, their roots still clinging precariously to the upturned earth. Streams were running where no water had ever run before, and other streams were dry. And now they were out of town the whole afternoon was covered by a deathly hush, as if Nature herself was shocked into silence. And at sunset she came to Hilltop.
There had been no fire, she could see no drifting smoke, and in the rapidly gathering gloom any flames would have been easy to discover. But then, she remembered, the earthquake had happened at half past three in the afternoon, when no one would have been cooking, and there were no electric cables out here to come swinging down and carry death and destruction in their wake.
Thus the scene looked almost peaceful. There had been a labourers' village; there was now a scattered accumulation of debris. There had been a staff town; there was now a grotesque litter of white-painted timbers, some pointing crazily skywards, others lying about like a collapsed house of cards. There had been a church; two walls and the roof had fallen, but the other two still stood, a mute testimony to man's rightful fear of the Unknown which had so rapidly and efficiently destroyed his handiwork.
She pushed hair from her forehead, heard Alan catch his breath as he reined beside her.
There had been a grandstand. Quite remarkably the four main uprights still stood, but the tiered seats, and the staircases, had slid away from their supports, and arrived together by the winning post in a cluster of cane and timber.
There had been banana groves; now there were acres and acres of flattened trees, and no doubt, she thought, of scattered fruit. She wondered if, beyond the fruit groves, there was still a rushing river, shaded by cedars, or if they too had disappeared, together with the water where she had bathed, and where her life had first begun to have meaning.
Her breath caught in her throat. Because there had also been a factory, with a chimney. Hilltop chimney had been one of the most famous landmarks in all Jamaica. While Hilltop chimney stood, Father had always said, Hilltop will be Hilton land. Now it lay as rubbled stone, pointing up the slope towards the house.
Because there had also been a House.
She kicked her tired horse in the ribs, cantered down the slope, lost sight of the buildings as she dipped into the valley. It would be quite dark before she got there. She wanted it to be dark before she got there.
Alan drew alongside. 'Meg,' he said. 'It can be rebuilt. There is nothing that cannot be rebuilt.'
She galloped away from him, reached the pasture. Amazingly, there were still sheep, gathered together in plaintive groups, looking at her with determined patience, wondering no doubt what new catastrophe was about to overtake them. And there were chickens, released from their run by the collapsing walls, roaming the shattered plantation in terrified freedom, squawking and flapping their wings.
Halfway up the slope she drew rein. Because Hilltop had also contained people. And now she could hear a rumble of sound, an angry groaning, like a gigantic animal in pain.
She kicked her horse, rode past the cemetery, and checked again. For wailing through the darkness, rising above the mutter which filled the evening, she heard the voice of Oriole Paterson.
'Oriole,' she shouted, once again riding forward, to pause in horror. On the far side of the slope there were people, her people, hundreds of them. And in front of them, crawling away from the mob, there was Oriole. Her mouth was open and she was shouting, but her words were incoherent and tears streamed down her face. Her clothes were torn and dishevelled, and her hair flowed in the breeze. Her body was cut and bruised, stained with mud and blood. Nothing quite so unlike Oriole had ever been imaginable, Meg thought.
And as she watched another stone flew through the air, to strike her cousin in the back, send her sprawling again. And now the gigantic mutter began to make itself audible.
'White woman.'
'Bitch woman.'
'Jumbi!’
'Woman, we goin' bust you ass.' 'Woman...'
Another volley of stones and mud flew through the air, striking Oriole and making her fall with a moan of terror and pain. One of the flying clods of earth struck Meg on the shoulder as she urged her horse forward.
'Stop it,' she shouted. 'Stop it, do you hear?'
Behind her Alan drew the revolver from his belt and fired a shot in the air, and that checked the crowd.
'Eh-eh, but it is Miss Meg,' someone shouted.
'Man, is Miss Meg, You ain' seeing that?'
They clustered around her. 'Man, Mistress Meg, this place done.'
'Man, Mistress Meg, some of them boys done kill.' 'Man, Mistress Meg, the earth just open so.' 'Man, Mistress Meg, is she doin'.' 'Man, Mistress Meg, all our troubles begun the day that woman come here.' 'Man, Mistress Meg, we goin' stone she and stone she...' 'Man, Mistress Meg ...'
'Be quiet,' Meg shouted. 'You should be ashamed of yourselves. An earthquake is an act of God. Not of a human being. It happened. It has happened before. It may well happen again. You should just be grateful that you are still alive.'
They gazed at her, muttering, but there would be no more violence. She was sure of that.
'Go down to the village,' she said. 'See what you can sav
e from your homes. I will be down to see you in a little while. Go home.'
They edged away from her, casting fearful glances at Oriole, who had collapsed altogether on the ground, hugging the earth in her terror.
'Go home,' Meg said again, and dismounted. 'Oriole,' she said. 'Oriole. What happened ?'
Oriole rose to her knees, gazed around herself with an almost childlike curiosity.
Alan also dismounted. 'What happened here, Mrs Paterson?'
Her head jerked, and she stared at him. 'I was in the kitchen when it happened,' she muttered. 'It just collapsed. Everything collapsed. Then there was silence. I crawled out of the rubble, and there was nothing. I just sat there. And then the people came. They shouted at me.' She clasped his hand. 'They threw things at me. And when I ran, they ran behind me, and threw things at me. An hour. Two hours. They ran behind me, throwing things at me.'
"They've gone now, Oriole,' Meg said. "They were just frightened.'
Oriole stared at her. 'Meg,' she whispered. 'Oh, my God, Meg. But you're dead. They're all dead. All the Hiltons are dead. The Great House is dead. The factory is dead. The Plantation is dead. Oh, God have mercy on me. They are all dead.'
Meg gripped her cousin's shoulder, shook it to and fro. 'I am not dead,' she shouted. 'I am not dead.'
Oriole screamed, a sound of purest terror, pulled herself away, scrambled to her feet, and ran towards the cemetery. Amazingly, the earthquake had passed the cemetery by. The tamarind trees still stood, the white palings gleamed in the darkness, the gravestones had stayed upright. 'Dead,' she shrieked. 'Dead.'
Alan helped Meg up. 'She's lost her senses.'
'And when she hears that Billy is dead ...'
'Aye, well, it's difficult to feel sorry for her.'
Meg walked towards the Great House. It seemed the main force of the tremor had run right underneath the building, for the massive stone cellars upon which it had been erected, which had been at once a foundation and a refuge where the inmates could take shelter from hurricane wind or marauding buccaneers or rampaging revolting slaves, had been split, as if with a gigantic axe. Hilltop Great House had simply collapsed into the resulting chasm. The outer walls still stood, but the roof was gone, crashing down on top of the bedrooms, on top of her bed - she could see one of the uprights protruding through the rubble, with even a shred of torn mosquito netting still clinging to it - crashing in turn on top of the collapsing staircases, crashing in turn into the hall and sucking down the inner walls of the dining room and the drawing room.
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