Inferno

Chapter 98

Hetty cringed in fear. In the open air every explosion and rending smash was clear and immediate as though she were part of it. Fires leaped and crackled on all sides, and drifting fragments of ash came down in a constant soft rain.

The flash and detonation of an exploding shell nearby made her jump. Moments later shards of stone and iron skittered down around her while the raw stench of burning and ruination hung heavily in the air.

The pump was only a hundred yards away and seemed to have been abandoned. She hurried towards it, heart pounding. There, she was confronted with an appalling sight. A cross street led to the dignified Vor Frue Kirke and its lofty fine spire. The church that had seen the weddings of the kings of Denmark and their coronations was now ablaze, a giant torch, engulfed to the very steeple tip. Against the merciless flames the black outlines of dancing figures were trying vainly to save what they could.

Mesmerised by the awful sight, Hetty couldn’t move – and then, in a stupendous flare of heat and flame, the steeple gave way and the church collapsed, swallowing the people below in a surge of victorious conflagration.

Stricken with horror she dropped her pan and turned to flee back, whimpering, desperate to reach their sanctuary.

But at that precise instant a mortar shell detonated in a blinding flash nearby, closely followed by another further along. The blast reached her and tore at her flimsy dress, and when her sight cleared, she saw that the entire front facade of their town-house refuge was now a smoking pile of rubble along the road, the dark voids of rooms on the upper floor grotesquely exposed.

Heart in her mouth she was about to run forward when the remaining structure teetered, masonry crumbling, then fell, with a heavy and prolonged crash and swirling dust.

Where before there had been a princess’s mansion there was now only a collapsed ruin – and lying crushed and dying within were Lord Farndon and his countess.

Choking with emotion, Hetty ran towards the devastation, a vast pile of brick and shattered stone. She fell on it, tearing at the rubble with bleeding fingers, blinded by tears of frustration.

She felt a hand on her shoulder, patting, comforting. A deep male voice uttered soft words in Danish and instinctively she flung herself at him, weeping and howling. The man held her, gently saying something over and over and lifting her face to see if she understood.

But she had no idea what he was saying.

She pulled herself together and tried a weak smile.

Awkwardly, the man spoke again, then turned and left.

As he disappeared into the distance Hetty surrendered to a tidal wave of inconsolable grief.