The Angry Mountain

CHAPTER SEVEN

Meeting Reece like that, all the serenity and confidence seemed drained out of me. The sight of him brought back the memory of Milan and my fear and that brief meeting with Alice. ‘How did you get here?’ I asked him.

He ignored my question. ‘Who’s this?’ he asked, staring at Hacket.

‘An American. Mr. Hacket.’ I turned to my companion. ‘This is Reece, a friend of Maxwell’s.’

‘Pleased to meet you,’ Hacket said. It was ridiculous, standing there, cut off by the lava and yet maintaining the formalities of a way of living that lay beyond the lava.

‘You’re quite certain there’s no way through?’ I asked.

His blue eyes looked at me coldly. ‘Why the hell do you think I’ve got myself in this mess? There’s a lava flow coming in from back there. It must have joined up with this flow about half an hour ago. There’s a twenty-foot high band of lava hemming us in. I’ve been up to the top of one of the houses. There’s absolutely no way through. It’s hundreds of yards wide and it encloses us completely.’

‘Well, there’s more coming down from Santo Francisco,’ Hacket said. ‘If we’re not out by nightfall, I guess we’ll have had it.’

‘A fine lookout.’ Reece turned to Hacket, ignoring me. ‘Is Maxwell badly hurt?’

‘Pretty bad. His leg’s smashed. We’d better go back and have a council of war.’ Reece nodded and they moved back along the track to the road. I followed.

‘How did you come to get caught?’ Hacket asked him.

‘I got into Naples last night,’ Reece answered. ‘Maxwell had left a message for me to meet him out here. I got a taxi and drove out. That was about four-thirty this morning. The eruption was in full blast by then. We got held up by refugees and then when some stones fell my driver refused to go any farther. I came on on foot. The villa was deserted except for the body of an Italian. I walked up as far as the outskirts of Santo Francisco. Then I came back. I was just too late to get out.’

‘Tough luck.’

We were back in the street now. The others were just as we’d left them, all huddled in a bunch on the cart. Hilda and Zina stared at us. I think they knew by the expression on our faces that we were trapped. Zina picked up the reins and screamed at the mule. She got the cart round and called to us to get on.

‘Where are you going?’ Hacket asked her.

‘Back to the villa,” she said. ‘It is comfortable there and—’ She didn’t finish but I knew by the starved look on her face and the feverish light in her eyes that she was thinking there were drugs there.

I think Hacket understood, too, for he nodded. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Jump on, Mr. Reece.’

Hilda had been staring at Reece and now she said, ‘Why didn’t you go while you could?’

He told her what had happened. Her face looked drawn and wretched. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I feel it is my fault. It was I who asked Max to leave that note. I was so anxious about my father and I thought maybe you’d have some news from Milan.’

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘It’s not your fault.’ He looked at me. ‘It’s you who’ve got us all into this mess, Farrell,’ he accused.

I felt suddenly sick with tiredness. I hadn’t the energy to argue with him, to tell him I hadn’t known what it was all about until last night. I just stood there staring at him dumbly, unable to meet the anger and contempt in his eyes.

It was Hilda who answered for me. ‘That’s not true,’ she told him.

‘It is true,’ he answered. ‘If he hadn’t been so scared — if he’d done what we asked him in Milan—’

‘He’s done everything a man could do. He’s been—’

‘Have it your own way.’ He shrugged his shoulders. He looked at me and suddenly laughed. ‘It’s just as it was before. You’ve trapped the two of us.’

‘How do you mean — the two of you?’ I asked.

‘Walter Shirer and myself.’

I stared at him.

‘Please — get on. All of you. I wish to go back to the villa.’

Zina was standing up, holding the reins ready.

‘Okay,’ Hacket said. ‘I guess she’s right. We may as well be comfortable.’ He climbed on to the cart. I followed.

‘Wait!’ Reece called out. ‘There’s another of us to come.’

‘Who?‘Zina asked.

‘I told you. Walter Shirer.’

‘Walter Shirer!’ Her eyes widened in a blaze of violence.

‘Do you mean the guy that owns that villa?’ Hacket demanded, and his voice was thick with anger.

‘Yes.’

I began to laugh. I couldn’t help it. It was so damned funny.

‘What the hell are you laughing at?’ Reece demanded angrily. His eyes glanced uncertainly round the ring of faces. ‘What’s the matter with you all?’

A voice called from back down the street. Reece turned, ‘Ah! Here he is. Did you find a way through, Shirer?’ he called out.

‘No. It’s all round us.’

He came up the street, running, his eyes wild. ‘You have not found a way through?’ Reece shook his head. ‘What about those peasants. Perhaps they—’

He stopped then and his mouth fell open. I think it was Zina he’d recognised. He stared at her, then slowly, reluctantly his eyes turned first to Hacket, then to me. We didn’t speak. We were quite motionless, watching and — yes, I’ll admit it — enjoying the way the truth dawned on him and fear spread across his face.

‘What the devil’s the matter, Shirer?’ Reece demanded.

The man gulped and then turned and bolted.

‘Shirer!’ Reece called. ‘Shirer! Come back! What’s the matter?’

The man twisted into the track we’d just left and disappeared. Reece turned and looked at the set anger of our faces. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked. ‘What’s happened?’ He was bewildered, suddenly unsure of himself.

‘Ask Dick,’ Hilda said suddenly. ‘He will tell you.’

Reece turned to me. ‘What is it?’ he asked. Then suddenly threatening he came towards me. ‘Come on, damn you, what’s the mystery?’

‘That isn’t Shirer,’ I said.

‘Who is it then?’

‘Doctor Sansevino.’

‘Sansevino? Of the Villa d’Este?’ He suddenly laughed. ‘What story have you been telling these people?’ He caught hold of my arm and shook me. ‘What’s the game, Farrell? Sansevino shot himself. I checked up afterwards. Anyway, I’d know Shirer anywhere. Didn’t I escape with him?’

‘You escaped with Dr. Sansevino,’ I said.

‘Don’t lie.’

‘It’s the truth. Ask any of these people.’

‘But I’ve been through his villa. I know it’s Shirer. And he talked to me about our escape. Nobody but Shirer could have—’

‘You escaped with Dr. Sansevino,’ I said.

He swung round on Hacket. ‘Would you mind telling me what this man’s talking about? That was Shirer, wasn’t it?’ His voice trailed away again as he met the set expression of Hacket’s face.

‘I don’t know who the guy is and I don’t care,’ Hacket said. ‘All I know is if I get my hands on the bastard’s throat I’ll kill him.’

There was a movement in the bottom of the cart. Maxwell had half-levered himself up. ‘Alec. Is that you?’ His voice was a dry croak. ‘Dick’s right. That man was Sansevino. Get hold of him. There’s a—’ He slumped back, his head falling with a hollow thud on the boards of the cart.

‘What was he going to say?’ Hacket asked.

‘I don’t know,‘Hilda answered. ‘He’s fainted. If we could get to the villa—’

‘Yes.’ Hacket called to us to get on to the cart. ‘The sooner he’s made comfortable the better. And there’s some drink there. I could do with a drink myself.’

We clambered on. Zina swore at the mule and we started back along the road. Reece sat quite still, a dazed, almost horrified look on his face. I sensed what was happening behind the blankness of his eyes. He was remembering the night he’d escaped, how Shirer had gone first and then he’d followed half an hour later, remembering how they’d met at the ambulance and how they’d driven away together. He was remembering all the little details, seeing them in a new light, realising for the first time that the man he’d escaped with was the man who’d killed his friend.

‘Forget about it,’ I said. ‘We’ve enough to worry about without that.’

He stared at me. I think he was hating me like hell at that moment for having revealed the truth to him. He didn’t say anything. He just sat and stared at me for a moment and then looked away towards the black shimmering horizon of the lava.

Nobody talked as we drove back to the villa. The only human sound was the crying of the little fellow Hilda was nursing. He seemed to have sensed that something was wrong. He didn’t stop crying till we reached the villa. We got Max on to the couch in the room to the left of the door. It was queer going into that room again. It looked cold and unlived in in that queer half-light. Roberto’s body still lay in a heap on the floor and there were unwashed glasses and ashtrays. By the time we’d got Tucek and Lemlin upstairs to bed, Hilda had found water and was busy cleaning Maxwell up.

‘Let me do that,’ I said. ‘You get upstairs and see to your father.’

She shook her head. ‘My father is all right. He is only drugged.’

‘Better for him if he stay drugged,’ Zina said. ‘Better for us all if we have drugs.’ She stared down at Maxwell. Hilda had cleaned the dirt off his face. The skin was very white and the lower lip horribly bitten through. ‘You want some morfina?’

Hilda glanced up. ‘Morphia?’

‘Si, si. Morphia. I think I know where it is.’

Hilda looked down again at Max and then nodded. ‘I think it might help — later when he becomes conscious again.’

Zina went out. ‘Well, what do we do now?’ Reece asked.

‘Clean up, I guess,’ Hacket said. ‘We’ll feel better when we’ve got rid of some of this ash.’

‘But there must be something we can do. There’s a telephone here, isn’t there?’

‘I wouldn’t be surprised. But what good is that? You can’t just ring for a taxi.’

‘No, but I could ring Pomigliano. There’s just a chance a plane could land here. There’s a flat stretch beside the road leading up to the villa.’

‘It’s a chance,’ Hacket murmured. ‘But I don’t see any pilot risking being caught up in the mess we’re in.’

‘Well, I’ll have a try.’

We followed him out to the hall. The telephone stood on a wall-bracket and we watched him as he lifted the receiver. For a moment we were buoyed up by the sudden possibility of hope. Then he began to joggle the contact up and down and hope receded. At length he put the receiver back on the rest. ‘No good. It’s probably an overhead line.’

‘It’d be the same if it were underground,’ Hacket said heavily. ‘The heat would simply melt the wires. Well, I’m going to get cleaned up.’

Through the open door I saw George standing forlornly in the shafts of the broken cart. They’d all forgotten about him. I went out and he whinnied at me. I stood there for a moment in the blazing twilight, rubbing the mule’s velvet muzzle. It’d be nice I thought not to know what was going to happen. I unhooked the traces and took him round to the outhouses where he’d have some shelter if more stones began to fall. I left him with the basket of asparagus and went back into the villa for a drink.

Hilda was alone in the room with Maxwell. Someone had removed the dead body of Roberto. ‘How is he?’ I asked.

‘He became conscious for a moment. He try to tell me something. Then he fainted again. I think he is in great pain.’

Maxwell’s face was very white and blood was dripping on to the floor. ‘Can’t you stop the bleeding?’ I asked her.

She shook her head. ‘The leg is terribly torn right up to the thigh.’

I turned away to the drink table and poured her a cognac. ‘Drink that,’ I said. ‘You look as though you could do with it.’

She took the glass. ‘Thank you. I am so afraid I have fixed the leg wrong. I have no experience of setting legs and he is in terrible pain.’

‘Well, it’s not your fault,’ I told her and poured myself a drink. I was thinking it didn’t matter very much. The lava would come and that would be the end of it. We could fill him up with drugs. He’d be lucky then. He wouldn’t know much about it. I knocked back the cognac and poured another. The best thing would be to get drunk. I took the bottle and filled Hilda’s glass. She tried to stop me, but I said, ‘Don’t be a fool. Drink it. Things won’t matter so much if you keep drinking.’

‘Isn’t there a chance—’ She didn’t finish but knelt there staring up at me with her large grey eyes.

I shook my head. ‘None. The lava might stop, but I don’t think so.’

‘If only we could get a doctor.’

‘A doctor?’

‘Yes. I would feel so much happier if I knew he was as comfortable as he could be.’

I knocked back the rest of the drink. I was beginning to feel fine now. ‘You want a doctor?’ I felt a gurgle of laughter welling up inside me. It would be so damned ironical. ‘Would it really make you feel happier if you had a doctor?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘All right. I’ll get you a doctor.’ I poured myself another drink, knocked it straight back and then I turned to the door. ‘I’ll get you one of the best surgeons in the country.’

‘I don’t understand. Where are you going, Dick?’

‘I’m going to find Dr. Sansevino.’

‘No. Please.’

‘Do you want a doctor or don’t you?’ I asked her.

She hesitated.

‘Sansevino’s a damn’ good surgeon. I should know.’

‘Please, Dick — don’t be bitter. I would rather anything than that.’ Then as she realised that I was waiting for the answer to my question, she nodded. ‘Yes. Get him if you can.’

I got George out of the outhouse, clambered on to his back and we trotted off down the track to the road.I’d had nothing to eat that morning and I felt very light-headed. I think I sang part of the way. Then I reached the road and glanced along it towards Santo Francisco. The sight that met my eyes sobered me up. Santo Francisco was gone, all except a few houses on the outskirts. Where the village had been was nothing but a long wall of black lava. It seemed to be fanning out, filling the whole gap between the two streams that had swung down to join at Avin. I suddenly realised there wasn’t much point in getting Sansevino.

I think I might have turned back then. I needed another drink. I needed to keep myself drunk. But when I glanced towards Avin I saw the figure of a man trudging up the road towards me. I turned George and cantered towards him.

It was Sansevino all right. I pulled Zina’s little automatic out of my pocket. But I needn’t have bothered. The man was too shaken with fear to try any tricks, and he was literally glad to see me. I think he’d been coming to the villa anyway. He needed company. I remembered how I’d felt alone on that roof watching the lava steadily encroaching. It wasn’t nice to be alone while you’re waiting for the lava to reach you.

I hauled him up in front of me and we trotted back to the villa. As we turned off the road on to the track through the vineyards he said,’ Suppose I could show you a way to get out of here?’

‘How do you mean?’ I asked.

‘I will make a bargain with you. If I tell you how we may be able to get away, will you all give me your word of honour as gentlemen that you will not say anything of what has happened?’

‘I don’t bargain with people like you,’ I snapped. ‘If you know a way out you’ll tell us to save your own miserable hide.’

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Later perhaps, when the lava is close, we make a deal.’

He had no trace of American accent now. He had dropped the personality of Shirer entirely. He was an Italian speaking English.

I didn’t even bother to question him about his proposition. I knew there was no way out.

‘Is Maxwell badly hurt?’ he asked.

‘Thanks to you — yes. One leg’s crushed.’

We had reached the villa now and I slid to the ground. I had the pistol ready and I was prepared to use it. I think he knew that, for he went straight into the villa. ‘Where is he?’

‘The room on the left,’ I told him.

Hilda was still kneeling beside the couch. Hacket and Reece were there looking much cleaner. ‘Here’s your doctor,’ I said to Hilda.

Hacket started forward at the sight of Sansevino. Then Reece brushed past him and seized Sansevino by the shoulder. ‘What happened to Shirer?’ he hissed. ‘Did you kill him? What happened?’

‘Let him go,’ I ordered. I could see Recce’s fist clenched, ready to lash out. His chagrin at realising how he’d been duped was eating into him, destroying his reasoning. I hit him across the knuckles with my pistol. ‘Let go, damn you!’ I shouted at him. ‘Haven’t you any sense? The man’s a doctor.’

He stared at me, his expression a mixture of shocked surprise and anger. I pushed quickly between him and Sansevino. ‘There’s your patient, doctor,’ I said. ‘Get that leg set properly. Make a slip and I’ll start shooting.’

He looked at me. ‘Please, Mr. Farrell. You do not have to threaten. I know the responsibilites of my profession.’

‘You can hardly expect me to take a remark like that very seriously,’ I answered.

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I do what I think is necessary. I told you that before. However, I do not expect you to believe me. Do you mind if I wash?’ As I followed him, he added, ‘You do not have to worry. I shall not run away.’

As we returned to the room I heard the sound of the piano. Zina was sitting there, playing — her fingers drifting easily, lingeringly over the keys and a dreamy expression on her face. She stopped playing as she saw Sansevino. ‘So you have found it, eh?’ he said. ‘You feel better now?’

‘I feel marvellous, Walter. Wonderful.’ She glanced towards the black, louring sky beyond the windows. ‘I do not care any more.’ Her fingers rippled along the keys.

Sansevino crossed to the couch, stripped the blankets off Maxwell’s body and then began to cut away the clothing from his injured leg. ‘Get me some water, please. Warm water. Also sheets for bandages and some pieces of wood. The banisters from the stairs will do nicely. Zina! Get me the morphia and my hypodermic.’ It was extraordinary. He ceased to be the man who’d tried to murder us up there in Santo Francisco. He was just a doctor faced with a surgical problem.

He got the clothing cut away and stood for a moment looking at the bloody pulp of flesh. At one point the white of the bone was showing. He shook his head. ‘It is very bad.’ His tongue clicked against the roof of his mouth. Then he went over to a desk in the corner and opened the bottom drawer with a bunch of keys he’d taken from his pocket. He brought out a small roll of surgical instruments. ‘Go and tell Miss Tucek I also need some boiling water, please.’ I hesitated. Reece and Hacket were outside, knocking out the banisters. There was only Zina in the room. ‘Hurry, please. Go on, man. I shall not hurt him. What would be the point?’

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 Tucek 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 Tucek? 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 aeroplane, 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 Tucek 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 Tucek 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 of fin 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.