Vesuvius by Night

Chapter 10

‘It’s smelly! I don’t want to go in there.’

‘Just a bit of seaside pong. Don’t make a fuss.’

‘When will it be over?’

‘I don’t know, it’s no use asking me. We all have to be patient. Just be a good girl, will you?’

A soldier was directing the crowd taking shelter. ‘Let’s keep it civilised – put the women and children right inside. The young men can stay out on the beach, if there’s a shortage of space…’ Ollia felt grateful for his guidance, grateful for any. ‘Come further along, there will be more room in the next shed.’

Aged about forty, he was in uniform, armed and carrying a toolbag. Had he been on leave or on a mission? He was making himself useful. He helped Ollia, lifting one of the younger twins against his shoulder, scooping the other under his free arm as they found a shed that still had room. ‘Are these all yours?’

‘All mine, and another on its way,’ she answered firmly. She could see him eyeing her up, hoping she was just their nurse. Ollia made it clear she was a married woman, respectable, unavailable. Larius wouldn’t want her getting friendly with a soldier. Anyway – for heavens’ sake!

Ollia had long ago learned to complain about Campanian men, overlooking what those in her home city had been like. She let him help, but only because suspicion of a stranger kept Varius quiet. Ollius was staring at the man’s sword. So was Lolliana, but the girls shrank against their mother shyly.

Once inside the dark boatshed, the soldier subtly moved on, taking his unwelcome overtures. Probably he just wanted a companion to take his mind off his own fear. Maybe he would be lucky, find some other young woman to flirt with.

After she rebuffed the soldier, Ollia listened and was surprised by how freely her companions were talking to strangers in this shared nightmare. ‘I was just fetching in my bedcovers from airing as if it was any ordinary day! Then this happened. It’s terrible…’

‘Terrible,’ Ollia sympathised automatically, not wanting to be reminded how bad it all was. More than usual, she was conscious of being from Rome where people were brusque and private. Ollia needed to see what was going to happen before she commented on any of it.

She was hungry. They all were. She had brought no food. They must do without – she would have to find something tomorrow for them. She was tired too, desperately weary after this awful day and her fear of what was yet to happen.

From inside the sheds, which faced out to sea, those sheltering could no longer see the mountain’s fiery outbursts, though they heard and felt reverberations from endless explosions inside the deep magma chamber. Under cover of the vaulted roofs, with a whole escarpment above them to muffle the outside commotion, people might feel a little more secure.

They were packed in, hundreds of them, including the elderly and invalids. Many were women and children, as if the male population had selfishly made off earlier, leaving their dependents. But that was unfair. Most men would have been elsewhere this morning, going about their normal business out in the fields or on the water. If they had not rushed home, perhaps they had been simply prevented by events.

Maybe, thought Ollia with a shudder, her Larius had been struck down and was lying hurt. Dear gods, she hoped he had got Marciana with him. She wanted her daughter, but she had to trust that Larius would look after her. He was strong, capable, sensible enough beneath all the painting and poetry…

‘Ollius, stay here; don’t wander off!’ The little boy would vanish if she took her eyes off him. Always curious. No idea of remembering where the others were. The last thing she needed was a lost child.

Somehow, they found space to lie down. Ollia tucked the children beside her, leaving room for other people, keeping her own within close reach in the dark. The twins were silent, deeply subdued by today’s strange experience, aware of the adults’ fear. Eventually her youngest slept, though they whimpered in their dreams. Her six-year-olds lay motionless, but they were more conscious of danger; heads close, they had been whispering together. Now she knew they were tense, listening, on the verge of crying.

Outside it must be night now. Smoke and ash created utter darkness. A few lamps and lanterns had been lit in the boatshed interior, sparse pinpoints of flame that barely touched the intense blackness. The people around her were quiet, though not completely still. There was a constant faint shuffle of movement. Adults, unable to sleep, talked together in low murmurs. They struck up a muted camaraderie even though they could not see one another. Some were in family parties. Others simply sat or lay, frozen in misery.

Ollia felt like that. She was a mother being brave for her children. Nevertheless it was so dark she could let tears trickle unseen. Holding in sobs, she closed her eyes. Soon, surprisingly, she drowsed, soothed by the warm presence of her babies against her, somehow falling into sleep because she was so exhausted and shocked.

It helped that she was not alone here. It helped that she was surrounded by other people, all feeling lost and traumatised, all waiting out this dreadful night in shared terror. A woman stepped carefully over the still forms of her companions. Excusing herself if she disturbed anyone, she murmured, ‘Must get outside for a bit. I’m desperate for fresh air…’

Outside, the air had no freshness; it was sickly with gas and turbid with ash fragments, but she steadied herself against a wall, head up as if searching for the invisible sky. Around and above Vesuvius, bright lights were flickering like sheet lightning, though the flames were much larger.

As the woman had expected, as she had even subconsciously planned (surprising herself), she soon heard a quiet footfall. It was the helpful soldier. She had made sure he heard her say where she was going. He found her by instinct in the blackness. He was tall, she remembered. Sturdy, but he had a bad leg, legacy of a wound, an accident, a kick from a horse. She had noticed his equipment; sword, dagger in its scabbard, the ornamental metal belt that symbolised the military, with its sporran-like hanging chains to protect his manly tackle.

Soldiers had their way of avoiding a complete unbuckle; in the pitch black, the woman heard quiet chinks as he shifted his belt, hauling it sideways around him, out of the way. He’s had practice, she thought, liking to know; tonight she was desperate for competence.

She did not want endearments, let alone softening up in the way her ludicrous husband thought he must bring presents. She had her own jewellery with her. She wore both the emerald bezel ring and a carnelian engraved with a hen and three chickens; she carried safe a further collection, two snake-headed gold bangles, pearl ear-rings any noblewoman would be glad to wear… Gifts of love, pretended her faithless husband; gifts of guilt, she realised – though she took them. Never underestimate the earning power of a betrayed woman.

The soldier was no catch; she had already glimpsed by lantern light that he had three teeth missing, which she guessed was not from battle but brawling.

There were people all around them on the beach but it was dark and anyway, all inhibitions were dispensed with tonight. It was understood why they had sought each other out. They shared a snatch of conversation, sizing one another up before proceedings began.

‘Is this worse than war?’ the woman asked, meaning the commotion around them.

‘No,’ he answered frankly. ‘In war you will always have someone to blame, and normally someone to hate too.’

‘Can’t you loathe nature?’

‘No point,’ he said.

Without a word more, they reached for each other.

Later, while they were still outside, standing and gazing at the volcano’s pyrotechnics, for some reason the soldier asked, ‘Are you married?’

‘Somehow I don’t think that matters tonight!’ replied Salvia.

The wife of Erodion, sneaky market gardener and serial adulterer, was neither bitter nor enjoying a sense of revenge. She felt a lot better, actually. Better than she had felt for years. So if these were her last moments of existence, for Salvia tonight was satisfactory.

She and the soldier moved apart but they both stayed outside on the beach.

Everything was altering.

Above Vesuvius, the column had rocketed up all day, pushed out by the mountain and then sucked upwards by atmospheric pull; now it reached its greatest height of nearly twenty miles. Large missiles shot upwards, destabilising the lighter contents. The stupendous elemental cloud mass collapsed. Everything aloft fell back upon itself, down into the fiery caldera that had been throwing up white-hot gases and molten rock from the earth’s crust. Immeasurable forces fought, causing a new stage of activity. Abruptly, with more power than anything on earth, the volcano’s violent contents welled up and overflowed.