The Quick Boat Men, page 7
Talking business seemed a strange way to conduct a lovers’ meeting but they clung to each other a few minutes longer. The heat was intense and for a while Edward thought it was the heat of lust. Then he noticed dogs were barking all over the city, asses were braying, and a cock crew frantically despite the hour. The night had become close and very oppressive.
They found Zia Monica in a panic, looking for them, but Rafaela apologised humbly enough to calm the old aunt’s fears. As she turned to lead the way back to the carriage, she threw Edward a glance that almost made his knees give way.
‘Storm coming,’ di Orlando said, when they got home.
It was impossible to sleep. Edward lay on the bed, wondering if Rafaela were expecting him to make a foray down the corridor to her room. Sweat trickled down his forehead, and his throat was dry. He wanted her desperately. But did she really want him? He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
Seven
It was just becoming light when Edward awoke. He had no idea what time it was, only that Salvatore had returned from his carousing in the village. He had heard him shout goodbye to his friends and the slam of the door. Then the house was silent again.
Edward’s thoughts returned to Rafaela. He knew her room lay at the end of a corridor on the upper floor of the house, and that, since the floors were made of marble against the summer heat, there would be no creaking boards to negotiate. Her mother and father slept at the opposite end of the house, while Salvatore had a room on the lower floor because he came in late so often. There seemed to be no possible snags, but Edward continued to resist the temptation.
In the distance there was a rumbling. At first Edward thought it must be thunder, but every dog in Friddi immediately started barking and the rumble grew louder until it became a roar. The bed lurched violently and he was flung to the floor. For a moment, there was dead silence as he lay, clutching the sheet, then there was another screeching rumble and a crash as the whole house started to shake. The windows fell in, showering him with glass and he heard screams from outside and someone yelling in a hoarse voice.
‘Terremoto!’
It was a word with which he was unfamiliar but it wasn’t hard to translate. Part of the wall crumbled and the ceiling caved in.
Covered in plaster, but miraculously unhurt, Edward decided the safest thing was to get outside. But the floor was heaving like a rough sea and he was flung down and half-stunned as a beam from the ceiling struck him a glancing blow. The noise and the shuddering seemed to go on for hours but in fact the tremor could have lasted only a matter of seconds. The room was hazy with dust, but he could make out a huge split across the centre of the floor, one side of which was cocked up at an angle of 30 degrees. A colossal chunk of stonework had smashed his bed to smithereens.
Scrambling among the debris, he managed to find his clothes and dragged them on. Part of the corridor had collapsed, but Edward jumped the gap. Suddenly there was another shuddering rumble and the floor shook. Rafaela’s door burst open of its own accord as he arrived. She was sitting on the floor among the tangled bedding, half-naked.
‘Edward,’ she screamed. ‘Madonna Santissima, are you all right?’
‘For God’s sake,’ he yelled, ‘put something on. They’ll be coming any minute to see if you’re all right. They’ll think I’ve been here with you all night.’
But Edward could not help feeling a twinge of regret, as her breasts were covered by a silk nightgown.
His arm round her waist, they slipped from the room just as the ceiling crashed down. The balustrade had fallen away and lay in a heap in the hall, covered with plaster that had fallen from the ceiling. Keeping to the wall, they stumbled down the lopsided staircase. The statues that had stood in the hall were all on their sides, broken, and the pictures hung askew on the walls. Dust was everywhere.
Once outside, Rafaela flung herself at the first person she saw. ‘Edward rescued me,’ she cried, shaking the flakes of plaster from her hair. ‘But for the grace of God and His Blessed Mother I should be dead.’
Dishevelled and terrified as Zia Monica was, she glared at Edward. Then Signora di Orlando appeared. Her eyes were wild and her face and her nightclothes were covered with blood.
‘Mio marito,’ she was wailing. ‘Mio figlio!’
The side of the house where the older di Orlandos and Salvatore slept had collapsed, crushing the kitchen area and the servants’ quarters. A miasma of dust drifted over the fallen blocks of masonry and the rubble that surrounded them. There was no sign or sound of life. The outhouses had gone, trees were uprooted, the wall surrounding the garden had collapsed, bringing down the great cast-iron gates, and a rift in the earth ran straight across the lawn.
Finding a gap between two great blocks of masonry, Edward crept between them. He recognised a tapestry that normally hung in the salon, but alongside it was a bed and dust-covered clothes. Then he saw di Orlando lying on his back among the rubble. There was blood across his face and down the front of his nightshirt. Heaving away the wreckage, Edward began to drag the body to the gap where he had come in. It was hard work, but then Rafaela was beside him, taking hold of her father’s arm.
‘Is he dead?’ she cried, tears falling in rivulets down her dust-covered cheeks.
The earth seemed to groan beneath them. Several blocks of stone fell and a great slab of marble that was leaning crazily slammed down flat. For a moment, they clung to each other in terror, but the rumbling subsided, and the cascade of plaster dust changed to a trickle, and finally stopped.
‘He’s still breathing,’ said Edward, when they succeeded in dragging di Orlando outside. His wife gave an agonised scream, and started tearing at her hair, beating her forehead and wailing prayers, transformed abruptly from a modern, civilised woman of wealth, poise and position to a Sicilian peasant.
‘Siccome Voi, o Gran Dio, siete giusto e santo in tutto le opera Vostre–’
‘I’d better try to find Salvatore,’ Edward said.
Pushing through the gap again, he began to explore the wreckage. There was no movement, no sign of life. He found a foot but it was a woman’s. He managed to shift the debris that covered her. It was Elsa, one of the maids. Her neck was broken. Then he found a hand which he identified as Salvatore’s from his signet ring. But, try as he could, Edward was unable to pull the body out. A great oak beam had crushed Salvatore’s back. There was nothing he could do.
The carriage horses had escaped from the stables and disappeared. Only one, the oldest, stood calmly cropping grass, blood drying on its neck from a slight cut below one ear.
‘I’ll go for help,’ Edward said, having found reins and a saddle. Rafaela waved him goodbye, then went back to her father.
The scene in the local village was one of total devastation. Houses had been flattened as though by a giant’s foot. Edward headed for the town. But the town, if anything, was worse.
The air was full of wails and shrieks. A shattered gas main blazed. The doors of the prison had been thrown open by the tremors and some of Italy’s most notorious criminals were at large among the ruins. Soldiers were beginning to arrive, however, and some effort was being made to round them up, and to rescue trapped people. A few doctors had also appeared and were trying to help survivors dragged from the ruins.
Without warning, the earth trembled, and Edward’s horse reared up. Dozens of half-naked people rushed into the streets, screaming with terror. It was a vision of hell. Over their cries, Edward could hear the splintering roar of buildings collapsing and for safety he dismounted in the centre of a square, holding his horse’s head and stroking its muzzle. A house behind him subsided gently into a heap of rubble, as though it had suddenly melted.
Spitting the dust from his mouth, Edward realised his quest was hopeless. Then the rain started, turning dust into mud, coming down in long shining stair rods that bounced from the flooded streets. In places it was impossible to tell where the streets had been. The churchyard of San Fiorenzo was strewn with coffins, split wide open. Rotting corpses lay sprawled in front of the church. A terrified congregation had been crushed while they prayed. A few men tore with bleeding hands at the stones in search of relatives. Women sat in the ruins, frozen-faced, shivering in the ice-cold wind that blew from the mountains to the north, while a priest moved among them, dispensing what little comfort he could. There was no help to be had.
As Edward headed out of town, fishing boats were taking people to ships which were standing out to sea. The foreshore was littered with broken bodies and the carcasses of dead animals.
When he reached the Casa Orlando, Edward was met by Rafaela, dry-eyed and blank-faced. ‘My father is dead,’ she said. ‘And so is Salvatore. The doctor came from Friddi and said he couldn’t possibly be alive. One of the maids is also trapped but I have sent for spades to dig her out. There is nothing left. I’ve sent my mother to Agrigento to stay with her sister.’
They worked until dark, rescuing what was possible, then as it grew dusk, Zia Monica and the maids were sent to their families in the village and Edward and Rafaela dragged a mattress into the stable, which seemed the only place left standing, and lay down together, fully dressed, under the same blanket. There was no question of a chaperone and she clung to him in the darkness.
The next morning, the bodies of di Orlando and his son were buried in the garden. It was impossible to wait until the overworked undertakers could be found to take them away.
The rescue work continued during the day. In Friddi most of the dead and injured had been brought out. There was little left of the Casa Orlando but Edward and Rafaela managed to rescue a few pictures and artifacts as well as a pair of shotguns belonging to Salvatore. They stored them in the stable out of the rain which continued to fall, icy-cold and drenching. The family lawyer, a man called Montesi, his clothes muddy, his hat dented, and his glasses bent, appeared. On hearing that Salvatore was dead, he informed Rafaela that if her mother died she was the sole inheritor of her father’s wealth. She didn’t seem very interested.
‘Signor Montesi,’ she said with an authority that had only increased since the disaster, ‘we can deal with that later. What we’re doing now is more important than money.’ Dismissing the lawyer, she returned to directing the work of sorting through the rubble. When they reached the wine cellar, it was a pleasant surprise to find so many bottles unbroken. They had to push the corks in with their fingers, and, as the rain stopped and the sun came out, both Edward and Rafaela were mildly tipsy, and some of their helpers fell asleep where they had been working.
The following day, Edward went into town again on the old limping horse to arrange for help from men who had answered the call from the other side of Sicily. What had happened to the two other survivors of the George V. Cotterill he didn’t know and couldn’t find out because the hospital had collapsed. The sewers had been shattered and the rats had been driven out and were everywhere, huge, pink creatures as terrified as the human beings. There was a dread of cholera.
Only one chemist was open, an old-fashioned farmaccia with a row in the window of old faenza urns carrying Latin inscriptions. On a shelf, Edward observed glass jars containing a snake in alcohol and an embalmed rat that had been born with two heads. The old man behind the counter was dishing out doses mostly from bottles marked Morte alla colera and Filtro d’amore.
The whole city stank of carbolic and lime and, watched by nuns with saintly faces, long convoys of carts piled with corpses were making their way to a cemetery which had been dug outside the city, where soldiers and half-drunken becca morti were burying the dead in immense pits.
Edward found himself roped in with a party who were digging for a group of women trapped in a cellar. As they drew nearer, they could hear a woman moaning and a high-pitched squeaking. When they finally broke through and shone their carbide lamps in, the whole cellar was alive with rats. They were huge with long red tails and had been feeding on the corpses. There was only one woman left alive and she was out of her mind.
Sailors from four large Russian warships that had been passing the island from the Black Sea towards Gibraltar, put men ashore and they were working like madmen to release people who were still buried alive. The submarine telegraph to the mainland had been broken and it was difficult to summon help. The only news came via the fishermen, which indicated that Reggio di Calabria across the strait had also suffered considerable damage.
Houses on the coast had been washed away by the tidal waves that had built up as the seas receded then returned. But British, French and German ships were constantly arriving and Americans were organising assistance from Taormina. Many of the city officials were dead and there was no money, food, clothing, blankets or tents, and the cold winds had grown stronger. The soldiers were shooting the prisoners from the gaol when they found them looting, but bandits from the centre of the island were on the move, too, rounding up stray cattle and driving them into the hills. There was no question of stopping them.
The casualties in Messina alone numbered thousands and the danger of a cholera epidemic increased. But yachts loaded with provisions were arriving from the north and from France. Newspapermen were also gathering like flies.
The di Orlando warehouses were largely undamaged, because they had been protected from the tidal waves from the south by the Forte San Salvatore on its spit of land. The offices were also still standing, and several clerks wanted to know if they were still employed. Their spokesman was the chief clerk, Evrone, a small man with a curlicue moustache and glasses. He had learned that the banks were proposing to start business again, guaranteed by their parent offices in Rome, Milan and Turin. Money was available for help if only someone would grasp the need for it.
Returning to Friddi, Edward told Rafaela what he had found out and begged her to go to her father’s office and encourage his staff to carry on.
‘Now is your chance,’ he urged.
Remembering what he’d heard about the escaped prisoners looting anything they could find, that evening Edward led the old horse into the stable. Dragging a broken bed in after it, he erected it alongside the stall, a brick under one damaged leg. Repairing the door to keep out the wind, he also built a rough fireplace from pieces of broken masonry and lit a fire. The larder had survived more or less intact, so they were not immediately short of food, and by the light of a hurricane lamp he and Rafaela ate a stew he had cooked, listening to the old horse munching hay.
Rafaela sat staring into the flames. ‘I need someone, caro Edward,’ she whispered. ‘My mother will be of no help. I have no one.’
Suddenly, the horse whinnied. ‘Shh,’ said Edward. Putting the lamp out, he and Rafaela waited, listening in the darkness. Edward reached for Salvatore’s shotgun and thrust two cartridges into the breech.
‘What are you going to do?’ whispered Rafaela.
‘I don’t know yet.’
They kept absolutely still. Through the broken door, they saw two dark figures moving against the night sky.
Rafaela picked up the other gun.
For a long time nothing happened, and Edward felt he would choke with tension. Then, with a crash, the door flew open. Framed in the opening were two men. Each held a gun and as they saw Rafaela they started grinning. They hadn’t spotted Edward in the shadows, and one of them stepped forward and made a grab for her. Edward was at a loss. He couldn’t fire without hitting her. Then, the other man stepped inside, and Edward swung the gun on him and pulled the trigger. The roar filled the stable and set the horse neighing and kicking in terror. The intruder was hurled back off his feet, his face and chest a horrifying mash of blood and pulped flesh. As he fell, the first man turned and, as he did so, Rafaela hit him in the side of the head with her gun. One barrel went off and Edward felt the blast and the searing heat of the shot. Dust poured down from the roof of the stable. With a groan, the man fell but scrambled quickly to his feet and, dropping the gun he had been carrying, stumbled out into the night, clutching his head.
‘You all right?’ Edward panted.
‘Yes. Oh, Santa Maria, Madre di Dio, I almost killed you. Are you hurt?’
‘I don’t think so.’
At the end of the stable the old horse had settled down again, and was munching away at the hay. Rafaela put down her gun. ‘I didn’t realise it was loaded,’ she said.
‘We’d better get rid of the body,’ Edward replied.
While she held the lamp, he struggled in the lashing rain to scrape a shallow hole at the end of the garden, then they dragged the dead man by the heels across the grass and rolled him in. The hole was barely deep enough but the task took long enough for them both to be soaked to the skin.
Throwing the last of the muddy soil over the body, they trudged through the beating rain back to the stable. Inside, half-frozen, Edward unbuttoned his shirt and threw it down.
‘Take off your wet clothes,’ he said. ‘And get into bed, or you’ll die of pneumonia.’
She stared at him doubtfully for a moment, then she dragged the remains of the flimsy slip she was wearing over her head and flung herself down alongside him. Dragging the blanket over them, he put his arms round her and held her close. She was shuddering with the cold, but gradually their body warmth returned. And in sheer exhaustion they fell fast asleep.
When Edward woke it was almost daylight, and Rafaela was still curled up in his arms. As he opened his eyes she was gazing at him and he kissed her gently. She returned his kiss, cautiously at first, then with passion. Her arms tightened round him and before they knew what they were doing, their hands were exploring, caressing, drawing comfort from each other’s bodies. There were no whispered words, only a wild exhilaration that swept away all the horrors they had seen.
