Saddle the Wind (70 page)

Reluctantly Blanche had to accept the advice. Solemnly the young men shook her hand. She thanked them for all they had done. ‘I’ll never forget you,’ she said.

They were just about to start up the stairs when Smith stopped and, turning back, advised Blanche that it would be as well if neither she nor her friends did anything to advertise their presence in the basement. Hundreds of desperate people were roaming about the city, he said, and there were many of them who would not stop to kill for a warm bed and a piece of bread.

Reid nodded agreement. They didn’t want to alarm her, he added, but also with the collapse of the prison
hundreds of dangerous criminals had been released, many of whom were actively engaged in looting the remains of the wealthier villas. Like many of the ghouls from the countryside, some of them were actually stripping the dead of the jewellery they wore. And not only the dead; there had been reports of some injured survivors being attacked for the sake of their possessions. Some had been murdered, while others had had hands and fingers hacked off to enable their attackers to get at rings and bracelets. Now, though, Reid said, with martial law and with help beginning to come in, the situation would soon be under control.

They left her then, and she stood watching from the foot of the stairs as they climbed back up into the pouring rain.

Returning to the kitchen Blanche went to Adriana and Lisa where they lay awake and hungry on the far side of the room and gave them some of the bread – very stale now – and some pieces of swede which she sliced off with a sharp knife. She also divided half an orange between them. In one of the cupboards she found glasses, and breaking open a bottle of wine she poured a little into two glasses, to which she added a little of the water.

Leaving the girls to eat and drink she took some of the food and wine to Marianne and Gentry. Marianne, however, although awake, would not eat. With a shake of her head she turned her face away.

Placing the oil lamp nearby, Blanche took a bottle of Scotch whisky, poured a little into a saucer and did what she could to clean the many cuts and grazes that covered Marianne’s body. Marianne lay there in silence all the while, occasionally sucking in her breath as the spirit stung her. The worst of the cuts Blanche bandaged with
a tea cloth which she found in a drawer and then tore into strips.

Blanche was relieved to see that in spite of the number of cuts and bruises Marianne had suffered there still appeared to be no sign of any serious injury. It was a miracle. The greatest harm seemed to have been done to Marianne’s mind, the experience obviously having caused her the severest shock. But she would recover in time.

Blanche’s ministrations over for the time being, she once more covered Marianne with the blanket and the coat and then tried again to persuade her to drink a little, to eat a little of the bread. Marianne silently shook her head and turned her face away and closed her eyes. After a while she drifted off into sleep.

Blanche poured a little wine and water for Gentry, which she gave him along with some of the bread and a hunk of the swede. Sitting on the edge of the mattress beside him she drank some wine and water, and ate the bread and the swede, carving off slices with the knife. Neither she nor Gentry spoke. When she had finished she set down the glass and the knife on the floor and moved quietly across the room to where Lisa and Adriana lay. They had eaten and drunk everything she had given them and now lay sleeping. She tucked the folds of the blanket about them and then moved back to Gentry. Softly, so as not to waken Marianne, she inquired as to his own injuries. His arm was all right, he said, but he had to admit that his knee was very painful. He pushed aside the covering of the blanket, sat up and tried to pull up his trouser-leg. He could not; the fabric was too tight. When Blanche touched his knee he flinched and she saw that his leg was very swollen.

Having no alternative, Blanche took the knife and slit the seam of his trousers – and was horrified to see that
his knee was swollen and inflamed to the extent where it ballooned out grotesquely. Clearly he had wrenched it so badly that he had torn ligaments and muscles.

Taking another of the tea cloths, she tore it into strips and bound his knee. Then, at her urging, he lay back down on the mattress beside Marianne, and she covered him again with the blanket and the coat. Try to get some sleep, she urged him.

He nodded and closed his eyes. Blanche remained standing there. She felt absolutely helpless. Four people – Adriana, Lisa, Marianne and Gentry – all were dependent upon her – and she did not know what to do for any of them. And she was so tired. She sighed with weariness; she seemed to ache in every bone and muscle of her body. It would be so easy to lie down beside Adriana and Lisa and just sleep. She could not, though. There were too many responsibilities. Standing there with the low-burning oil lamp in her hand she thought back over the events of the past two days. And it was not finished. The horror was continuing. She raised her left hand and pressed it to her eyes as if she would blot out the images that ran through her brain. For a moment there was the threat of tears; she forced them back; tears at such a time would be an indulgence, and there was no time for such a thing.

Gentry lay with his arm across Marianne’s body. As Blanche gazed down he opened his eyes and looked up at her. ‘Try to sleep,’ she whispered. ‘We’ll be safe here. And tomorrow we’ll go away.’ He gave a little nod and closed his eyes again.

Her gaze shifted to take in Marianne’s still face, and as she looked at her she thought back to how she had been in earlier days. She saw her as she had been that Christmas, when she had fallen in love with Gentry, so pretty and so full of hope for the future. She saw her
as she had been as a schoolgirl at Clifton, as a child on the heath around Hallowford …

She moved away, walking on soft feet towards the passage, and the stairs that led up to the street level. Setting down the lamp she climbed the stairs. The atmosphere of the subterranean kitchen was oppressive; she felt she had to get some air.

At the top of the stairs, emerging from the shattered doorway into the devastation of the ruined villa, she found the rain still teeming down and driven by a hard, cold wind. Up in the sky the crows and ravens flapped, occasionally swooping down towards the earth where lay the bodies of the dead. A movement over to her left drew her eye and she saw a large rat scuttle out of sight amid the debris. And still could be heard the cries of those who lay buried beneath the ruins, voices sharp with pain, dull with despair. Raising her hands, she pressed them over her ears, blotting out the sound. Would the voices never be still?

After a few moments she turned from the lashing rain and made her way back down the stairs and into the kitchen. Moving to where Marianne and Gentry lay together on the mattress she stood gazing down at them. As she did so Marianne suddenly opened her eyes and gave a little cry, while her features were distorted in a sharp spasm of some mental anguish. Gentry awoke, raised himself on his elbow and looked at her in concern. Perspiration stood out on Marianne’s brow while at the same time she shivered. With her eyes closed again, her head turned from side to side on the mattress while her hands, the knuckles white, clutched at the blanket.

Crouching beside her, Blanche laid her hand on Marianne’s cheek and murmured her name. After a moment Marianne turned her head and looked at her. At first she gazed at her blankly with no recognition in
her eyes. But then, quite suddenly, it was as if some curtain in her mind was lifted, and the blank, empty look left her eyes and they were filled with fear.

‘Blanche …’ As her dry, cracked lips opened to speak Blanche’s name, her hand loosed its grasp on the blanket and clutched at Blanche, gripping so tightly that the rings on her fingers pressed into the bones of Blanche’s wrist.

‘Blanche …’ she muttered, ‘Blanche …’

And then her hand left Blanche’s wrist and fell back, spasmodically gripping the blanket, while her eyes clenched tightly shut again.

Over her prostrate body Blanche’s eyes caught Gentry’s and she read there the plea in his gaze.

‘I’m going for help,’ she said softly. ‘I’m going to see if we can get on board a ship today. We can’t wait for tomorrow. We need help now.’

Gentry nodded. ‘What can you do?’ he whispered.

‘I’ll find somebody from one of the English ships. Those young sailors said there were doctors and other men from the ships bringing all kinds of supplies ashore, and setting up a hospital in the Piazza Mazzini. It’s not far. I’ll go there and bring somebody back. They must come and fetch you and Marianne and take us on board one of the ships so that we can leave.’ She straightened. ‘I’ll go now, before it gets dark.’

With a final glance down at Marianne, she turned and hurried softly to the shadowed place on the far side of the kitchen where Adriana and Lisa lay. She was relieved to see that they were still asleep. Seconds later she had set down the lamp and was out in the passage and moving towards the stairs.

As she emerged into the open the driving rain struck at her, and in minutes her hair was plastered to her head and her dress was wet through. Unaware of the
discomfort, though, she pushed on, making her way over the piles of rubble that choked the narrow streets as she headed for the Piazza Mazzini.

As she picked her way among the ruins her attention was drawn to two dogs digging in the debris. They were wet, bedraggled, and covered in mud, and she was afraid of their wild appearance as they snapped and scrabbled at something in the rubble. But they were not interested in her. As she watched, the larger of the two dogs backed away, dragging something held in its jaws, while the other dog, snarling, tried to wrest it away. Then Blanche saw that they were fighting over the corpse of a baby.

She trudged on. And still as she passed there came to her the muffled cries of those still buried, while in whichever direction she looked she could see dead bodies, corpses either lying on top of the rubble, or partly buried beneath it. Sometimes just a foot or an arm would be visible above the debris. In the end such sights ceased to shock.

Even though the Piazza Mazzini was situated not very far away, traversing the almost impassable streets took a very long time. As she continued on her way she passed many little groups of people effecting rescue operations, many of them trying to dig out survivors who were still buried beneath the rubble. The shock of the catastrophe had initially stunned many of the citizens into a numb apathy, but in some cases this had now, thankfully, given way to a realization of the necessity for action. Not in every case, though; far from it; many still wandered or sat about, silent, with dull, vacant looks in their eyes. It was the same look that touched Marianne, Blanche thought. Others, pushed even further by the horror of their experiences, had gone quite mad. One man whom Blanche came across was moving about
the ruins in the rain singing and doing some strange dance; his mind, unable to take any more, had given way, saving him from knowledge of the continuing horror.

As she drew nearer to the Piazza Mazzini there were more and more signs of activity. At one point she came upon some Italian soldiers collecting the dead for burial, loading the corpses onto a donkey-driven cart. Frequently she came across rescue parties hard at work, and she heard the familiar and comforting sounds of English voices from blue-uniformed British sailors working there, and the strange tongue of those seamen whom, she assumed, were from the Russian ships. As she passed by the groups of men she saw them digging perilous tunnels through the rubble, sawing through beams, carrying away heavy pieces of masonry. They worked tirelessly, drenched in rain and sweat, and covered from head to foot in dirt and mud. In some instances she saw them bringing out survivors from the ruins, and she gazed in awe and admiration at the tenderness displayed. As she passed she heard the words of comfort murmured by two young Scottish sailors as they carried out from the ruins an old man and covered his nakedness with a blanket. Further on she saw a burly Russian sailor emerge from the wreckage carrying a tiny naked child, a little creature looking so small in the arms of his saviour whose bearded face, streaming with tears, bent over the baby.

Entering the open space of the Piazza Mazzini she found that the rescuers had erected makeshift canvas shelters from the pouring rain, and that as many as possible of the injured had been placed beneath them. There was not room for all of them beneath the shelters, however, and many of them were forced to sit or lie out in the rain. They were there in their hundreds,
sitting and lying in row upon row, while the air was filled with their cries and their moans; and all the time more of them were appearing, either limping in on the arms of others or borne on stretchers.

Amongst all the figures moving about Blanche could see the ships’ surgeons going back and forth. Accompanied by attendants they were doing whatever they could with their limited resources to bring some kind of succour to the poor creatures who lay in such desperate straits. And witnessing the scene, Blanche knew that all her hopes of getting immediate help for Marianne and Gentry would be in vain. Nevertheless she had to try, and after a moment’s hesitation she hurried to a tall, bespectacled man whom she took to be one of the surgeons. As he straightened from his examination of a woman who lay on the ground Blanche spoke to him in English.

‘Sir – please – forgive me for bothering you, but – is there someone you can send to help me … ?’

He frowned, while observing: ‘You’re English …’ and then added: ‘Help you? In what way?’

‘I’ve got two friends who are both lying injured, and I need help for them.’

‘Injured? How badly?’ He spoke quickly, impatiently, as if resenting even the time it took to converse with her.

Blanche replied, the words pouring from her:

‘One of them has a broken arm. And his leg is wrenched so badly that he can’t walk. He’s in a great deal of pain. His wife is hurt in some other way. I don’t know – she’s in great shock. Oh, please, can you help … ?’