The Angry Mountain

by Innes Hammond

I stood quite still then, staring in amazement at the sight that met my eyes. Framed in the window was the dark bulk of Vesuvius outlined against an incredible, lurid glow. On either side of the summit two great streaks of red snaked down towards the villa. They were like a finger and thumb of fire crooked to clutch at something on the slopes. The hand and shaft of the wrist were formed by a ruddy column that flamed from the crater, reflecting itself on great billowing masses of gas that rolled upwards, filling the sky and blocking out the stars.

I turned slowly and faced the room. It was full of a demon red glare. I got my torch and moved towards the door. As I did so the head and shoulders of a man moved to meet me. It was my own shadow thrown on the further wall by that ghastly volcanic glare.

I reached the door and turned the handle. But nothing happened. I turned the knob in the opposite direction, but the door would not budge. I was suddenly very wide awake. I jerked furiously at the door in the grip of a sudden panic fear of being trapped. With the horrid glare of the mountain behind me I became desperate to reach the safety of the passage outside. But I couldn’t shift it and at last I realised that I was locked in. For a moment I was terrified. The mountain was in eruption and I had been left here to die under the ash. I was on the point of shouting for help when some instinct kept my mouth shut. I turned quickly back to the window and stood gazing up at the flaming mass of the volcano.

My heart was still pounding against my ribs, but my brain was clearer now. The mountain wasn’t in eruption — not yet. It was worse than it had been last night, but it wasn’t in eruption — not in the way it had been when Pompeii had been destroyed. A lot more gas was escaping, but the glow was mainly from the lava outflows. The villa wasn’t in any imminent danger. And if the villa wasn’t in danger then there was no call for me to panic because the door of my room had been locked. Perhaps it was just jammed.

I went back and tried it again. But it was locked all right. And then I remembered the nightmare of that night in my room at the Excelsior in Milan. I felt the sweat breaking out on my forehead again. I told myself there couldn’t be any connection. But why had the door been locked? Why had Zina gone out of her way to fill me up with wine till I was so drunk I couldn’t stand? Whose villa was this?

I remembered then what Maxwell had said — But somehow you’re a part of it whether you like it or not. And the man who called himself Shirer — Hilda had said he was in Naples. I flashed my torch round the room. The hard white beam of it seemed somehow solid and friendly. I lit a cigarette. My hand trembled as I held the match to it. But at least I was forewarned. I glanced up at Vesuvius. The whole night sky seemed on fire like a scene from Paradise Lost. The headlights of a car stabbed the lurid countryside on the road to Avin. It slowed and stopped. Then the headlights went out. A door closed in the stillness of the villa below me. Involuntarily my muscles tensed. I thought I heard the creak of a stair board, and suddenly I knew someone was coming up the stairs, coming to my room.

I swung the shutters to and moved towards the door. The palms of my hands were sweating and the chromium of the torch I held felt slippery. But the weight of it was comforting. I stood with my head pressed close to the panelling of the door, listening. There was somebody outside now. I couldn’t hear him, but I sensed him there. Very quietly the key was turned in the lock. I stiffened and then stepped back, so that I should be behind the door when it opened.

I couldn’t see it, but I felt the handle turning. Then my hand, which was touching the woodwork of the door, was pressed back as the door was opened. I grasped the heavy torch, raising it ready to strike out. But before I could hit him the man was past me and moving towards the bed. I slipped out into the passage then, the sound of my movement lost in the deep pile of the carpet. A faint red glow showed through an unshuttered window at the far end of the corridor. I reached the dark shaft of the stairs and hesitated. The villa was all silent, an alert stillness that seemed to be listening for the sound of my footfall.

And as I stood there, hesitating, there was a sudden shout from my room. ‘Roberto! Agostino!’

The lavatory was right opposite the head of the stairs. The door was ajar and I stepped back into the shadows as footsteps came running out of my room. A torch flashed in the corridor. ‘Roberto! Agostino!’ Somebody went hurtling past and flung himself down the stairs. I had a brief glimpse of a short, angry figure. Then a door opened along the corridor, near the red glow of the window. I peered out and saw the silhouette of a man hurrying down the corridor towards me. As he passed me he switched on a torch and in the reflected light from the walls I saw it was Roberto. His black hair was tousled and his features coarse and puffed with sleep. He wore a singlet and was buttoning on his trousers. He left behind him a faint smell of sweat mingled with the scent of a perfume that I recognised as Zina’s.