The Angry Mountain

by Innes Hammond

I had a sudden wild idea of leaving the damnable little doctor harnessed to the shafts of the cart. The mere thought of it brought a bubble of laughter to my lips. I heard him say, ‘Pull yourself together, Farrell.’ He was speaking to me as though I were mad. I saw his eyes dilating in sudden fear of me, saw the way his nose had been twisted by Roberto’s fist, and then I saw nothing as I drove my own fist with all the force I possessed into his face, lusting in the feel of pulping blood and tissue, the satisfying thud and crunch of impact and the beautiful pain of my knuckles. Then I was looking down at him, sprawled on the sheet-metal floor of the fuselage, his face broken and bloody. I was trembling. The details of the plane began to swim round in my eyeballs, nausea crept up my throat and into my brain. Very far away I heard my voice say, ‘Get the mule into the plane.’ Hacket and Reece were staring at me. Then without a word they climbed out.

Seeing them go like that without question gave me a sense of command, and with it confidence. I jumped down and found some planks to form a ramp. Hacket came into the barn leading the mule, its cut traces trailing behind it. I went up to the animal and rubbed its velvet muzzle, talking to it, calming it with the sound of my voice. It baulked at the ramp, but pushing and pulling we got it up and into the plane. I backed it so that its rump was against the toilet at the rear and we roped it. I stood talking to him for a bit and then I turned to go fo’ard to the cockpit and found myself face to face with Sansevino. He was holding a bloodstained rag of a handkerchief to his broken face and his eyes looked from me to the mule with a malevolence that halted me. ‘You touch that animal,’ I said, ‘and I’ll kill you.’

He smiled and said nothing. I turned to Reece. ‘Keep him away from that mule,’ I said.

‘The mule will be all right,’ Hacket assured me.

I hesitated, staring at Sansevino. You can’t kill a human being in cold blood whatever sort of a devil he is, but by God I wanted to. Then Hilda was at my side, leading me back to the aircrew’s cabin. I heard the door of the fuselage clang to and then I was in the pilot’s seat, my hands resting on the controls. ‘Anything I can do?’ It was Reece.

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Go and keep an eye on that damned doctor.’ I didn’t want Reece near me. I didn’t want him to see that I was trembling and sweating. He went and I said, ‘Tell them to fix their safety belts and then shut the door, Hilda.’

I heard her passing on the order and then the door to the crew’s cabin slid to and she was back in the seat beside me. I pressed the starter button. The port engine sprang into life. Then the starboard motor was turning, too. A cloud of dust swirled through the barn. The noise was shattering. I taxied out then, bumping through the ash towards the vineyard. Automatically I ran through the final routine check-up — flaps, rudder, oil, petrol, brakes, everything. All the time I kept the tail swinging back and forth as I tested out the strength of my dummy leg on the rudder.

At length I swung into position at the road end of the vineyard, facing the villa. I put the brakes on then, revving the engines, watching the dials, trimming the airscrews. From behind in the fuselage I thought I heard the frightened whinny of the mule and the clash of hooves on metal. Then I throttled back till the screws were just ticking over and wiped the sweat from the palms of my hands. There was nothing now between me and take-off except the trembling ache at the back of my knees.

Hilda’s hand touched mine. I looked across at her. She smiled. It was a slow smile of friendliness and confidence. Then she raised her thumbs and nodded.

I turned to face the runway. It stretched ahead of me, a grey plain of ash marked out with bush vines drawn up in straight, orderly lines, each a drab, pitiful object under its mantle of ash. And at the end was the lava outcrop and the villa. I thought perhaps I ought to take off from the villa end. But then suddenly my hand was on the throttle, revving the motors. If I taxied the length of the vineyard, feeling each bump, I knew my nerve would be gone. It was now or never.