Saddle the Wind (69 page)

She was lying on her side, her cheek resting on her upper right arm, which was flung out ahead of her. Her left arm was bent at her side, her hand close to her chest. She could see nothing – and knew nothing except discomfort and terror. She lay in a hollow formed by a configuration of a doorframe, part of a beam and a section of a stone wall. Across these had fallen a heavy beam which had formed a roof, protecting her from the rest of the debris that had fallen. She could move hardly at all, though she was afraid to try, fearful that any shifting of her weight might bring tons of rubble down upon her.

Gentry’s voice came to her again:

‘Are you all right still, Marianne?’

‘Yes,’ she called back. ‘Yes …’

‘Try to bear it for the night, can you?’

She could hear his voice waver as if he was close to tears.

‘Yes,’ she replied, she could bear it – though secretly she wondered how she would.

‘In the morning,’ called Gentry, ‘we’ll get help. And we’ll soon have you out.’

‘Yes, yes …’

A pause, a silence broken only by the sound of distant cries, moans of fear and pain. Then Gentry’s voice again:

‘Marianne … ?’

‘Yes …’

‘Try to sleep. Try to sleep and make the night go faster.’

‘Yes.’ She felt her own terror well up again. ‘But don’t leave me. Don’t go away. Don’t leave me.’

‘I shan’t leave you. I shall be here, very close.’

After that there were no more voices calling to her; the only voices were the distant cries of others who were trapped, and they continued on and on without respite.

Dear God
, she prayed,
let me get through the night
…

That night, while Marianne lay beneath the rubble, unable to move in the cold confines of her prison, Blanche and Gentry kept their vigil above, huddling close for warmth in the bitter cold. Side by side they sat staring into the crackling flames and waiting for the night to pass. All about them continued the cries of the trapped and injured, the sounds such a constancy that Blanche almost ceased to register them. At the same time she saw that several fires were continuing to rage in many of the devastated buildings. What ruin the quake and the wave had failed to accomplish the fire would complete.

Every so often as Blanche and Gentry sat there, numbed in the stupor of their misery, they would hear Marianne’s voice joining the ragged chorus of other voices that sounded in the night. Distant, muffled through the debris, she called first to Gentry and then to Blanche, wanting the comfort of their voices. And each time they called back to her, assuring her that they were present and would remain so.

To add to the horror of the situation, the earth tremors continued. There were at least a dozen minor quakes during the night, and although they were not severe enough to cause any new, major damage they were often of sufficient power to cause the collapse of some of the standing ruins and bring them tumbling down in showers of dust and rubble. Such happenings
brought terror to Gentry and Blanche who were afraid that the tremors might bring a further fall of the debris that lay above Marianne’s trapped body.

It came on to rain towards morning, an icy, driving rain that quickly soaked their clothing, doused their meagre fire and left them in such a state of misery and discomfort that Blanche despaired that they would ever get out of the nightmare. She could only keep telling herself, over and over, that help was bound to come from some quarter soon.

As the first light of dawn lit up the landscape Gentry was already moving to resume work on the removal of the debris. Blanche got up to help him. As she did so she looked about her. While the driving rain had put out their own little fire it had done nothing to halt the spread of the flames that raged in the ruins, and many of the half-standing buildings had now become smoking, burned-out shells or had collapsed into piles of smouldering rubble. Up above her head crows and ravens circled, occasionally swooping down to scavenge on the bodies of the dead. Many more people had died during the night, perishing as they lay trapped beneath the debris, or, lying out in the open had died from their injuries and the bitter cold. The dead lay everywhere. Turning from the sight, Blanche bent her head against the rain and moved to Gentry’s side.

Later, when Lisa and Adriana awoke, Blanche shared out some of the bread between the four of them. As they ate they heard the sounds of gunshots in the distance. Blanche and Gentry looked at one another, baffled. ‘What is it?’ Lisa asked. Blanche shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’

Afterwards she and Gentry got back to their labours again. A little later they heard a voice, a man’s voice calling out to them, asking whether they needed some
help. Straightening from their back-breaking task they saw a young sailor approaching among the ruins, and then it was that Blanche registered the fact that he had spoken in English.

They called back to him at once: yes, they would like his help – and he in turn shouted to someone else. The next moment another young man had appeared, like the first clad in a merchant seaman’s uniform – though now filthy with grime and dust. Happy to meet some English people, the two sailors, who carried saws and ropes, wasted no time but took charge of the rescue operation and immediately bent their backs to the task of helping to remove the debris. With great relief Gentry watched their efforts for a moment or two and then called to Marianne that it would not be long now before she was free.

As they worked the young men referred to one another by the names of Reid and Smith. They appeared to be in their mid-twenties. Reid, red-haired and the taller of the two, and more heavily set, was clearly from somewhere in Wales, while the accent of the dark-haired and wiry Smith betrayed his origins in London.

They were from a British merchant ship, the
Afonwen
, they said, which had been steaming into port with a cargo of coal when the quake had struck. Miraculously the ship had escaped any serious damage from the wave. All the previous day they and the rest of the crew had been out in the ruined city, distributing the little food and water they had to spare and giving whatever help they could. They were due to set sail again that afternoon, taking some of the survivors to Naples.

Blanche asked if, once Marianne was free, they could return with them to their ship and be taken to Naples along with the others. At her words Lisa, who stood nearby, began to wail and, very much afraid, clutched
at Gentry, crying, ‘Oh, don’t leave me, signore. Don’t leave me, please. How shall I get back to Catania?’

Gentry tried to pacify her. ‘Don’t cry, Lisa. We’re not going to leave you alone here. We’ll see that you get back to your mother somehow.’

Reid, the Welshman, said apologetically to Blanche, ‘I’m sorry but – I’m afraid we can’t take you on board ship. There just isn’t room. She’s already packed to the portholes with survivors. We’ve got strict orders from the captain not to bring anyone else on board.’

Blanche cried out, ‘But what shall we do? We can’t stay here.’

‘Other ships are coming into port,’ said the young man, adding that three ships of the British navy had arrived that morning, called from Syracuse to come and help in the rescue of survivors. There were Russian ships too. Already, he said, boats were coming ashore bringing surgeons and medical supplies and food and blankets. A temporary hospital was being set up in the Piazza Mazzini near the Palazzo Reale. It would only be a matter of time before rescue came. ‘You’ll get help soon,’ he added.

As he finished speaking there came the sounds of more distant reports, gunshots.

‘Looters,’ said the young man. ‘Apparently they’re being shot.’

As Blanche looked at him in alarm he remarked that the whole city was in chaos. The quake had broken all telegraph lines and all communications with the outside world had been severed. Furthermore, there was no way of travelling out of the city by train as all the railway lines had been wrecked.

After much hard work the two young men eventually succeeded in digging a tunnel through the debris, after
which the lithe, wiry Englishman, Smith, carrying a rope, bravely crawled through to Marianne’s side. There, suffering constant danger that the tunnel would fall and trap them both beneath the mountain of debris, he worked to set her free.

It was a long and exhausting and exacting task, and one that the young Cockney had to do alone. Eventually, however, just after one o’clock that afternoon, he re-emerged into the cold, rain-swept day, crawling backwards, and slowly, painfully, inch by inch, dragging Marianne after him, holding her by her shoulders and with a rope bound around her and underneath her arms.

Holding their breath, Gentry and Blanche hovered, watching tensely as the young seaman drew Marianne out of the debris and into the open. And moments later she was lying free.

She was quite naked, her petticoat and other underwear having been torn from her in the process of her escape, while her body was smothered in dirt. As Smith straightened, Blanche laid her coat upon Marianne’s naked body while Gentry hobbled to Marianne’s side and stood looking down at her, tears streaming from his eyes and murmuring little words of endearment. Miraculously, apart from the cuts and grazes and bruises that covered her body, she appeared to be physically unhurt. She was alive, and she was free.

Turning to the young men, Gentry asked if they would take her to the shelter out of the rain. Without hesitating Reid gently lifted Marianne into his arms, carried her to the makeshift shelter and laid her down on the mattress. Gentry followed and, with difficulty, crawled in after her. As she lay there the tears ran from her eyes, making little channels in the grime that covered her face. She spoke not at all, but just lay
shivering in the cold while her silent tears coursed down her cheeks.

Blanche murmured that they must try to find some shelter from the wind and the rain where they would be safe until they could leave. The two young men said they would help her to find somewhere suitable. She thanked them and, telling Gentry of her intention and leaving Adriana in the care of Lisa, she and the two young men set out.

After exploring the ruined remains of several buildings nearby, a suitable place was eventually found. On one side of a piazza Smith had clambered over piles of bricks, timber and masonry of what had once been a fine villa, and discovered an open way to a flight of steps that led down to a basement. Minutes later he had led Blanche to the spot and she was descending the stairs behind him to a passage, from there turning to the right through an open door into a room. There, by the faint light that crept in from above, she found that she was standing in a large kitchen.

There was an oil lamp on a table, with fuel, and Smith set the match to the wick. By its light they looked around. The room appeared to be quite dry. There was a smaller room opening off, and in it they found racks holding dozens of dusty bottles of wine along with two or three bottles of brandy and Scotch whisky. Also they found a container of oil for the lamp and some kitchen candles. At least, Blanche thought, they would be provided with light if nothing else.

Back in the main room they looked in cupboards and found food – some stale bread and cake, and a quantity of macaroni and some vegetables – potatoes and swedes. They also found a large cooking pot full of water which, Reid said, nodding with satisfaction, would be safe to drink.

‘You’ll be all right here for the night,’ he added, ‘or until you can all get away.’

After putting out the lamp, they returned up the steps to the surface. There the young men pointed out that as most of the walls of the house had already fallen there was very little chance of any further peril from falling masonry.

When they got back to the others Blanche greeted them with the news that they had found a place of shelter. Then, with Marianne wrapped securely in Blanche’s coat, Reid took her up into his arms again. With Smith helping Gentry, Blanche and Lisa picked up the mattress and together they all set off through the teeming rain towards the piazza.

Reaching the ruined house Smith went ahead and lit the lamp again. Minutes later the rest of the little group had followed him down into the basement kitchen, the mattress was set down on the floor and Marianne was laid upon it. At Blanche’s urging Gentry loosened the buttons of his waistcoat, laid his watch on the floor at his side and lay down next to Marianne.

The seamen left them then to see what other necessities they could find, returning a little while later with two rather torn blankets and another mattress which they had managed to salvage from ruins nearby. They also brought in their pockets a quantity of fruit which they had taken from a garden in the vicinity.

At Blanche’s direction they set down the mattress on the far side of the room from where Gentry and Marianne lay, and Adriana and Lisa were urged to lie down on it and get some more rest. Blanche covered them with one of the blankets and laid the other over Marianne and Gentry in addition to her coat.

Afterwards the young men told her they had been informed that nearly every single member of the
carabinieri at the Military College had perished and that martial law had been declared. And it was necessary, they said, for already numerous ghouls were entering the ruined city from the surrounding countryside, peasants and bands of wandering gypsies who had come to loot and pillage.

The two young seamen then announced that it was time for them to return to their ship which was due to sail shortly. Reluctantly they said their goodbyes and, turning to Blanche, wished her luck. She went with them into the passage to the foot of the stairs where she quietly begged them to take Marianne and Gentry with them. They needed medical attention, she said: surely there was room for them on board the ship. Reid said sadly and apologetically that there was not. Well, then, said Blanche, could they not be taken to the Piazza Mazzini where the field hospital was being set up? Reid said it could not be done. ‘Nothing’s organized there yet,’ he said, ‘and so many injured people are arriving there wanting treatment and food and shelter. Wait till tomorrow. Until then you’re better off staying here where it’s dry and warm.’