To be wiped out like that, obliterated utterly and all because of a wooden door. I heard myself screaming — screaming and screaming for help through grit-sore throat. Once I thought I heard an answering call, but it didn’t stop me. I went on screaming till suddenly a crack ran splintering across the roof, splitting it in two.
The sudden realisation of the inevitability of death gripped me then, stifling my screams, stiffening my nerves to meet the end. I knelt down in the soft ash of the roof and prayed — prayed as I used to pray before those damned operations, praying that I’d not give way to fear, that I’d face what had to be without flinching.
And as the crack widened out I felt suddenly calm. If only the end would come quickly. That was all I prayed for. I didn’t want to be buried alive in the rubble and wait half-suffocated for the lava to roll over me.
The crack widened steadily — a foot, two feet. Then the farther half of the roof split into fragments and folded inwards, sinking down towards the lava in a heat blast of dust. And as it fell I saw the stone housing of the doorway disintegrate.
I scrambled towards it. It was a chance in a million. Through the choking dust I saw the wooden stairs intact leading down to the room below. I hesitated. I think any one would rather die in the open than be caught like a rat in a trap inside a building. But it was still a chance and I took it. I swung myself over the edge, dropped on to one foot and jumped the whole length of the stairs. I landed in a heap on the boards of the room below. The farther wall was missing and through it I could see the heat curling up from the top of the lava.
The stone staircase, thank God, was behind me. I scrambled to the top and slithered down. On the second flight I almost broke my arm as I fell against the side of the archway at the bottom. I could feel the building trembling now and the room I was in was full of a vicious, suffocating heat.
As I picked myself up I saw through the choking dust clouds, a long face with ears twitching and eyes rolling. It was the poor wretched mule, lashing out with its legs as it strained at the halter that held it. A long-bladed butcher’s knife lay on the floor. I grabbed it, hopped over to the animal and slashed it free. I had a childish fear that if I let the creature die, I should die too.
God knows why I did it. Some pilot’s instinct, I suppose, to have a mascot. But the mule was nearly the death of me. It leapt free and ran careering and screaming round the room, hoofs lashing and teeth grinding in its fear. Then it found the ramp and went thundering down, slithering the last part on its haunches. I was so close behind it that I saw the sparks kicked up by its hooves as it pawed itself to its feet at the bottom.
Those ramps were easier than the stone stairs. They were slimy with dung and I slithered down them, lying on my back and thrusting myself forward with my hands. I could feel the building rocking as I descended and at each floor I could see the burning face of the lava where the farther wall had once been. As I reached the ground floor there was a series of splintering crashes and I knew the house was disintegrating above my head. The way to the street, the way the cattle had been brought in, was gone and in the ragged gap I saw the white heat of the lava face and felt the scorching breath of it singe my hair.
The mule had gone out by a window, crashing through it and taking the whole frame with it in its terror. I followed and as I fell to the ground I realised I was in the garden of the house and there lying almost beside me was my leg.
It was one of those strokes of luck that fate is kind enough to offer once in a while and looking back on it I can’t help having an instinctive feeling that it was all because I paused to free the mule. I know it sounds stupid. But there it is. We had odder beliefs than that when we were flying night after night over Germany.
I picked up the dented limb, hopped to the wall and scrambled over. And as I fell into the next garden, the house I’d been imprisoned in disintegrated, filling the narrow space between the houses with noise and dust. I got through the next house and came out into a narrow street that was blocked at one end by the lava. The place was a cul-de-sac, and there was my mule, standing at the end of it with his face to the lava and whinnying.
I dropped my trousers and strapped the leg in place. The lava grit embedded in the stump of my leg hurt like hell when I put my weight on it. But I didn’t care. It was such a relief to be able to stand upright like a human being again. It’s a horrible feeling to have only one leg and to be forced to crawl around like the lower order of creatures. To stand upright again and move normally gave me a sudden surge of confidence and for the first time that morning I felt I might win out in the end.
I went down the street towards the mule. He stood quite still, watching me. His ears were laid back, but the whites of his eyes weren’t showing and there was nothing vicious about his expression. He was standing by a door leading into one of the houses. I opened it and went in. The mule followed me. And when he followed me like that I wouldn’t have parted with that mule for anything. I swear the animal seemed almost human. It was probably just that he’d lived all his life close to people and was used to going in and out of houses. But at the time I didn’t bother to try and explain it. I just knew that his presence gave me courage like the presence of another human being.
The door led to a stables and on the far side daylight showed through the cracks of big wooden doors. I slid back the securing bar and we passed out into a track. The mule turned right. I hesitated. I was completely lost. I hadn’t an idea where the monastery was. In the end I followed the mule. The track was narrow and flanked by the tall backs of houses with here and there the open doors of stables. It swung away to the right and then I saw it was blocked by the lava.
The mule turned. Pain was shooting up my leg from the grit that was being ground into the flesh. Big stones jutted out from the wall of the building I had stopped beside and this gave me an idea. I caught hold of the halter of the mule and it stopped at once. I got it close to the stones, climbed up and so on to the animal’s back. A moment later I was trotting comfortably back along the track. The animal seemed quite placid now.
The track led out into a wider street. I tugged on the halter and the mule stopped. ‘Where now, old fellow?’ I asked. Its long ears twitched. The monastery was up towards the lava so I turned left, kicked the animal’s ribs and started off at a trot. I passed a trattoria where an overturned cask dribbled wine into the grey ash that covered the floor. The little wooden tables looked grey and derelict. Close by on the wall of a building was a life-size statue of the Virgin Mary. It was surrounded by tinsel and coloured lights, and at the foot were jam jars full of flowers that had been killed by the sulphurous air. Nearby a rude figure of Christ hung from a wooden cross. This, too, had jam jars of dead flowers and there were one or two sprays of artificial blooms under a cracked glass globe.
The street swung to the right. The tall houses seemed to close in on it as it climbed. And then it ended abruptly in a wall of black cinder nearly as high as the buildings. I had a sudden sense of being trapped. Every street seemed to lead up to the lava. It was like being in a partially excavated Pompei. All I could see was the facade of the houses flanking the street and the abrupt, unnatural end of it.
The mule had turned of its own accord and we trotted back the way we had come, past the decorated figure of the Virgin Mary, past the trattoria. And then I heard my name called. ‘Dick! Dick!’ I pulled up and looked back. It was Hilda. She had come out of the house next to the trattoria and was running towards me, her dress all torn, her hair flying. ‘Thank God you’re safe,’ she gasped as she reached me. ‘I thought I heard somebody screaming for help. I was afraid—’ She didn’t finish. She was staring at my face. Then her eyes dropped to my clothes. ‘Are you hurt?’