The shirt waved. I thought I heard somebody shouting, but the noise of the lava drowned it and I couldn’t be sure. Hilda tightened her grip on my arm, tugging at me. ‘Quick! We must find a way to reach them.’ I loosened her grip on my arm. ‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Max will try to get a message down to us.’
I was staring up towards the slit. There was a great, rumbling crash and I heard Hilda say, ‘Oh, my God!’ I glanced down at her and saw she was gazing towards the outhouses — or rather where the outhouses had been, for they were gone completely. A rising cloud of dust marked the spot where they had stood and in their place was the shifting, red-shot face of the lava.
Something struck my arm and fluttered to the ground. It was part of the silk lining of a coat, one corner of it weighted. I picked it up and untied the corner. The weight was a silver cigarette case and inside the case was a note. We’re all here. To reach tower enter by arch in courtyard, turn right in refectory room and follow passage to chapel. There is a flagstone with a ring bolt in robing room to right of altar. This leads to passage connecting Chapel to tower. We are in the top cell. Door is wood and can be burned down. Spare can of petrol in my car. Bless you, Max.
I glanced up. The shirt was no longer hanging from the slit. But there was something there that shone dully and I realised that it was a mirror being held out on the end of a piece of wood. They couldn’t look down at us from the slit, but they were watching us through a primitive periscope. I waved my hand in acknowledgment and then turned back along the path. ‘Run and get the can of petrol,’ I told Hilda. ‘I’ll go straight to the chapel.’
She nodded and with one terrified glance at the lava front ran back into the monastery. There wasn’t even a dust haze now to mark where the outhouses had been and the frightful slag heap had slithered half across the flower garden where we’d stood, blistering the trees with its heat and withering the flowers. The first section of the main monastery building was crumbling as I dived into the coolness of the interior.
I found the passage leading off the refectory room and reached the chapel. There was no difficulty in finding the robing room or the flagstone with the ring bolt. I had lifted it up and thrown it back by the time Hilda arrived with the jerrican. Stone steps led down into a dank, cold passage. I switched on my torch. The walls were solid lava rock, black and metallic-looking. We passed right through the foundations of the Chapel and then we were climbing stone steps worn by the tread of men who’d come this way centuries past.
The tower was clearly a ruin. The wood of the big iron-studded doors was powdery with worm. One we passed had almost no wood at all and was just a lacing of wrought-iron and studs. I shone my torch in as I passed and caught a glimpse of mouldering floorboards and rusty iron chains secured to the wall and what looked like a rack standing beside some rotted iron implements of torture. The tower had evidently been a religious prison.
At last we reached the top of the spiral staircase and my torch showed a new door of plain oak. Beyond it a builder’s ladder led to a square of dim light that was the roof. Here the smell of sulphur was strong again and ash had sifted down on to the stone platform outside the door. I pounded on the wood. ‘Are you there, Max?’
‘Yes.’ His voice was muffled by the door, but quite audible. ‘We’re all here.’
‘My father?’ Hilda murmured. She couldn’t nerve herself to voice the question aloud. I think she feared the answer might be No.
I had taken the can of petrol from her and was forcing back the cap. ‘Is Tucek there?’ I called through the door.
‘Yes. He’s here.’
I heard Hilda give a gasp of relief.
‘Get up the ladder to the roof,’ I said sharply. I was afraid she was going to faint. ‘Stand back now,’ I called. ‘I’m sprinkling the door with petrol.’ I had tipped the can up and as the petrol ran out I flicked it with my hand on to the woodwork of the door. I put about half a gallon on and around the door. Then I hauled the can up the ladder and passed it through the gap to Hilda. ‘Are you well back from the door?‘I called.
‘Yes, you can light the bonfire,’ came the answer.
I climbed out on to the roof. ‘Pull the ladder up, will you, Hilda,’ I said. I tipped the can of petrol up, soaking a strip of cloth in the stuff. Then holding one corner of it, I leaned down through the opening, struck a match and lit it. As the handkerchief blazed I tossed it down into the darkness below. There was a whoof of searing flame, a blast of hot blinding air and I flung myself backwards on to the roof of the tower.
‘Are you hurt?’ I felt Hilda’s hands grip my shoulders, lifting me up. I wiped my hand across my face. It smelt of petrol and burned hair. ‘The damned stuff had vapourished,’ I mumbled. My face felt raw and scorched. Flames were licking out of the square hole in the roof. I crawled to the edge of the roof and leaned over the crumbling battlement above the slit. ‘Are you all right down there?’ I shouted. I was scared I’d put too much of the stuff on the door.
It was Hacket who answered. ‘We’re fine, thanks.’ His voice was faint and muffled. ‘Quite a fire you started.’
I stood up then and looked down on the stone roof of the monastery. Half the building had gone already. Beyond lay a flat, black plain of lava slanted gently upwards and thinning out to a dark gash in the mountainside. Above the gash the conical top of Vesuvius belched oil-black smoke shot with red lumps of the molten core of the earth which rose and fell, rose and fell like flaming yoyos in the crater mouth. Higher still, faint streaks of forked lightning cut the billowing underbelly of the cloud that hid the sun and blotted out the light of day. Hilda gripped my hand. She, too, was staring up at the mountain and I saw she was scared. ‘Oh, God! Do you think we shall ever get out?’
‘We’ll get out all right,’ I said, but my assurance sounded false and hollow. The lava seemed to be advancing faster. Already it had obliterated the flower garden where we’d stood and was pouring across the vineyards beyond in a slow, inevitable wave. Another section of the monastery fell with a crash and an up-thrust blast of dust. Soon it would reach the chapel. We must get out before then or …
I went forward to the opening that led into the tower. The flames had died down now and in the light of my torch I saw the door was charred but still solid. ‘We need more petrol,’ I said. I didn’t dare pour it down. I needed some sort of a container. Hilda still had her handbag looped over her arm. ‘Give me that,” I said. I opened the bag, filled it with petrol and tossed it down through the opening. There was a sound like an explosion and flames leapt up through the square again.
I stood watching them, praying that the fire would soon burn through the door. Another section of the monastery fell in a blaze of sparks. I glanced across to where I had been imprisoned on that other roof. I could gauge the spot by the position of the monastery. There was nothing there, just the flat desolation of the lava. ‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.’
‘What do you say?’
I realised then that I had spoken aloud.
She must have read my thoughts for she said, ‘What happened over there, before I found you? Did you catch that man?’
‘No. He caught me.’
‘What happened? You looked terribly hurt.’
‘Nothing happened,’ I said. She wanted to talk — anything to take her mind off the waiting. But I couldn’t tell her what happened. It was too close to our present situation.
At last the flames died down again. I went to the battlements and called down, ‘Can you break your way out now?’
I could not hear their answer. It was lost in the sound of the lava. ‘They are kicking at the door now,’ Hilda called. She was leaning over the hole. A shower of sparks shot up and she flung back, coughing, her face black with smuts. ‘I think it breaks down now.’