Десмонд Бэгли - Landslide

From the time the first tree went down to the time I dropped Novak in safety couldn’t have been more than one minute — one long minute in which we had run a whole fifty yards. That was no record-breaking time but I don’t think a champion sprinter could have bettered it.

I wanted to help Novak and Burke but something, call it professional interest, held my attention on this great catastrophe. The whole of the land was moving downhill at an ever-increasing speed. The front of the slide was just short of the powerhouse and whole trees were being tossed into the air like spillikins and boulders ground and clashed together with a noise like thunder. The front of the flow hit the powerhouse and the walls caved in, and the whole building seemed to fold and disappear under a river of moving earth.

The topsoil flowed away to the south and I thought it was never going to stop. Water, squeezed from the clay, spurted in fountains everywhere, and through the soles of my boots I could feel the vibrations of millions of tons of earth on the move.

But finally it did stop and everything lay quiet except for the occasional rumble here and there as strains were eased and pressures equalized. Not more than two minutes had elapsed since the blasting of the stumps and the slide was fully two thousand feet long and extended five hundred feet from hillside to hillside. Ponds of muddy water lay everywhere. The clay had given up all its water in that awful cataclysm and there would be little danger of a further slide.

I looked down to where the powerhouse had been and saw just a waste of torn earth. The slide had erased the powerhouse and had gone on to cut the Fort Farrell road. The little group of cars that had been parked on the road had vanished, and from the tip of the slide gushed a torrent of muddy water already carving a bed in the soft earth as it rushed to join the Kinoxi River. There was no other movement at all down there and I was painfully aware that Clare might be dead.

Novak got to his feet groggily and jerked his head quickly as though to shake his brains back into position. When he spoke he shouted, ‘How the hell...?’ He looked at me in astonishment and began again more quietly. ‘How the hell did we get out of there?’ He waved his hand at the slide.

‘Sheer luck and strong legs,’ I replied.

Burke was still clutching the ground and his screams had not diminished. Novak swung round. ‘For God’s sake, shut up!’ he yelled. ‘You’ve survived.’ But Burke took no notice.

A car door slammed on the road above and I looked up to see a policeman staring at the scene as though he couldn’t believe his eyes. ‘What happened?’ he called.

‘We used a mite too much gelignite,’ shouted Novak sardonically. He walked over to Burke, bent down and clouted him on the side of the head. Burke’s screams suddenly stopped but he continued to sob raspingly.

The policeman scrambled down to us. ‘Where did you come from?’ I asked.

‘From up the Kinoxi Valley,’ he said. ‘I’m taking a prisoner into Fort Farrell.’ He clicked his tongue as he gazed down at the blocked road. ‘Looks as though I’ll have to find another way round.’

‘Is that Howard Matterson you have up there?’ When he nodded I said, ‘Keep tight hold of that bastard. But you’d better go on down there — you might find Captain Crupper, if he’s still alive.’ I saw another policeman on the road. ‘How many are there in your car?’

‘Four of us, plus Matterson.’

‘You’ll be needed in rescue work,’ I said. ‘You’d better get moving.’

He looked to where Novak was cradling Burke in his arms. ‘Will you be all right here?’

I was tempted to go with him to the bottom, but Burke was in no condition to move and Novak couldn’t carry him unaided. ‘We’ll be all right,’ I said.

He turned to climb up to the road and at that moment there was a great groan as of intense pain. At first I thought it was Burke but when the sound came again it was much louder and boomed right down the valley.

The dam was groaning under the pressure of water behind it and I knew what that meant. ‘Jesus!’ I said.

Novak picked up Burke bodily and began to stumble up the hill. The policeman was climbing as if the devil was at his heels, and I ran across to help Novak. ‘Don’t be a damn’ fool,’ he panted. ‘You can’t help.’

It was true; two men couldn’t lug Burke up that slope any faster than one, but I hung around Novak in case he slipped. More noises were coming from the great concrete wall of the dam, strange creakings and sudden explosions. I looked over my shoulder and saw something incredible — water under pressure fountaining from underneath the dam.

It jetted a hundred feet high and spray blew in my face. ‘It’s going,’ I yelled, and looped my arm around a tree, grabbing Novak’s leather belt with the other hand.

There was a loud crash and a fissure appeared, zigzagging down the concrete face from top to bottom. The quick clay had slipped from underneath the dam and the waters of Lake Matterson were blowing the foundations out, leaving nothing to bear the enormous weight.

Another crack appeared on the face of the dam and then the water pressure from behind became too much and the whole massive structure was pushed aside impatiently by a solid wall of water. A great chunk of reinforced concrete was thrown out from the dam; it weighed every ounce of five hundred tons, but it was thrown into the air and toppled in twisting flight until it crashed into the sea of mud below. In the next second it was overwhelmed and covered by the rush of lake water.

And so were we.

We just hadn’t been able to go that extra few feet up the hill and the flood swirled in its first crest just above us. I had the sense to see what was coming and to fill my lungs with air before the water hit us so I didn’t think I’d drown, but I thought I’d be torn in two as the fast water hit Novak and swung him off his feet.

With one hand grasping his belt I was holding the weight of two big men and I thought my arm would be sprung from its socket. The muscles in the other arm cracked as I desperately hung on to the tree and my lungs were bursting when I finally managed to gulp air.

That first great crest could not last long but while it did it filled the valley from side to side and was a hundred feet deep in that first great lunge to the south. But it dropped rapidly and I was thankful to find the strain taken from me as a policeman grabbed Novak.

He shook his head and gasped. ‘I couldn’t help it,’ he cried desolately. ‘I couldn’t hold him.’

Burke was gone!

There was a new, although impermanent, river below us which had calmed down to a steady and remorseless multi-million-gallon flow that would ebb, hour by hour, until there would be no more Matterson Lake — just the little stream called the Kinoxi River that had flowed from this valley for the last fifteen thousand years. But it was still a raging torrent, three hundred feet wide and fifty feet deep, when I staggered up and planted my boots firmly on that wonderful solid road.

I leaned on the side of the police car and shuddered violently and then became aware that someone was watching me. In the back of the car, sandwiched between two policemen, was Howard Matterson, and his teeth were drawn back in a wolf-like grin. He looked totally mad.

Someone tapped me on the shoulder. ‘Get into the car — we’ll take you to the bottom.’

I shook my head. ‘If I travel with that man you couldn’t stop me killing him.’

The policeman gave me an odd look and shrugged. ‘Suit yourself.’

I walked slowly down the road towards the bottom of the hill and desperately wondered if I would find Clare. I was glad to see some survivors; they picked their way slowly down the hillside and walked like somnambulists. I came across Donner; he was smeared with viscid mud from head to foot and was standing looking at the flood water as it streamed past. As I passed him I heard him muttering. Over and over again he was saying, ‘Millions of dollars; millions of dollars — all gone! Millions and millions.’