Hammond Innes - The Strange Land

I glanced back. I didn’t know what I imagined I would be able to see. I was scared for Julie. I wanted to reassure myself that the bus was all right. But I could see nothing — only the rods of rain gleaming dull like steel against the utter blackness of the storm. I turned and gripped Bilvidic’s arm. ‘You must wait,’ I shouted at him. ‘You must wait for them.’

He glanced at me quickly, his eyes sharp and alert, measuring my mood. But he drove on. It was then that I became conscious of Jan’s increasing restlessness in the back. He kept twisting round and peering out through the rear window. Once, when I turned round, I met his eyes. ‘Do something!’ he said. He looked worried. He was thinking of Karen back there with Julie in the bus.

We turned a bend that overlooked the gorge and began to climb a straight stretch of track beside a shallow rock cliff down which rainwater streamed, glistening blackly. ‘Do something to stop him, can’t you?’ he said urgently. We were coming up to the point where the piste hair-pinned round the very head of the gorge. I caught hold of Bilvidic’s arm. ‘You must stop,’ I shouted at him. ‘If you don’t stop…’ There was a blinding flash of lightning and the crash of thunder right overhead.

‘Attention, Georges!’ Bilvidic threw my hand off as he called the warning to his assistant. I heard Jan struggling in the back and then I reached for the ignition key. Bilvidic caught hold of my hand. The car swayed wildly. We were coming up to the bend now and as I flung him off and grabbed again for the key, the wheels hit a stone and suddenly the rock wall of the cliff closed in against my window. There was a crash and I was flung forward, striking my head against the windscreen. The car stopped dead. ‘Imbecile!’ Bilvidic screamed at me. ‘Imbecile!’

I struggled back into my seat, momentarily dazed. ‘Look what you have done!’ Bilvidic’s face was white with anger. All the right-hand wing and the front of the bonnet were crumpled.

‘If you’d stopped when I asked you — ‘ I said.

He gave an order to his assistant. It wasn’t really necessary for he already had Jan pinned down by his arm. The starter whined. But nothing happened. Bilvidic kept his finger on the button. The motor went on and on, but the engine didn’t fire. It was completely dead. The rain was torrential, water pouring everywhere, glistening on the rocks, running in little streams. Now that the engine was silent, we could hear it: the hiss of the rain, the drumming of it on the tin body of the car, the little rushing noises of water carrying small stones down the mountain.

And then suddenly all movement ceased inside the car. The rain had lifted slightly and we could see the bend ahead. A brown flood of water was pouring across it, frothing white as it plunged on down the gorge. All the water from the slopes that formed the very beginning of the gorge was collected in the bottom of the V to form a torrent that was slowly eating into the piste. Already there was a jagged gap and, whilst we sat and watched, it widened as the rocks that formed its foundation were shifted and rolled down into the gorge. There had been a culvert there once, but that was gone, or else the weight of water was too great. And every minute the volume of it and the noise of it seemed to grow.

Jan began struggling again in the back. ‘Let me go!’ he shouted. ‘Philip. We must get back to the bus.’

Bilvidic gave an order to his assistant. One of the rear doors of the car was thrust open and I saw Jan standing there in the rain, staring back down the piste. ‘In all the years I have lived in Morocco,’ Bilvidic said, ‘I have never known a storm like this.’ He got out of the car then. He had given up all hope of reaching Casablanca. The piste was hopelessly cut. It would take several days to repair it. I scrambled across the driving seat and got out. ‘I think we should get back and stop Mademoiselle Corrigan from coming up,’ Bilvidic said.

I nodded. ‘Come on!’ Jan called to me. He had already started off down the piste. Bilvidic and his assistant were searching in the car for their raincoats. I started to run after Jan, splashing through the water that ran almost ankle-deep down the rutted surface of the track. I was soaked through and steaming by the time I caught up with him. Side by side we went back down the piste, loping down with long strides, our shoes slithering and squelching through the mud and water. Neither of us spoke. We were both intent on getting back down the mountain as fast as possible. The rain died away, but we scarcely noticed it. We were hurrying down through a dead world of mist and streaming rock, and the sound of water was all about us.

The mist gradually lightened and a gleam of warmth softened the blackness of the mountain sides. A wind sprang up, the mist swirled streamers over our heads, and then abruptly it cleared and we were in bright sunshine. All the wet, glistening landscape of rock smiled at us. But above and behind us the sky was black with storm.

And then we saw the bus. It was caught on a bend far below us. The sound of its engine, revving violently, came up to us faintly on the wind, an angry sound like a buzz-saw. But we lost it almost immediately in the roar of a small avalanche of stone on the other side of the gorge.

‘The sooner we’re out of these mountains the better,’ Jan panted.

We had reached the section that had only just been repaired. All along under the cliff face little cascades of rock had built themselves up into small piles and the outer edge of the new-made piste was already sliding away into the gorge. Kasbah Foum was picked out in sunshine as we had first seen it and from far below came the steady, insistent roar of water.

We finally found the bus at the next bend. It had slewed half across the track, its wheels deep in mud. Karen was kicking rocks under the spinning tyres as Julie revved the engine. The engine died away as they saw us coming down the track towards them. Karen stood quite still, almost breathless, as though she couldn’t believe it was true.

Jan had stopped. I glanced back over my shoulder. Bilvidic and his assistant weren’t in sight yet. They knew we couldn’t escape. ‘Listen, Philip.’ Jan gripped by arm. ‘I’m going back to Kasbah Foum. The whole valley is cut off now. It may be several days …’ He was staring down towards Karen. ‘In two days we might have that shaft opened up.’

‘That won’t do you much good,’ I said. ‘Not now.’

‘Who knows?’ He looked up at me and he was smiling. He seemed suddenly to have found himself. It was as though at this moment, with his wife standing there waiting for him to come to her, anything was possible. ‘I’ll take Karen with me,’ he said. ‘At least we’ll have a little time together….’ He glanced back up the track. The rain was closing in again and visibility was lessening. Then he started down towards the bus. ‘Karen!’ he called. ‘Karen!’

She came running to meet him then. They were both running and he was calling her name and she was answering him, her eyes shining, her face suddenly quite beautiful. They met in the rain and the mud there and he caught her in his arms, hugging her to him.

And then they parted, almost guiltily, as though they hadn’t a right to be so happy. They stood there, looking at each other a little shyly, their hands locked, talking quietly.

I turned away, looking down towards Kasbah Foum. I could just see the top of the watch tower. The tumbled rocks of the mountainside would be hard going. Then the rain swept over the tower, blotting it out. ‘You two had better get going,’ I said. ‘It’s a goodish way to the camp.’

‘Oh, we’ll make it before dark,’ Jan answered. He said it as though he were going on a picnic, his voice was so full of happiness.