The Vesuvius Club

21. Ascent to Peril

CHARLIE grabbed me by the shoulder. «We’re not beaten yet, sir! The fella in the hut knows where that pipe leads. There must be some way to stop the bomb.»

I nodded quickly. «You’re right.»

We clattered back up the spiral staircase, picking off the last few zombies lumbering towards us as we did so, and threw open the door of the observation room. Bowler was still there, poring over reams of documents and plans.

«Betrayed!» he groaned, hammering his fist at his forehead. His hair hung in a great black slap over his pale forehead. «Betrayed at every turn! To think I could have trusted that monster!»

I pulled him round. «There’s still time to make amends, Bowler. The bomb has been launched. Where is it heading?»

He shook his head mournfully. «Into the belly of the volcano. There is a weakness in the crust. The bomb will blast it away and the magma will erupt!»

«How do we stop it?»

The undertaker put his head in his hands. «We cannot. We shall die in the flames. Die at any moment!»

Not what we wanted to hear, naturally.

«There must be a way!» I thundered, grabbing him by the lapels. «Think, man. You know everything about this blasted scheme!»

«Yes! And we were clever! We allowed for every eventuality.»

Charlie came over and sifted through the blueprints. «What sort of eventuality? What could go wrong?»

I nodded furiously. «You’re right, Charlie. We will sabotage one of the fail-safes.»

Bowler looked at me as if I were mad and then smiled. «There… there may be something in what you say. There is a junction. I knew it was dangerous but the rock-formation made it unavoidable. It’s where the steam shaft crosses the bond pipe. The two chutes join for a moment and then continue on their way.»

«And is there any way of closing off the junction?»

Bowler dashed to the wall where a screen of some kind indicated where the bomb had got to.

«Yes! If I repair some of the damage I managed to inflict, I can control it from here.»

He sucked at his knuckles anxiously. «The bomb has reached this level.» He jabbed his finger at the curious display. «The junction is some way below.»

«Then there’s still time.»

Bowler was practically gnawing his fist. «But if we close the pipe and trap Venus there, the bomb will still explode. It will be close enough to cause an eruption!»

It was my turn to ponder. I looked quickly at the plans and then at the display. «And if you shut off the steam-pipe, what then?»

He shrugged. «The steam-pressure will build.»

«Dangerously?»

«Of course. The system is designed as a safety valve. If the pressure is not released…»

«That’s it!» I cried delightedly. «Bowler, close the hatch on the steam pipe.»

«But why?»

«Just do it!»

He dragged Venus’s great leather chair to the console and began furiously punching at buttons and pulling levers. Then he dropped beneath the display and began frantically rewiring the machinery. For a few anxious minutes he fiddled and pulled at the complex copper circuitry, swore several oaths and then, with a great cry, sat back. A coloured disc slid into place on the display before us.

«It’s done! The steam pressure is building.»

«Now, tell me when Venus and the bomb are almost at the junction. How accurate is this thing?»

«Pretty accurate.» He rubbed his hands and licked his dry lips. «Level Eight. Achieved. Level Nine…»

«He must be boiling alive inside that thing,» said Charlie.

I nodded. «Just what he’d intended for you. He doesn’t give a damn now. He must see this thing through.»

«Achieved,» continued Bowler. «Level Ten… approaching junction…»

«Prepare to open the hatch!» I cried.

«Level Ten achieved!»

«Open it!»

The disc slid out of its housing, revealing blank space. «It’s done,» said Bowler simply.

«What is?» queried Charlie.

I held up my hand. «Wait, wait…»

From deep beneath us we heard it. A deep, booming, clattering roar. The floor of the room began to shake with massive violence.

«What… exactly have we done?» said Charlie.

«Projected a huge body of steam at the sphere, Charlie! If I’m right then»

«Then it should be forced right back up!»

«Exactly!»

The three of us stood there in an agony of suspense as the hut and the great chamber itself trembled. I glanced over at Charlie. His face was white and he had sunk his teeth into his lower lip. Bowler was smoothing his hair down in a repeated gesture as though comforting himself. If, if we got out of this insane situation, how were we to escape? There would be seven of us all told, including the captives. My thoughts raced back to the lift-shafts and the men who had sabotaged them. Of course! The chains had been severed but the iron rungs set into the wall must survive. It would be a hell of a climb but it was surely our only chance.

I was yanked back to the present when a tremendous, shattering roar came from the chamber beyond. Charlie, Bowler and I raced out of the hut and looked down. The great brass sphere had come tearing back through the bronze pipe, shredding its end in the process and slamming into the walls of the cavern. Its impact fractured a number of the huge iron pipes and steam began to flood the chamber.

«We did it!» cried Charlie.

«Yes — we’ve brought the bomb back. To us!»

The undertaker looked worried. «The bomb won’t go off now, the steam pressure is still building. The pipes are ruptured.»

«But there’ll be no eruption?»

«Not as Venus planned, no. But the explosion could still damage the magma shell higher up. There’s no time to be lost!»

«First we have to free Mrs Knight and the professors.»

«What?» wailed Bowler. «To hell with them! We have to get out!»

I trained the rifle on the reluctant mortician. «You have much to make up for, Mr Bowler. I suggest you get down those stairs and help them. Forthwith.»

With a scowl, he ran pell-mell down the stairway, Charlie and I close behind. As we picked our way across the floor, I glanced over to where the sphere lay embedded in the wall, crushed like a spoiled fruit, the glass panel shattered. Hanging half out of it was the body of Venus; his scarlet robes plastered to his body like a shroud, his once-beautiful face set in a crazed rictus grin, the sinews exposed red raw by the heat that had boiled away his flesh. His eyeballs goggled at us in a macabre, steam-palled death-stare.

«Come on!» I urged. I turned my attentions to the captives in their chairs and was at once confronted by the not-too-dissimilar features of the unfortunate Mrs Knight.

«Are you all right?» I enquired. She merely groaned in reply. Charlie was already hacking away her restraints. Despite their weakness, Verdigris and Sash were able to make some sense of the situation and once free pulled themselves up the gantries towards the next level. I helped support Mrs Knight, who had been more recently stupefied and Charlie and Bowler carried the crippled Quibble between them. The old man groaned pitiably as we clattered up the steps towards the next level.

Of a sudden, there came an ear-splitting crack and the floor of the cavern began to shift and undulate. With a horrible, belching roar, molten lava began, inexorably, to force its way through the gap.

We needed no more encouragement to tumble through the door and bolt it behind us, falling gasping into the corridor beyond.

«The lifts!» I yelled. «Quickly!»

Charlie let out an exhausted sigh, then all seven of us staggered off up the corridor, the way we had been brought what seemed like half a lifetime ago. We reached the lift doors, closed now, and Charlie and Bowler lowered Quibble to the floor. I stabbed at the controls but the blasted things refused to open. Mrs Knight appeared to have fallen into a faint.

«Professor Sash!» I barked. «Are you fit enough to help open these doors? Verdigris — you too? Charlie, Bowler, give them both a hand. I’ll see to our invalids.»

It is not in my nature to slap a woman, especially when she looks like a boiled hog’s head, but now was not the time for subtlety. I batted as kindly as I could at the poor soul’s ruined cheeks until she became once more sensible of her surroundings.

«We have to climb, Mrs Knight,» I hissed. «All of us. You too, Professor Quibble. It’s our only hope.»

«What?» he gasped from his resting place on the shuddering floor. «What is all this?»

«We’re inside Vesuvius, Professor. I know it’s hard to credit but Maxwell Morraine’s deranged son has developed his theories into practical form and a great big bloody bomb has set off an eruption. You understand?»

He peered at me myopically and opened his mouth to protest.

«You want me to leave you here?»

Quibble’s rat-trap mouth closed firmly.

From deep below us came a fearful rumble. I glanced feverishly about.

«They’re moving!» gasped Charlie, his fingernails jammed into the crack between the lift doors. «Come on! Put your backs into it!»

Slowly, the doors began to screech apart. Around us the electric lights studding the walls had begun to spark and sizzle. All at once, the doors gave and Charlie, Bowler, Verdigris and Sash hauled them apart. Inside there was only empty space.

I gazed up at the shaft, the chains from which the lift had been suspended swung uselessly, stirred by the hot winds from below.

«We have to get on to those rungs,» I cried. «Charlie, you go first. We’ll get Quibble up after you and I’ll push the bugger. Got that?»

Charlie nodded and swung himself up on to the first rung as another tremor hit and the shaft visibly rocked.

«Keep going!» I urged. Charlie, hanging by one arm, helped me to launch the shaking Quibble on to the rungs. Behind me came Verdigris and Sash, doing the same for the still-enfeebled Mrs Knight; the penitent Bowler brought up the rear. We climbed and climbed but Quibble’s ruined body became heavier and heavier. I pushed as best I could but his withered hands were struggling to support him on the hot iron rungs. My own arms ached fearsomely.

Chest heaving, I struggled on, Quibble’s useless legs dangling before me like empty stockings. «Must… get out, Professor,» I gasped. «Can’t rest…Move!»

The old man was certainly game. Somehow, incredibly, we made progress. I craned my neck to see above.

«Charlie!» I called. «How far?»

«We’re getting there!» he cried.

Suddenly the lift-shaft shook again and there came a bizarre sucking, grumbling sound.

«Don’t stop!» I shouted. «All of you! Keep climbing.»

But I sneaked a peek down the deep shaft and saw that instead of the darkness we had left, there was now a dreadful fiery red.

«My God!» I cried hoarsely. «The lava! It’s rising!»

Far below (thank the Lord Harry), crowned by flame and smoke, a vast plug of molten rock was surging up towards us.

I swung my head up to yell at Charlie to help drag Quibble up but the words died in my mouth. The top of the lift shaft was only ten feet or so above us and looking down, holding my revolver, was Cretaceous Unmann.

«You have a choice, Mr Box,» he called down. «Jump down into the lava or be picked off by me.»

«What the hell do you mean?» I cried.

He loosed off a shot that sang off the ladder with a screeching clang. I heard Mrs Knight squeal in terror.

«What I say. I offer you a choice of demises.»

«Listen, you mad fool,» I shouted diplomatically. «If we don’t all get to the surface in the next few minutes we’re going to fry! Is that what you want?»

«You think I wouldn’t do it?» he yelled. «You think I don’t have it in me to shoot you down?»

«I have no doubt you have it in you.» I cast a quick look downwards at the rising tide of lava. The figures of Sash, Verdigris, Mrs Knight and Bowler were silhouetted starkly against a curtain of blood-orange.

«I’m only saying you will die as surely as the rest of us if you don’t move right now!»

«But that’s what Venus wants! Death! Destruction! Annihilation! Ha, ha, ha!»

Another shot rang out and I heard Bowler scream. I looked down and saw him swaying on the rungs below, blood pouring from his throat. Then the poor fool was gone, spiralling down, down, down into the blistering lava flow.

«Choose, Mr Box!» screeched Unmann, his ripped robes flopping forward over the lip of the shaft.

The whole edifice shuddered again and I felt Professor Quibble begin to topple backwards on to me. I thrust out a hand and pushed him back but the walls were shaking so violently now that it was almost impossible to get any purchase on him.

I looked up and saw Unmann levelling the pistol at me. I was a sitting duck.

Quibble’s withered head turned to look down at me and a strange look flitted over his pallid features. I suddenly knew what he was going to do. I pulled myself tight to the rungs in order to present as small a target as possible and flinched as I heard Unmann’s shot blast out. At the same instant, Quibble let go of the rungs and fell back into the void, taking the bullet that was meant for me. As he spiralled noiselessly down the shaft, all was confusion. I tried to clamber the last few feet towards the top of the shaft before Unmann had a chance to recover but was suddenly aware that Charlie, with a great bellow of rage had taken hold of the ripped fabric of Unmann’s robe that hung streamer-like over the lip of the shaft and pulled on it for all he was worth.

With a great disbelieving gasp, the lethal diplomat toppled forwards.

I caught a glimpse of his startled face as he sailed past me and then he was just a ball of swirling scarlet, plummeting down the shaft after the noble Quibble into the pulsating stream of molten rock.

Just before he hit, though, there was a bright flash and pain seared through my shoulder. I gasped and looked down at where Unmann’s parting shot had penetrated my flesh. I swayed on the iron rungs.

In a second, Charlie’s strong arms were under mine.

«Hang on, sir. I’ve got you!»

Waves of nausea began to pulse through me and I felt my senses swim. Charlie grasped at my shirt and heaved me out of the lift shaft. I staggered to my feet as the invaluable valet helped the others out and then we staggered as one unit through the volcanic tunnels towards the Pompeiian bath house.

As we emerged into that strange room, the pellucid lights were flickering and the ancient walls shuddering under the impact of the eruption. I was only dimly aware of all this as Charlie plunged on, dragging me with him, my whole body shot with pain. The others were merely a dim blur behind me.

Somehow he got me to the ladder and, weak as a kitten, I managed to pull myself up and up, every step an agony. Surely there must be an end to this climbing? All at once we were at the hatch and tumbling into the bleary dawn.

Of course, we were not yet safe. The livid sky told us what we already knew. Vesuvius was erupting and, whilst it was not the cataclysm Venus had hoped for, it was still not wise to hang about.

I chanced a look back as Charlie lugged me out through the Pompeiian ruins the way we had come. Above us, the great black hump of the mountain was belching smoke and a thin river of livid red was dribbling from the cone like Gorgon’s blood.

And then the five of us were part of a great fleeing mob. I received a confused impression of voices and smells and it was suddenly as though I were back there in ancient Pompeii. The dawn sky overheard was blackening with ash and the world was disappearing in a vortex of reds, ochres and yellows. My eyes fluttered and the canopy of my lids was a cool green. The blood flowing from my shoulder looked almost black, flowing in a stream over the snowy whiteness of my exposed arm. How strange, I thought, to die in such a terribly beautiful palette.