She hurriedly embraced Sarah and went from the room.

  Sarah stared unseeingly at the walls of her bedroom. An earthquake at Krasnograd! The town where Adam Thorne lived with worked.

  She sprang out of bed. Oh, why hadn’t she gathered her wits sufficiently to ask Radmilla to inquire about Adam and let her know if he was safe? Too late now. Or was it? She picked up the room telephone to give a message to Radmilla on her way out of the hotel.

  Then Sarah slowly put down the receiver and held her hands against her flaming cheeks. How could she ask Radmilla, worried about the safety of her parents and family, to care about Adam?

  In vain Sarah excused herself on the grounds that naturally she was concerned about a man she had met several times, who had shown her both kindness and the sharp edge of his disapproval. Edmund, too, would be concerned. And Melanie. Surely she would be interested in Adam’s safety.

  But Sarah failed to disguise from her inmost thoughts that she loved Adam and that his well-being meant more than anything else in the world to her. This was the real reason why Daniel’s pleadings had failed to awaken her. It was not her youth or inexperience that made her unsusceptible, but this unknown, undiscovered love for another man.

  All through the long day Sarah moved in a world of tormenting suspense, waiting for news, trying not to believe the terrible rumors of a whole city wrecked, of many lives lost, homes destroyed.

  Edmund kept her busy with cables and telephone calls to the film studios in Italy, to the London offices, but the lines were continuously blocked with more urgent messages.

  “Tell them our calls are urgent,” Edmund ordered.

  In vain she tried to contact Krasnograd itself, but there were no direct communications.

  “They say the telephone lines are all damaged,” she told Edmund, “and the radio station destroyed. The newspaper office in Dubrovnik says that Krasnograd will probably try to set up a small radio transmitter as soon as possible and give them the news.”

  “All right. Keep trying until we get replies from somewhere. I’m stuck here with no orders, no permission to go anywhere, and the company ought to know that it’s costing them money.”

  “Edmund, how far outside Krasnograd was the place where Adam worked?”

  “Not sure. A couple of miles, perhaps.”

  “So he might be safe. If we could get in touch with him, we might get some news,” Sarah pointed out.

  “See what you can do, then.”

  She remembered Adam’s friends at Mostar, and asked Edmund, “How did they spell their name? Those friends at Mostar.”

  “It was a Turkish name and I had it on a piece of paper, but I gave that to Radmilla.”

  So there was no help there. After much searching among unfamiliar names in the directory, she telephoned the hotel where they had eaten lunch that day in Mostar and eventually obtained the number of the Turkish family. But in her agitation, Sarah’s tenuous command of the Serbo-Croatian language deserted her and it was difficult to make herself understood. All she could do was leave the villa’s telephone number in case there was news to pass on.

  When she stepped out onto the terrace, taking care to remain within sound of the telephone; the scene looked exactly the same as yesterday. Palms and cypresses reared against the blue sky and bluer sea, and the sun shone on the golden walls of the city, all untouched by tragedy. It seemed as though nature smiled treacherously after the night’s destruction.

  Melanie and Daniel came up the steps from the beach.

  “What’s the latest news?” Daniel queried.

  “None.” Sarah’s reply sounded more curt than she had intended.

  “Oh, I expect all the reports are wildly exaggerated,” Melanie observed. “Like all these happenings. Disasters always become magnified by rumors.”

  “I think it’s more than rumor, Miss Roche,” Sarah retorted spiritedly. “If I myself felt the earth move under my feet last night, it must have been very severe in Krasnograd, more than two hundred and fifty miles away.”

  Melanie’s eyes widened. “You mean you actually felt the earth shake? Oh, no, you imagined it.”

  Sarah glanced at Melanie, but made no further claim. “If Sarah says she felt it, she did,” Daniel asserted. “What time was it?”

  “A few minutes before midnight.”

  “Why, of course!” Daniel exclaimed. “Don’t you remember, Melanie? We were sitting here on the terrace about that time and our drinks swirled about in the glasses. I merely thought someone had jogged the table.”

  “And, of course, that was the explanation,” Melanie said.

  “Edmund was wondering. Miss Roche,” she began, “if you had heard any news of Mr. Thorne. He’s working near Krasnograd.”

  The question in the way Sarah had framed it was not strictly true, but then she could hardly ask point-blank in her own interest.

  Melanie stared at Sarah, puffed out a cloud of smoke from her cigarette before answering, with a faint smile, “My dear Sarah, how could I possibly know? Adam and I are old friends, but if the earthquake is as serious as people say it is, then it’s not likely that Adam is left with the only remaining telephone line. Tell—” Melanie paused and gave Sarah a measured glance “—Edmund that I have no news.”

  “Yes, Miss Roche.”

  “And, Sarah,” Melanie continued with one of her most charming smiles, “you might also tell Edmund that—” She stopped abruptly. “No, I’ll tell him myself.” She moved past Sarah out onto the sunlit terrace. Suddenly Sarah felt some of the tension snap. She had idled long enough in this gnawing suspense. Inactivity was no cure for the morbid dread constantly in her thoughts.

  She typed a note for Edmund, placed it by the typewriter and went quietly out of the villa by the farther door into the road, so that neither Daniel nor Melanie would see her.

  This evening the placa was hushed. People collected in forlorn groups and spoke in whispers. The cafes were half-empty, but a great crowd surged around the newspaper office to read the latest scraps of such information as they had been able to obtain.

  Sarah was baffled by the unfamiliar words, but after laborious translation from her pocket dictionary she understood that volunteers were needed to give and to pack blankets, stores and medical supplies.

  Trestle tables had already been set out and great piles of clothing, blankets and bedding were being sorted and bundled up.

  This was something positive that she could do, Sarah thought, and approached a table where there were few helpers. The women immediately made a place for her and one talked rapidly to Sarah.

  “Engleskinja,” murmured Sarah, who had understood no more than a word or two, but by pantomimic signs and smiles she soon grasped what was required. She folded blankets and coats, sorted shoes and tied them in pairs, and for a brief time forgot her immediate fears for both Adam and Radmilla.

  The woman next to her broke off to write a penciled note and insert it among a bundle of blankets.

  “Sestra!” she explained to Sarah, who gathered that the woman had a sister living in Krasnograd and hoped the note might reach her.

  An idea worth copying, thought Sarah, who immediately rummaged in her handbag to find a scrap of paper. She did not know Radmilla’s address, but the surname “Kubovic” might find the family. She wrote briefly, hoping that Radmilla and her relatives were safe and well.

  It was more difficult to write a note to Adam without appearing too formal or too effusive, but she managed a few lines that she thought could be interpreted only in a friendly way, and added Edmund’s name to her own to make the message sound a more collective concern. What did it matter anyway? The chances of the note’s ever reaching Adam were very remote indeed. The only address she knew was the steel plant and the nearest she could get to this was “celik fabrica,” which was probably all wrong, so for good measure she added, “Steelworks, near Krasnograd” in English.

  Even that was vague, but she tucked the paper inside a folded blanket and mentally added, with love from Sarah. That, of course, was a thought to be ruthlessly suppressed. She concentrated on the tasks in hand and did not notice the time until she glanced at her watch. Eleven o’clock! It couldn’t be so late, but she realized how tired and hungry she was and decided to return.

  Outside, the cooler air revived her as she walked up the steps and through the Pile gateway. A few people still sat at the cafe tables under the trees, and Sarah went across and ordered coffee and whatever food was available. The waiter brought her a plate of ricet, a dish of smoked pork with barley and beans, and she was pleasantly surprised, having expected only a plate of assorted cold meats.

  After eating she felt less tired and walked back to her hotel, for she guessed that the last tram had already gone.

  From the small garden by the hotel entrance a man’s figure emerged, almost startling her.

  “Sarah!”

  “Daniel! What are you doing here?”

  “Waiting for you to come home, I suppose,” he answered. “We were worried about you when you didn’t come to the villa for dinner and Edmund telephoned to find out if you’d come back here.”

  “But I left him a note that I was going down into the town,” Sarah explained. “I felt I couldn’t hang about doing nothing when there’s so much need of voluntary helpers.”

  “And what have you been doing?”

  “Only parceling up clothing and blankets. Little enough, really, when you hear of the enormous damage and how many people are homeless in Krasnograd. Is there any more news?”

  “I haven’t heard anything definite. Only the wildest rumors. We shall be able to see for ourselves. Edmund has received the go-ahead for taking a small unit to Krasnograd and making a documentary. So that should keep you busy.”

  “Oh, that’s marvelous news! We might be able to get in touch with Radmilla and find out if she and her family are safe.” Sarah would not mention Adam. Daniel was always too eager to pounce at the sound of Adam’s name. “When do we start?”

  “Tomorrow, if possible. Edmund will tell you.” Edmund’s instructions were to give up the rooms she and Radmilla had occupied and take everything to the villa.

  “We don’t know exactly when we’ll be back,” he said.

  Next morning Sarah packed all her belongings and collected a number of Radmilla’s clothes and small possessions that the Slav girl had not had time to bother about.

  At the villa activity amounted almost to chaos with Edmund at the storm center giving orders, telephoning, dictating, all with that calm control that possessed him when there was real work to do. Only in times of idle frustration did Edmund seethe with impatience.

  Formalities had to be complied with, and Sarah made several visits to the police office for the documents and passes that would enable the film unit to get through to the disaster area.

  She returned from one of these visits to find Edmund and Daniel in the midst of a heated argument.

  “I know I have to take orders from you, Edmund,” Daniel was saying, “but why do I have to stay here doing nothing?”

  “We’re making a documentary,” Edmund protested, “not a drama with you as the hero.”

  “I know that!” Daniel snapped. “And I shan’t expect to be taken in close-up or exposing my handsome profile while I’m giving a hand to a gang digging out some poor wretch from a wrecked building.”

  After some further discussion, Sarah was instructed to make out the necessary applications for Daniel.

  “I’ll take you down to the city,” Daniel offered. “You’ve already made several journeys.”

  She waited while he took one of the hired cars out of the garage. When Daniel was driving down the long winding road toward the Pile gate, he began to chuckle. “I beat Edmund that time, didn’t I? As though I’d let him go to this place, Krasnograd, and take you with him and leave me behind! I haven’t forgotten this is where the famous Adam Thorne lives.”

  “We haven’t any news about him yet,” she answered calmly. “Or from Radmilla.”

  “Perhaps we shall find out when we get there. But I’m certainly not leaving him a clear field where you’re concerned.”

  “A clear field?” she echoed, hoping that Daniel would not notice that her face had suddenly flushed scarlet. “How would that affect me? I thought you said that he was once in love with Melanie.”

  “Oh, he may have changed since those days. Anyway, I’m not taking any chances.”

  “So you mean that you’re going with the unit mainly to see that I don’t flirt with Adam? I thought you made a great fuss about wanting to help the injured or homeless!”

  “So I do! I want to help, but I’d be a fool if I didn’t take some precautions to protect what I’d like to think are my own interests.”

  In the early evening Melanie came to wave goodbye to the party as they set off.

  “You’re quite mad, Edmund,” she called, “starting at this time of day. Why not wait until the morning?”

  “That would be another day lost,” he answered. “We don’t know how long the journey will take.”

  “You’re all in for a terribly uncomfortable ride,” Melanie observed.

  “Au revoir, Sarah!” Melanie’s cool voice penetrated Sarah’s preoccupation with settling herself in. “You certainly have a heap of men to look after you. Are you going to enjoy being the only girl in the party?”

  “I expect to be too busy to bother about that,” Sarah replied with one of her most charming smiles. There were times when for the moment she became a match for Melanie’s needle-sharp baiting.

  “If you do happen to see Adam somewhere around there, do give him my love. He’s almost sure to be in the thick of rescue parties, or building huts or something of the sort.”

  Sarah was instantly deflated, although she tried to convince herself that she was nettled more by Melanie’s callously lighthearted references to assistance in a stricken town than by the idea of passing on Melanie’s love to Adam.

  A little crowd of people had gathered around the minibus and the truck, and Sarah and Daniel did their best to cope with the extra packages, the scrawled messages of greeting and goodwill to Krasnograd.

  When the two vehicles were on the move, Sarah said, “I hope I’m going to find these addresses—or the people they belong to.”

  She had been deeply touched by the hopes and faith of those villagers that their friends or relatives had escaped disaster, and inevitably her thoughts swerved to Adam. How much hope could she sustain that he was alive and well, and if he were, what chances would there be of meeting him again?

  On the long night journey, as the roads through the mountains became rougher, sleep was almost out of the question. Sarah, wedged in her corner among a variety of parcels and stores, tried to doze. When a particularly violent jolt knocked her head against the sharp corner of a box, Daniel sympathized and took the opportunity of shifting some of the packages and sitting next to her to cradle her head on his shoulder.

  For a moment she resisted, but then thought it silly to make a scene in the middle of the night. After all, Daniel’s shoulder was more comfortable than wooden boxes.

  When they reached the outskirts of Krasnograd the next day the roads were congested with refugees leaving the city. Wagons, ox-drawn carts, even bicycles carried the family’s possessions while men, women and children trudged by the side. In the fields or on the rough hillsides hundreds of people were already camping out, afraid that, although they’d escaped death in one violent earthquake, further shocks might bring more buildings crashing down upon them. There were few tents; most people could only group their mattresses and belongings in the open air around a few cooking pots and whatever fire they could make.

  When darkness fell Sarah could see that one part of the town was dotted with moving lights, like fireflies. Gas and electricity supplies had been cut off, leaving nothing but oil lanterns or other lighting people could contrive for themselves. The center, however, was ablaze with searchlights, but Sarah realized that this meant that rescue work was still going on.

  Daniel was eager to go down to the center and explore.

  “We’d better wait until daylight,” Edmund suggested. “It’s bad enough to find your way in a strange city in the dark, let alone one where there are great holes in the roads, and pavements have gone altogether.”

  Daniel objected. “Waste of time,” he declared. “We could be down there at least making inquiries and seeing what’s wanted. Then we could start first thing in the morning giving out the food and other things we’ve brought.”

  “The police won’t let us go pottering about by ourselves,” Edmund pointed out. “They have enough injured people to look after without half a dozen foreigners breaking their legs and having to be carted off to hospitals already overcrowded.”

  “Sarah and I will go,” Daniel persisted.

  “We could try to inquire about Radmilla and her family,” Sarah put in. Actually, she was even more anxious to find out about Adam and hoped someone would tell her the fate of the steelworks.

  In the end Edmund agreed, but warned Daniel not to make rash promises about vast quantities of food or clothing. “We’ve brought all we could, but it still isn’t much,” he said, “and our truck hasn’t yet turned up. It may be in another parking place.”

  Sarah collected her passport, visa and other authorization documents and tucked them safely in her handbag. She had left behind in Dubrovnik all her more flimsy clothes and brought only a couple of pairs of sturdy trousers and a cotton shirt or two with a green anorak handy in case the nights were cold.

  Occasional lines of red oil lamps showed where the roadway had cracked and disappeared into rubble. People sat on the pavements in front of houses they were now forbidden to enter.

  Sarah did her best as interpreter, but soldiers on guard at the barricaded streets shook their heads and gently pointed out that no one was allowed into the worst-damaged parts except in daylight.

  Daniel was explosive in his anger. “Tell them we only want to help!” he burst out. Sarah put a restraining hand on his arm.

 

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