The children were singing like a thousand-strong choir, spilling down the steps of the harbour, some of them jumping off the wet steps and laughing as they went ankle deep into the silt, picking their way through the thick wet weeds where the shells crunched under their feet, walking hand in hand, scores of them, hundreds of them, side by side, winding their way around the grounded ships and old wrecks, to the mouth of the harbour where the sea still retreated before them, further and further out towards the horizon, far quicker than they could walk, as it built a bridge of land for them, just for them, all the way to Palestine.
‘I think we should go,’ Luca decided, his heart racing. ‘Go with them now. I think it’s a true miracle. Johann said that the sea would part for us and it has done so.’
Luca went to the head of the harbour steps, Brother Peter beside him. ‘D’you think this is true?’ Luca shouted, his brown eyes bright with excitement.
‘A miracle,’ the older man confirmed. ‘A miracle, and that I should see it! Praise be to God!’
‘What are you doing?’ Ishraq demanded, alarmed. ‘What d’you think you’re doing?’
‘I have to see,’ Luca spoke over his shoulder, his eyes fixed on the disappearing sea. ‘I have to see the new land. Johann is leading the children to Jerusalem. I have to see this.’
Freize, on the grounded boat, trying to steady the horses, suddenly let out a sharp yelp of pain. The pocket of his jacket was jumping and squirming. His fingers were bloody from where he had reached inside. He tried again and pulled out the small ginger kitten. She was a little ball of spitting terror, her fur on end, her eyes madly green. She struggled wildly in his grip, he let her drop to the deck and she bounded away, agile as a monkey, up the straining mooring rope to the quayside, racing for the inn. But she didn’t go in the open door, she swarmed up the vine that grew by the door and scrambled onto the tiled roof. She did not stop there but went higher, up to the very smoke vent, and balanced on top of the highest point on the quayside, her claws scrabbling on the terracotta tiles, as she clung to the roof, yowling with terror.
‘No!’ Freize suddenly shouted, his voice loud and frightened over the singing of the children. He vaulted over the side of the boat, dropping heavily into the sludge of the harbour floor. He struggled round the grounded boat to the lowest of the wet harbour steps, slipping on the seaweed and grabbing a mooring ring to stop himself from falling. He crawled, his feet slipping and sliding, to the top of the steps where Luca, almost in a trance, was starting to walk down, his face radiant. Freize barrelled into him, grabbed him round the waist pushing him back to the quayside, and thrust him bodily towards the inn.
‘I want to see . . .’ Luca struggled against him. ‘Freize – let me go! I’m going! I’m walking!’
‘It’s not safe! It’s not safe!’ Freize babbled. ‘The kitten knows. The horses know. God help us all. Something terrible is going to happen. Get into the inn, get into the attic, get onto the roof if you can. Like the kitten! See the kitten! The sea is going to turn on us.’
‘It’s parting,’ Brother Peter argued, standing his ground. ‘You can see. Johann said that it would part for him and he would walk to Jerusalem. He’s going, the children are going; we’re going with him.’
‘No, you’re not!’ Freize pushed Luca roughly towards the inn, slapping him on his shoulders in frustration. ‘Take Isolde!’ he shouted into Luca’s bright face, shaking his shoulders. ‘Take Ishraq! Or they’ll drown before your eyes. You don’t want that, do you? You don’t want to see the waters come back and sweep Isolde away?’
Luca woke as if from a dream. ‘What? You think the sea will come back?’
‘I’m sure of it!’ Freize shouted. ‘Get them to safety. Get them out of here! Save the girls! Look at the kitten!’
Luca shot one horrified look at the kitten which was still clinging to the topmost point of the roof, spitting with fear, and then grabbed Isolde’s hand and Ishraq’s arm and hurried them both into the inn. Isolde would have held back but Ishraq was as frightened as Freize, and dragged her onwards. ‘Come on!’ she said. ‘If it’s a miracle, then the sea will stay dry. We can follow later. Let’s get inside, let’s get up to our bedroom. We can look from the window. Come on, Isolde!’
Freize saw they were on their way to safety and turned back and ran down the stone steps to the damp floor of the harbour, his boots churning in the deep mud. ‘Come back!’ he shouted to the children. ‘Come back. The sea will turn! That’s not the way!’
They were singing so loudly, in such happy triumph, that they did not even hear him. ‘Come back!’ Freize yelled. He started to run after them, slipping on the silt and the weeds, splashing doggedly through the puddles of seawater in his big boots. The slowest children at the back turned when they heard him and paused when they saw him coming, waving his arms and shouting.
‘Go back!’ Freize commanded them. ‘Go back to the village!’
They hesitated, uncertain what they should do.
‘Go back, go back,’ Freize said urgently. ‘The sea will turn, it will wash into the harbour again.’
Their blank faces showed that they could not understand him, their whole conviction, their whole crusade, was pressing them onwards. Johann had promised them this miracle and they believed that it was happening then and there. All their friends, all their fellow pilgrims were convinced, they were singing as they walked, further and further towards the harbour mouth where the receding sea shone white as it rushed away southwards. They all wanted to go together. They could see their road unfolding before them.
‘Sweetmeats,’ Freize said desperately. ‘Go to the inn, they are giving away free sweets.’
Half a dozen children turned, and started to go back to the quayside.
‘Hurry!’ Freize shouted. ‘Hurry or they’ll be all gone. Run as fast as you can!’
He caught another half-dozen children and told them the same thing. They turned to go back and so did their friends who were a little before them.
Freize battled his way, pushing through the children to the front of the crowd. ‘Johann!’ he shouted. ‘You are mistaken!’
The boy’s face was bright with conviction, his eyes fixed on the sea that still receded steadily, invitingly, before him. The harbour mouth was dry, and yet still the sea drained away and the tawny mud unrolled before them like a Berber rug, like a dry smooth road all the way to his destination. ‘God has made the way dry for me,’ he said simply. ‘You can walk with me. Tomorrow morning we will walk into Palestine and dine on milk and honey. I see it, though you do not see it yet. I am walking dry-shod, as I said we would.’
‘Please,’ Freize shouted. ‘Walk tomorrow. When it has had time to dry out properly. Don’t go now. I’m afraid the waters will come . . .’
‘You are afraid,’ Johann said gently. ‘You doubted from the beginning, and now you are afraid, as you will always be afraid. You go back. I shall go on.’
Freize looked back to the quayside. A scuffle caught his eye. The little girl that he had first met with the bleeding feet was trying to get back to the quayside. Two boys had hold of her and were dragging her onward, trying to catch up with Johann. ‘You let her go!’ Freize called to them.
They held her tightly, pulling her onwards. Freize turned and ran back for her, burst through the two of them, pulled her away. ‘I want to go back to shore!’ she gasped. ‘I’m frightened of the sea.’
‘I’ll take you,’ he said.
Mutely, she lifted up her arms to him. Freize bent down and swung her up onto his shoulders, and turned to run clumsily back to the quayside, ploughing through the mud which sucked wetly at his feet, calling to the children to follow him as he ran.
He could hear the church bell of Piccolo starting to toll loudly, as the villagers poured out of their homes down to the quayside, the fishermen aghast at the state of the harbour and the loss of their ships. People were staring in wonderment at the anchors and chains lying alongside the beached craft, at the
lobsters, dry in their pots, at the sudden extraordinary revelation of the floor of the harbour which was usually sixty feet under water.
Freize flung the little girl up the green steps and shouted at the people gathered there, starting to come down the steps to see the floor of the sea. ‘Go back! Go to your homes! Go to the hills! Get as high as you can. The waters will come back! There’s going to be a flood!’
Freize ploughed his way across the harbour mud to the grounded ship where the horses were rearing and kicking in the stalls on the boat. ‘Be still my dears!’ he called breathlessly. ‘I’m coming for you!’
A few people, remembering stories of inexplicable great waves in fairy tales and folk stories, felt the chill of old fears at their backs, and turned and started to run. Their panic was infectious, and in moments the quayside was empty, people banging into their houses and bolting the doors, climbing to the upper windows to look out towards the sea, other people running past them, up the steep streets to the highest point of the village, to the walls around the landward side of the town, some taking shelter in the church and climbing up the stone steps of the bell tower to look out to sea. A few women ran against the terrified crowd, down to the quayside, shading their eyes against the dazzle of bright sunshine on wet mud, calling their children’s names, begging them to come away from the crusade, to come home.
What they saw made them moan with horror. On the dry bed of the harbour, advancing in a ragged half-circle, as if going to dance hand-in-hand, were the children, singing as they went, certain of salvation. And, beyond them, far away towards the horizon, but coming closer with incredible speed, was the white crest of a great wave, higher than a tree, higher than a house, high as the church tower itself, coming at the speed of a galloping horse. The children, looking to Johann, or with their eyes on heaven, did not see it, did not see anything. They only understood their danger when they started to feel it. The water which had been sucking away from under their feet so they were triumphantly dry-shod on the sea bed, started to gurgle and flow forwards again. The smaller children were knee deep in moments; they looked down, and cried out, but their voices were drowned in the singing.
They pulled on the hands of the bigger children beside them, trying to get their attention, but the children swung hands gladly, and went on. Then they all heard it. Over the sound of their own Canticle they heard the deep terrible roar of the sea.
When they looked up, they saw the wave coming towards them, heard its full-throated rage, and knew that the water that had flowed away so quickly, emptying the harbour in mere moments, had turned on them and was coming back as one wave, as one great surge. At once, some of them cried out and spun around, broke the line and tried to run, thigh deep in water, as if they dreamed that they could outrun the sea. But most of them stood stock still, holding each other’s little hands and watching, open-mouthed, as the wall of the wave powered up to them and then fell down upon them and buried them in full fathoms in a second.
Moments later it hit the town. Boats that had been beached on the floor of the harbour were now thrown roof-high, tossed up and dropped down again. The first wave hit the quayside wall and crashed upwards like an eruption, and then, terrifyingly, beyond reason, flowed on, out of its bounds, rushing past houses, up alleyways, towards the market square where no sea had ever been. The quayside disappeared at once underwater, the panes of the windows of the inn smashing in a fusilade, as the waves breached the walls and poured inside the inn and into all the quayside houses. In Ishraq and Isolde’s bedroom the two girls flinched back as the windows popped like paper and the water poured in; they were waist deep in seconds and yet the wave still came on, the water still rose.
‘This way,’ Luca yelled beside them. He kicked out the frame of the window. Wood and the remaining horn panes of the window whirled away as the sea thrust him backwards. Soon the water in the room was up to their shoulders, Ishraq and Isolde off their feet, and flailing in the icy seawater as they gripped each other’s hands, bobbing in the turbulence as the waves crashed into the little room and washed out again.
Luca swam towards Isolde, the current pushing them deeper into the room and away from the safety of the open window. ‘Take a breath!’ he shouted, and with his arm around her shoulders, he dragged her under the water as if he would drown her. She slipped from his grip and went like an eel through the broken aperture to the raging water outside. He bobbed up and saw Brother Peter supporting Ishraq, both of them, faces raised to the ceiling of the room, mouths upturned, snatching at the last inches of air.
‘We have to get out of the window!’ he shouted. He gulped air, grabbed at Ishraq and thrust her deep down into the water of the room. He felt her struggle and then turn towards him and he pushed her clumsily towards the open window and swam behind her, forcing her on. A hand on his foot told him that Peter was following them.
Luca had his eyes open underwater, though all he could see was a swirl of grey and all he could hear was the terrible roar of the wave as it reclaimed the land. But then he saw that the faint square of the window was blocked, and he realised that Ishraq was not through, she was caught.
Her gown had snagged on one of the broken spars of the window; she was trapped inside the broken window frame deep below the water. Luca shot up for the ceiling of the room again, snatched a breath and dived down. He could see air pouring from her mouth in a stream of silver, as her hands struggled with the gown. Luca swam towards her, grabbed hold of her shoulders, and when she turned her face to him, pressed his mouth to hers, desperately giving her air from his mouth to hers. For a moment they were locked together, gripping like lovers as he breathed into her lungs and then he kicked up to the ceiling again, snatched at a breath, his lips against the roof beams, then he dived down again. He was afraid she was still caught. Then he saw her shrug, like a snake sloughing a skin, like a beautiful mermaid, and she was out of her gown and her chemise was a flash of white and she escaped through the hole of the window and was outside, leaving her gown waving in the flood like a drowned ghost.
Ishraq, Luca, and Brother Peter burst, choking and desperately heaving for air, into a terrifying open sea, an ocean where the village had been, with nothing around them but little islands of roofs and chimneys, the current snatching them at once and dragging them inland.
‘Take my cloak!’ came a scream from above.
Ishraq looked up, choking, fighting against the rush of water which was peeling her away from the roof of the inn and rushing her inland, and saw Isolde, clinging to the chimney of the inn with one hand and reaching down with the other. She was holding out her cloak twisted like a rope towards them. Ishraq grabbed it and pulled herself towards the roof, fighting the current that threatened to tear her away. She could feel the overlapping tiles like slippery steps under her scrabbling feet and hands. Clinging like a monkey, Ishraq gripped the twisted cape and swarmed up the steep slope of the roof, buffeted by the waves, crawling through the rough water, getting higher and higher until she made it into the dry on the very apex of the roof, followed by Brother Peter, and then Luca. All four of them sat astride the roof, as if they were riding it, while the crash of the water below made the building sway, and the terrifying swiftness of the surge flung loose ships at the height of chimneys towards them. They clung together in the boil and terrible noise of the flood and prayed to their own gods.
‘If the building goes . . .’ Brother Peter shouted in Luca’s ear.
‘We should rope together,’ Luca said. He took their capes and knotted them in a line. The girls wrapped their arms around the middle section. They all knew that they were preparing for little more than drowning together.
‘See if we can catch some driftwood,’ Luca shouted at Brother Peter.
Brother Peter said no more. They watched in horror as lumber and wreckage, uprooted trees and an overturned market stall thudded into the wall of the inn, and the roof below them. They heard the roof shed its tiles into the water and the roof beams shift. An old woo
den chest bobbed up from out of the attic below them and Luca reached out and grabbed hold of it, struggling to hold it against the current. ‘If you fall in the water, you must hang on to this!’ he shouted at the two girls, who were clinging to each other as they realised that if the building collapsed the old chest would not save them, they would go down, tumbled among roof beams and tiles, almost certain to drown.
Isolde leaned down and put her face against the ridge tiles of the inn, closing her eyes against the terror of the boiling flood around her, whispering her prayers over and over by rote, the words of her childhood, though she was too frightened to think. Ishraq stared wide-eyed as the sea boiled around them, watched the waters thrust and break on the roof, as they rose steadily higher. She looked at Luca and at Brother Peter, watched Luca struggling to hold the wooden chest balanced on the roof and saw that it might support her and Isolde but that the men would be lost. She gritted her teeth, and watched the rising water, trying to measure its height, as it broke against the roof, each time coming a little closer to them. A sudden eddy would make a high wave break over her feet and she could see Isolde flinch as the cold water snatched at her foot, but then the dip between the waves would make it seem as if it was ebbing. Ishraq held her foot very still and counted the unsteady roof tiles between her foot and the water. She glanced over at Luca and saw that he was doing the same thing. Both of them were desperately hoping that the wave was at its full height, that the flood had run inland and was now steadying, both of them trying to calculate the rise of the waters to know how long before they would be hopelessly engulfed.
Luca met her eyes. ‘It’s still rising,’ he said flatly.
She nodded in agreement and pointed. ‘It’s two tiles below me now, and before it was three.’
‘It will be over the roof in an hour,’ Luca calculated. ‘We’ll have to be ready to swim.’