Page:Restless Earth.djvu/202

“Dead!” he would answer himself triumphantly. “Dead and buried! For which, O Lord, make us truly thankful.”

By the mercy of Providence the Veronica had berthed at the Napier wharf almost at the moment of the shake. She had been severely shaken by the restless earth, but, in short order, landing parties were in the wrecked streets, medical and food supplies were made available, armed marines were policing the ruins, naval officers were giving orders and being obeyed by seaman and landsman. Everywhere incipient panic was quelled by the splendid efficiency of men trained to emergency.

Within twenty-four hours the Navy, the police force, and the Napier Relief Committee were acting in conjunction. Every park and open space in the town was occupied. Tarpaulin shelters did duty as casualty clearing stations; prominent red crosses adorned every available ambulance—improvised and otherwise—and many private cars; every care was being taken of the injured and the survivors.

The red capes of the nurses, the service uniforms of the marines, the smoke, the areas of blackened bricks and tottering walls, the tents on the beach, the occasional clear notes of a bugle, the battleships in the bay, the thunder and dust where naval parties demolished dangerous structures, the intermittent shuddering of the earth, all induced a not unpleasant excitement in Roy.

It all reminded him of the war. The only wrong thing about it was that the sun shone every day. No self-respecting war ever happened in such perfect weather. He missed the mud, the eternal mud of the trenches. Everything else seemed to be here; the thud of explosives, the rumble of lorries, the stretchers, and the smells. Here, however, Roy assisted in a task which had not fallen to him in all the horrors of war—the sniffing for the odour of charred flesh; the horrible business of stooping over piles of hot debris, quietly searching after the manner of a dog.