Wednesday, May 7, 1902
Just before dawn, a violent scene
erupted on Mount Pelée. Clouds of ash and bolts of lightning with reddish
flames lit up the early-morning sky. Huge projectiles shot out of the crater
with terrifying booms, rocking the town with explosions like cannon fire. Black
smoke billowed out of the crater, creating a sense of impending doom. Glasses
fell off tables, windows shattered, and barometers plummeted. The explosions
knocked Rémy out of bed. Stumbling to his feet, he made his way to his desk,
feeling the floor shaking beneath his feet. He grabbed his binoculars and made
his way to the window to study the scene up close.
“Good Lord, it looks like the end
of the world,” he said, feeling a profound sense of doom. The summit of Mount
Pelée was alight with orange-red flames. Ash was spurting everywhere. The
harbor looked like a scene from the last days of Pompeii. The once-sparkling
blue water was dull and gray, littered with the corpses of farm animals, tree
trunks, and deposits of ash and pumice stones that seemed to stretch on for
miles.
He threw on his uniform and
boots, refilled his cartridge with bullets, and went to receive his orders.
Then he headed down to the courtyard, where his men were already assembled.
Dividing them up into two groups, he sent the first group to patrol the town
and keep order, and he sent the second group to guard the southern road to make
sure people stayed safely in their homes.
More refugees flooded into
Saint-Pierre. Some of them were survivors of the Guérin sugar factory disaster
or had lost family members in the tragedy and were in a state of shock. Sisters
from the convent brought them inside and gave them food and drink; the rest
just wandered aimlessly through the throng or crowded into the marketplace, but
food was scarce and money even scarcer. A shipment of food brought in by
steamer went quickly. Bags of rice and beans and loaves of bread were handed
out to famished residents, who grabbed them and fled back to their homes. Some
people were too mesmerized by the pyrotechnic display on Mount Pelée to do
anything but gape and stare. As the morning dragged on, more people flooded
into Saint-Pierre since, by everybody’s estimation, it was the safest place for
the displaced residents from the northern half of the island. Placards all over
town announced that the volcano was on the wane and the people should sit tight
and wait out the end of the eruption, but by the looks on their faces, few
believed it anymore.
Rémy was exhausted from pursuing
looters and squatters, yet more people arrived by steamers and small ferries or
in simple donkey carts and horse wagons. The stream of refugees continued
unabated. He reckoned the population had swelled by several thousand. But the
volcano seemed no closer to quieting down. A thick layer of ash now covered
every surface. Everyone’s clothes were covered in soot and ash. Children sat on
the ground and played with the volcanic dust as if it were sand. The women were
noticeably distressed. Their normally vibrant faces reflected fear and
distress. For Rémy, the work was endless. He broke up countless fights,
arrested dozens of disorderly civilians, and emptied houses of illegal squatters,
but there was nowhere for them to go. They had taken up every inch of available
space in the barracks, the inns, and the guesthouses. Some refugees were
reduced to sleeping in the alleyways. Others crowded into the cathedral to hear
mass or to baptize their children. Later, news began to spread like wildfire
that the Soufrière volcano on Saint Vincent had erupted. This caused a wave of
panic to spread throughout the crowd. They now began to collect outside the
mayor’s office, demanding answers. As Rémy watched the faces of the angry
citizens, he sensed a rising tension in the air, a sense of impending doom.
The latest issue of Les Colonies did little to calm
everyone’s nerves. At his post guarding the southern road, Rémy scanned the
headlines, disturbed by Marius Hurard’s carefully crafted front-page interview
with Gaston Landes that looked to be no more than political showmanship:
According to observations made by M. Landes, in the early morning
hours of yesterday, the central crater of the volcano vomited out a yellow and
black powdery substance at various intervals. The bottom of the neighboring
valleys should be evacuated and those remaining should keep to a certain height
to avoid being overwhelmed by the muddy lava, as were Herculaneum and Pompeii. Vesuvius,
added M. Landes, claimed only a few victims. Pompeii was evacuated in time and
few corpses were found in the buried cities. In conclusion, Mount Pelée
presents no more danger to Saint-Pierre than Vesuvius poses to Naples.
The article ended with the coup
de grâce—a statement by Governor Mouttet himself:
The security of Saint-Pierre remains uncompromised.
Incensed, Rémy threw the
newspaper on the ground, where it was trampled by the feet of the crowd.
He looked up suddenly and saw a
cloud of black ash billowing out of Mount Pelée like a giant cauliflower,
filling the skies with swirling black ash and volcanic dust that blocked out
the sun and cast a gloomy shadow over the town. There was an audible hush among
the crowd. Everyone stared at it in horror. The ominous nature of the cloud
told Rémy one thing: the end was near.
