The Thames Valley Catastrophe

by Grant Allen

I don't need to mention, I suppose, that I was one of the earliest observers of the sad events which finally forced the Government to move from London to Manchester. I know that my story is central to the report on the Thames Valley Catastrophe (volume ii, part vii), ordered by the new Parliament at Birmingham. But I must, for future generations, add a more personal account of my adventures during the terrible period to that dry and formal statement.

I am aware, of course, that my poor little story has no interest for readers nowadays, tired of details of the disaster, and bored with long scientific discussions about its origin. But in later years, I believe, when this unique nineteenth century calamity has grown less painful, the world may want to hear how it affected the feelings of a single middle-class man from London.

It is personal portraits that give reality to history. So, I shall not apologise for describing how that terrible day touched my family's lives, because I know that readers looking for scientific information on the subject will find it in the eight volumes of the government report.

On the morning of 21st August, in the year of the calamity, I was at Cookham, a pleasant and pretty village which was then on the River Thames, very near where the huge Look-out Tower of the Earthquake Department is today. Instead of the heavy black lake which young people see nowadays, most men still alive can remember a smiling valley by a beautiful river.

I had cycled from London the evening before and spent the night at a pleasant old hotel in the village. By a curious coincidence, the only other visitor that night was another cyclist, an American, George W. Ward, who had come to England for six weeks to research the geology of the south of the country for himself. I call it a curious coincidence because that was the first time I had ever heard of fissure-eruptions. If Ward had not described them in so much detail that evening, I might not have recognised them when they first appeared and, so, I might not be alive to tell this tale.

As we sat in the little hotel, the American, who was a pleasant, chatty man began talking to me about his reasons for visiting England. I was then a clerk in the Post Office – not a student of science. But his enthusiastic talk about his own country and its size interested me. He had been employed for some years on the Geological Survey in the Western States and he was deeply impressed by the huge scale of everything American. He described the earth opening in a huge crack, forty or fifty miles long, and lava pouring out in a sea.

"You are joking," I replied.

He smiled a quiet smile. "No, I am not," he answered. "There are fissure-eruptions, as we call them, in the Western States, where the lava has spread like water over whole valleys."

"Thank God," I said, carelessly, "things like that don't happen in our times."

He looked at me curiously. "Haven't happened, you mean," he answered. "We have no guarantee that they won't happen again tomorrow. These fissure-eruptions are common – more common and larger in America than here. Still, they have happened in many lands at different times. There is no reason at all why one shouldn't occur in England at present."

I laughed and shook my head. I had the Englishman's firm belief – destroyed, of course, by what happened afterwards – that nothing very unusual ever happened in England.

Next morning I got up early, swam in a river close by, breakfasted with the American, and then wrote a line to my wife, letting her know that I would probably sleep that night at Oxford; for I was off on a few days' holiday and I liked Ethel to know where a letter or telegram could reach me each day, as we were both a little anxious about the baby's teething. Even while I write these words now, the grim humour of the situation comes back to me. Thousands of fathers and mothers were anxious that morning about similar trivia.

About ten o'clock I began to ride towards Oxford along the river, crossing Cookham Bridge, made of wood or iron, I can't remember which. In the middle, I paused and looked at that charming view, which I was the last of living men perhaps to see as it then existed. This morning, I stopped my bicycle for a moment and looked with more than my usual enjoyment at the blue water and the tall white trees. I might have gazed at it too long – and one minute more would have been enough for my destruction – if I had not heard a cry farther up that attracted my attention.

It was a wild, despairing cry, like a man being murdered.

I stared up the stream. For half a second I was completely confused. Strangely, I did not notice at first the great flood of fire advancing towards me. I saw only the man who had shouted – miserable and terrified. But now he was rushing wildly forward with panic in his face. I could see he looked like a wild animal was behind him.

"A mad dog!" I said to myself, "or a bull in the field!"

I tried to see what animal was following him; and then, in one second, the whole horror of the catastrophe hit me. I was aware at first just of a moving red wall, like dull, red-hot metal. Trying to recall the feelings of the moment at this safe distance in time and space, I think I can remember that my earliest idea was only this: 'He must run, or the moving wall will overtake him!' The next moment, a hot wave seemed to hit my face. At about the same time, I became aware that the dull red wall was really a wall of fire. But it was cooled by contact with the air and the water. Even as I looked, however, a second wave from behind seemed to rush forward. This second wave was white heat, I realised. Suddenly, I knew what it meant. What Ward had spoken of last night – a fissure eruption!

I looked back. Ward was coming towards me on the bridge on his bike. Speechless, I pointed up the stream with my hand. He nodded and shouted back in a very calm voice: "Yes; just what I told you. A fissure-eruption!"

They were the last words I heard him speak. It was not that he understood the danger less than I did, though he seemed cool, but at that critical moment he caught his leg in his pedals. The accident confused him; he got off hurriedly and then, panicked and left his bike. He tried to run. This mistake was fatal. He fell. What became of him afterwards, I will mention later.

But for the moment I saw only the poor man on the path. He was not a hundred metres away, but as he rushed forwards and screamed, the wall of fire overtook him. I do not think it quite caught him. It is hard at such moments to decide what really happens; but I believe I saw him shrink like a moth in a flame a few seconds before the wall of fire caught him. I have seen an insect shrink like that when thrown into the middle of white-hot coals. He seemed to become gas, leaving a shower of ash to show his bones. But I can't be positive; my own fear was far too deep to allow me to see anything with accuracy.

How high was the wall at that time? This has been discussed at great length. I would guess ten metres (though it rose afterwards to more than seventy) and it advanced faster than a man could run down the valley. I saw or felt the only chance of safety lay in front of me: I must get up the hill on the path.

I rode with death behind me. Across the bridge and turning up the hill, I saw Ward with his arms thrown up, trying wildly to save himself by jumping into the river. The next instant he was gone. It is this complete burning before the lava reached them that explains why no mummified dead bodies, like those at Pompeii, have been found in the Thames Valley area. My own belief is that every human body was reduced to gas by the terrific heat several seconds before the lava reached it.

Even at the distance I was from the centre, the heat was unbearable. Yet, I saw few or no people flying from the flood. The fact is the eruption came upon us so suddenly, so without warning, that whole towns must have been destroyed before the inhabitants were aware that anything unusual was happening. A large proportion of the victims must have died without even knowing it; one second, they were laughing, talking, bargaining; the next, they were ashes.

This, however, is what I learnt afterwards. At that moment, I was only thinking of speeding uphill, over a rough, stony road, and with my pedals working harder than I had ever worked them before; while behind me, I saw hell pushing to overtake me. I just knew that a sea of fire was filling the valley from end to end, and that its heat burnt my face as I pedalled my bicycle in terror.

All this time, my panic was purely personal. I was too aware of my own pressing danger to think about the public catastrophe. I did not even think of Ethel and the children. But when I reached the hill, I was able to pause for half a minute to get my breath and to look back on the first disaster.

It was a terrible but beautiful sight – beautiful with the awful, unearthly beauty of a great forest fire. The whole valley was a sea of fire. It looked so wonderful in the morning sunshine that I didn't realise the appalling reality of that sea of burning gold, consuming and destroying every object in its way.

I tried vaguely to discover the source of the disaster. Looking straight up stream, I noticed a whiter mass, glowing in the daylight like an electric light and filling the narrow river. I remembered at once that this part of the valley was not usually visible and, almost without thinking about it, I guessed the reason why: it was the centre of disturbance – the earth's crust just there had cracked.

Looking harder, I could make out (though it was like looking at the sun) that the glowing white mass was the lava as it came from the vast mouth of the crack. I say vast, because it seemed like that to me though, as everybody now knows, the actual gap where the earth opened measures no more than twelve kilometres across. Yet when I saw the eruption taking place, the huge size was what shocked me most. A sea of fire in our Thames Valley impressed and terrified me a thousand times more than a sea of fire ten times as vast in the nameless lands of Western America.

I could see dimly too, that the flood spread in every direction, both up and down the river. To right and left, it was soon stopped by the hills; but downwards, it had filled the entire valley. Tourists who now look down on summer evenings, where the ruins of Oxford University may be seen, can form no realistic idea of the terrible scene of that peaceful place while the lava was pouring in a burning white flood towards the doomed university. People have half-forgotten the horror of the water rising slowly, slowly, day after day, to destroy some of the best architecture in Britain. But though I did not know the effects of the great fire-flood, I saw enough to make my heart stand still. It was with difficulty that I held my bicycle, my hands trembled so much. I realised that I was a spectator of the greatest calamity in all history.

I looked southwards along the valley. I had not thought yet that the catastrophe was more than a local flood. I could not imagine that London would be in danger. In those days one could not accept the idea of the destruction of London. Even as I thought it, I saw a fresh fire come out from the central crack and flow faster than ever down the centre of the valley.

In a second I remembered Ethel and the children. Up till now, I had thought about my own immediate danger. The fire was so near; the heat rose in my face. But now I felt I must try to warn – not London – no, frankly, I forgot those millions – just Ethel and my little ones. With that thought, I realised the size of the catastrophe. I must get to London to save my wife and children!

I got on the bike again but found my shaking feet could not work the pedals. With a frantic effort and by pure instinct, I believe, I set my face towards London. In three minutes I had lost sight of the burning flood and was deep among green paths and under shadowy trees. I wondered if I was going mad. It was all so quiet. I could not believe that only five miles away from that awful wall of fire, birds were singing in the sky and men working in the fields as if nothing had happened.

I met another cyclist, just about to go down the hill. I shouted aloud:

"For God's sake, don't go down there! There's danger, danger!"

He smiled and looked back at me. "I can climb any hill in England," he answered.

"It's not the hill," I shouted. "There has been an eruption – a fissure-eruption – great floods of fire – and all the valley is filled with burning lava!"

He stared at me as if I was mad. Then his expression changed and he moved away from me, like I was dangerous. I suppose he saw I was white-faced and horrified. I have no doubt he rode into the middle of the flood before he could stop his bicycle going down the hill.

I rode on at full speed among green fields. Sometimes I passed workmen on the road. More than one looked at me and commented on the great heat but none of them was aware of the fire that was overtaking their own homes close by in the valley. I told one or two but they laughed and gazed after me as if I were a madman. Nobody paid any attention to my words but went on their way as if nothing unusual were happening to England.

When the valley came in sight again, I saw people standing on the hills looking at the lava. When I told them I was heading to London, they answered, "London! It won't ever get as far as London!" That was the only place on the hills, as is now well known, where the flood was seen long enough beforehand to warn the inhabitants of the great city. But nobody thought of doing it and, I must say, even if they had done, there is not the slightest chance that the warning would be believed in London.

I now tried to decide on the fastest way to reach London. It is true the advance of the lava might slow down as it cooled. On the other hand, the lava might come out faster and hotter than before, as I had already seen it do more than once. It could even rise to the hills where I was standing. At the time, we could not guess how high it might rise and how large an area of the country it might destroy.

Still, in my anxiety to warn my wife and children, I wondered whether I should go down into the valley, and hurry along the main road to London. I thought of Ethel, alone in our little home, and almost made up my mind to risk it. At that moment, I became aware that the road to London was already crowded with cars and cycles, all dashing towards London. Suddenly a fresh wave of lava appeared at a corner. It was an awful sight. I cannot describe it. The poor creatures on the road, men and animals, rushed wildly, despairingly on. The fire took them from behind, and, one by one, before the actual sea reached them, I saw them shrink and melt in the white heat of the advancing flood. I could not look at it any longer. I certainly could not go down the hill as that would be instant death. I felt that my only chance was to ride across the hills and then to London.

After a long ride, I reached a suburb of London. Could I go down the hill to the town? I glanced across, once more by instinct, towards where I felt the River Thames must be, because I had never visited the spot before. A great white cloud hung over it. I saw what that must mean: it was steam from the river, where the lava made it boil.

At the time, however, I had no time to think about all this. I only knew by indirect signs that the flood was still advancing and it would, therefore, be impossible for me to head towards London by the direct route. If I wanted to reach the city, I must get to the valley at once, feeling sure it would lead me home to Ethel and the children.

I was just going down the hill, with a London suburb below me, when a slight and unimportant accident occurred which almost made it impossible to go further. It was past the middle of August. The fruit was being cut and, in this lane, there were many small branches. At any other time, I would have avoided them. That day, hurrying downhill for Ethel, I forgot them. The result was a flat tyre. I got off and examined it. I had a bad puncture. I tried putting more air in, hoping the hole might be small enough so that I could still ride the bike. But it was useless. I had to stop and repair the puncture.

I think it was the strangest time in all that long ride – this stopping impatiently, while the flood of fire still raced on towards London. A farmer passed by, suspecting nothing. That was another point which added horror to the occasion – that, so near the catastrophe, nobody was even aware what was taking place beside them. Indeed, as is well known, I was one of the very few who saw the eruption and managed to escape from it. Elsewhere, those people who tried to run in front of it, either to escape or to warn others of the danger, were overtaken by the lava before they could reach safety. I think this is mainly because most of them continued along the valley, or ran instinctively towards their homes, instead of going at once to the hills.

The farmer stopped and looked at me.

I glanced up at him, and hesitated. Should I warn him or was it useless?

"Keep up on the hills," I said, at last. "A calamity is happening in the valley. Fire is flowing down it from a great burning mountain."

He continued down the hill towards certain death.

It was hours, I feel sure, before I had repaired that puncture, though I did it by my watch in four and a half minutes. I passed down the main street of the suburban town, crying out loud as I went, "Run, run to the hills! A flood of lava is rushing up the valley! To the hills!" Nobody took any notice; they stood still in the street for a minute with open mouths, then they returned to their jobs. A quarter of an hour later, there was no main street in the town.

I met great crowds of people excitedly watching a thick cloud of smoke and steam that was spreading rapidly. They were trying to guess what it meant, but laughed when I told them what it was. A few minutes later, the smoke spread frighteningly towards London. It was clearly impossible to get into the city and the heat now became impassable. I thought I must give up all hope. I should never even know what happened to Ethel and the children.

My first impulse was to lie down and wait for the fire-flood. Yet the greatness of the catastrophe seemed somehow to lessen my own private grief. I was frantic with fear for my children, but I realised that I was only one among hundreds of thousands of fathers in the same position. What was happening at that moment in the great city of five million people we did not know, we shall never know. But we can guess that the end was too fast for most people to suffer. All of a sudden, I started to hope. It was my father's birthday. Wasn't it possible that Ethel might have taken the children to wish their grandfather a happy birthday?

Determined not to give up, I turned my bike in the direction of my grandfather's home in a village outside London, still staying on the hills as far as possible. My heart was on fire inside me. As all along the route, I was still just a minute or two in front of the catastrophe, people were beginning to understand that something was taking place. More than once as I passed, they asked me where the fire was. I couldn't believe by this time that they did not know of something I had lived through for months. How could I realize that all the things which had happened since I started from Cookham Bridge so long ago had taken place on a single morning? – in fact in only an hour and a half?

As I got nearer my grandfather's house, a terrible feeling hit me. Could Ethel be safe? Would I ever again see little Bertie and the baby? I pedalled on automatically. All the life had gone out of me. I did not breathe, my heart stood still. It was an awful moment.

At my father's door I stopped and opened the garden gate. I did not have the courage to go in. Though each second was precious, I paused and hesitated.

At last I turned the handle. I heard somebody inside. My heart came up in my mouth. It was little Bertie's voice: "Do it again, Granpa! Do it again!"

I rushed into the room. "Bertie, Bertie!" I cried. "Is Mummy here?"

He threw himself on me. "Mummy, Mummy, Daddy has come home."

"And Baby?" I asked.

"Baby and Ethel are here, George," my father answered, staring at me. "Why, my boy, what's the matter?"

I fell into a chair and broke down. At that moment, I felt that London was lost, but I had saved my wife and children.

I did not wait for explanations. A cart was moving by outside. I shouted at it and hurried my family on the back of it. My father wanted to discuss it, but I cut him short. I gave the driver three pounds – all the gold I had with me. "Drive on!" I shouted, "drive on! Out of London, anywhere!"

He drove as I asked him. We spent that night at an isolated farmhouse on the hills miles away from London and watched my father's village burn.

Next day, all the world knew of the disaster. It can only be summed up in five words: there was no more London.