Fortunes of War Page 3

  ‘I’m Simon Boulderstone.’

  ‘Hugo’s brother?’

  ‘You know Hugo?’

  Simon turned in his seat, expecting to hear more from someone who knew Hugo, but the point of contact seemed merely to disconcert her and she spoke as though avoiding it, ‘I’m Harriet Pringle. This is Mr Clifford’s secretary, Miss Brown-all.’

  Miss Brownall, a wan-faced, elderly virgin, bent forward as her name was mentioned and watched his eagerly, waiting for him to speak, but he could think of nothing to say, and giving her a smile, he turned away again.

  Clifford waved at the windscreen and said, ‘There you are!’ and Simon, seeing the blunt, battered face of the Sphinx, gasped in amazement. Then came The Pyramids. He had been told he would see them at sunset but not that he would see them that very afternoon. And there they were, taking shape like shadows out of the haze — or, rather, one was taking shape, then another, smaller, pyramid sifted out from behind its neighbour and there were two, growing substantial and standing four-square on the sandy rock. To see them better, Simon put his head out of the window then, blinded by the dazzle of the outside air, drew it in again.

  The sun was overhead now and, with every inch it rose, the heat increased. The car, Simon felt, was a baking-tin, baked by the furnace outside. The roof pressed like a weight on its occupants and Simon envied Edwina who could sleep off her headache in bed. If he had stayed in Cairo he, too, might have been sleeping — but where could he sleep? Not in that barracks room with its smell of death. His head nodded and hit the side of the car. He sat up and heard Clifford speaking to the other three.

  ‘They say Wavell’s made plans for the evacuation of Cairo but, plans or no plans, it’ll be plain, ruddy murder. It’s already started. Every foreigner in Cairo’s piling into the trains, going while the going’s good. I don’t mean the British, of course. The real foreigners. The crowd that came here from Europe.’

  Harriet Pringle said, ‘We came here from Europe.’

  ‘I mean the foreign foreigners. Dagos. The gyppo porters are having a high old time at the station. I was there yesterday, saw them chucking the luggage about, roaring with laughter, bawling, “Hitler come”. It’s all fun now but wait till the hun really gets here.’

  The old man with the dog said, ‘I don’t know. Not a bad fellow, your gyppo. He may laugh at us but there’s no taking advantage. No insults, no rude words. I don’t think they will harm us.’

  Clifford let this pass but said after some minutes, ‘You’re not taking yourself off then, Liversage? Some of us, with jobs and homes here, will have to stay put, but you’re free to go any time.’

  Liversage cheerfully agreed, ‘Yes, I’m free to go, but I won’t unless they make me. I was pushed out of Sofia and pushed out of Greece, but now I’ll stay where I am. I don’t think they’ll bother about an old codger like me,’ and dismissing the matter, he leant into his corner of the car and closed his eyes.

  Simon, surprised by this talk of flight, said, ‘I heard there was an emergency but I didn’t know things were so bad. I mean, if it’s like that, it’s a bit odd, isn’t it, going on a sightseeing trip?’

  ‘Not really. No point in moping about in town. The trouble is, they’re keeping us in ignorance of the true situation. Bad policy, that, in my opinion. Ignorance breeds fear. I’d say, “Tell people the truth. Trust them to keep their heads.” By people, of course, I mean us. Not the wog. I wouldn’t tell the wog the time o’day.’

  Liversage mumbled through his sleep, ‘Merry fellow, your wog. Can’t help liking him.’

  Ignoring this, Clifford said, ‘First, we’ll take a look at the Saccara pyramids. That over there’s the step pyramid. Dangerous. No one’s allowed inside. But there’s another one . . .’

  Miss Brownall squeaked her alarm, ‘Not the one with the bats?’

  Clifford, with his air of authority, in his uniform that was not a uniform, asked sternly, ‘And why not the one with the bats?’

  ‘Oh dear!’

  The car turned left on to a track in the sand and shapes could be seen through the limitless fog of the distance. Approached, they were revealed as heaps of unbaked bricks that had once been pyramids. Now they stood like patient, waiting animals as Clifford made a dashing swerve in front of them and braked to a stop. The following car, trying to imitate the swerve, skidded and nearly rammed Clifford’s car. His expression fierce, he threw open his door but finding all well, he contented himself with the voice of leadership, ‘All out. All out.’ His followers, struggling from beneath the heat of each other’s elbows, emerged to a more spacious area of heat.

  Fly-whisk in one hand, torch in the other, Clifford pointed both objects at the largest and best preserved of the pyramids, ‘We’re going in this one,’ then realized that Mr Liversage was still in the car. Going smartly to it, he looked at the old man, saw he was asleep and let him remain. The rest he led to a hole in the pyramid’s flank.

  Harriet Pringle, loitering, last in the queue, seemed reluctant to enter. Simon paused so she could precede him into the dark, ragged opening in the bricks, but she shook her head, ‘I don’t like the look of it.’ The pyramid’s outer casing of stone had been looted away and the inner structure had sunk on itself like a ruined plum-pudding. ‘I don’t think it’s safe and I’m afraid of bats.’

  Simon laughed, ‘I’ll go ahead and scare them.’

  For a few yards they were able to walk upright, then the roof sagged and they had to bend to get under it. Ahead of them Miss Brownall was giggling and from the scuffling, scraping and grunting, it was clear that the others had been forced down on to hands and knees. Harriet stopped, then something caught in her hair and she turned and ran back to the daylight.

  Simon went on until he could feel space about him and heard people breathing. The air was cold. Clifford had switched off his torch to heighten the drama of arrival in the central chamber and the party stood in darkness until the stragglers arrived. As Simon joined them, Clifford relit the torch and shone it upon him: ‘All here?’ Then he saw that Harriet was not there and said with displeasure, ‘Where’s she gone?’

  ‘Mrs Pringle turned back.’

  ‘Oh, did she!’

  Wisely, too, Simon thought as he looked about him. The chamber was empty except for a stone sarcophagus of immense size. Everything else had been looted, even the sarcophagus lid. Not only was there nothing to see but Simon realized that to enter the place was foolhardy. The apex of the pyramid was breaking through the roof plaster and poised over their heads were several tons of bricks that could be brought down by the slightest earth tremor. Clifford, moving imperturbably beneath this peril, flashed his torch on to the decayed walls, saying, ‘Wonderfully fresh, these colours. Book of the Dead, y’know!’

  The others stood as though not daring to move and their murmurs sounded to Simon more apprehensive than admiring. Miss Brownall was slapping her bare arms and one of the men from the second car, feeling the chill, had wrapped a scarf under his chin and up over his trilby hat.

  ‘Well, Miss Brownall,’ Clifford humorously asked, ‘who do you think was buried here?’

  Miss Brownall said she could not say but the man with the scarf answered for her, ‘I would presume, yes . . . yes, I would presume it was Ozymandias, King of Kings.’ His precise enunciation did not suggest a joke but Clifford looked suspiciously at him.

  ‘Didn’t know there was an Ozymandias.’ To prevent further discussion Clifford made a quick move to an entrance in the further wall. ‘Now, this is interesting. Another passage. Let’s see where this leads.’

  As the others filed after him, Simon made his escape and came thankfully out to where Harriet was sitting on the ground, her back to the pyramid, sifting sand through her fingers. She had collected a small pile of blue beads and scraps of mummy cloth. ‘Look what I’ve found.’

  Simon sat down beside her and took the opportunity to ask, ‘Who is Mr Clifford? Is he very important?’

  ‘In a way, I
suppose he is. He’s an agent for an oil company, but he’s not as grand as he’d like to be. He doesn’t belong to the set that plays polo and gives gambling parties so, to show his superiority, he’s taken to Ancient Egypt in a big way.’

  ‘I suppose he is English? Which part does he come from?’

  ‘You mean his accent? It’s a Clifford accent. He’s English but doesn’t come from England. The Cliffords have lived here for generations. The men go home to find English wives so the family maintains its Englishness. Their traditions are English, but their money is not. I wonder, if the gyppos turned on us, which side he’d be on?’

  ‘Turned on us? You don’t really think they’d turn on us after all we’ve done for them?’

  Harriet laughed at him, ‘What have we done for them?’

  ‘We’ve brought them justice and prosperity, haven’t we? We’ve shown them how people ought to live.’

  With his face close to her, seeing his clear skin, the clear whites of his eyes, the defined dark blue of the iris, she thought, ‘How young he is!’ Until now she had taken it for granted that her generation was the youngest of the adults but she realized that in the two years of her marriage, a yet younger generation had come into the war. They arrived in Egypt, fresh and innocent, imbued with the creed in which they had been brought up. They believed that the British Empire was the greatest force for good the world had ever known. They expected gratitude from the Egyptians and were pained to find themselves barely tolerated.

  ‘What have we done here, except make money? I suppose a few rich Egyptians have got richer by supporting us, but the real people of the country, the peasants and the backstreet poor, are just as diseased, underfed and wretched as they ever were.’

  Aware of his own ignorance, Simon did not argue but changed course. ‘Surely they’re glad to have us here to protect them?’

  ‘They don’t think we’re protecting them. They think we’re making a use of them. And so we are. We’re protecting the Suez Canal and the route to India and Clifford’s oil company.’ Disturbed by Simon’s troubled eyes, Harriet stood up asking, ‘And where is Clifford? What are they doing in there?’

  ‘Exploring another passage. I must say, he’s pretty brave. The roof’s so shaky, it could come down any minute.’

  ‘He’s showing off. He’s challenged by you.’

  ‘Me? Why me?’

  ‘Because you’re a fighting man and he ought to be, but isn’t.’

  ‘Oh, he needn’t worry about me. If he wants to keep out of it, all I can say is good luck to him.’

  They could hear Clifford’s voice as the party returned. Harriet opened her hand, full of tiny blue beads, and scattered the beads over the sand: ‘They’ve been here for two thousand years. Now they can stay for another two thousand.’

  Clifford, coming out frowning and blinking in the brilliant light, looked sardonically at her. ‘So, young lady, you were afraid to come with us?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Nonplussed by this admission, Clifford turned on the others. ‘Right. Back to the cars. I’ll show you a very remarkable tomb.’

  ‘The funny one?’ asked Miss Brownall.

  ‘Yes, the funny one.’

  Clifford spoke sternly and he looked stern as he swung the car away from the dark mounds that had once been pyramids and headed them into the dazzling, swimming nothingness of the desert horizon. Silver mirage now hid the sand and, from it, oddly elongated rocks and stones stood up like wading birds. Everyone except Clifford was silent, stupefied by the atmosphere inside the car. Simon imagined them cooking, their flesh softening and melting into fat, while Clifford talked away. Apparently unaffected by the heat, he described the tomb he said he had discovered. It was — and here Miss Brownall gave eager agreement — unlike any other tomb anyone had discovered before. Absorbed by his own discovery, he ran the car off the track and Harriet, clutching at a metal handhold, cried out that her fingers were burnt.

  ‘Is it always as hot as this?’ Simon asked.

  ‘This is only the beginning. Next month will be worse. They used to think Englishwomen and children could not endure such heat but now we have to stay here, we find we endure it quite well.’

  An outcrop of rock was appearing in the distance and Clifford said ‘This is it. Now you’ll see something.’

  The cars stopped and the passengers struggled out again. They were immediately assailed by flies that settled with sticky feet on to sticky hands and faces. Clifford, flapping his whisk about, said, ‘Don’t know what God was thinking about when he created flies.’

  Miss Brownall, modest in her knowledge, asked, ‘Weren’t they created to plague the Egyptians?’

  Harriet agreed. ‘The plagues came and never went away again.’

  Simon began to describe the millions of flies he had seen, a black blanket of flies, all heaving together on the banks of the Red Sea, but Clifford, having no interest in this talk, ordered the party to follow him into the rock tomb.

  Simon remained a moment to observe a fly motionless on the back of his hand, its mottled grey and black body covered by transparent wings that gave it a greasy look. It seemed too large, like a fly seen through a magnifying glass. He tried to shake it off but it remained, heat-struck, and having no heart to kill it, he brushed it away.

  ‘Don’t lag behind, chaps,’ Clifford shouted. ‘Come on. Stick together—’

  They passed through an opening into the semi-darkness of a large cave. The masons had squared it up and plastered the walls, then the artists had marked in the areas to be decorated but they had done no more. Some of the spaces had been roughly brushed in with red or white. Clifford, pointing to them, said, ‘Have you ever seen anything like this? Isn’t it extraordinary?’

  There was a questioning silence then Harriet said, ‘Not really. It’s merely unfinished. They started to decorate it then, for some reason, the work came to a stop.’

  Miss Brownall drew in her breath as though she feared for Harriet’s safety and Clifford did indeed look angry. ‘Why should they stop?’

  ‘The usual reasons. Demand falling off. New religions taking over. New ideas. Or prices going up and the tomb-makers going out of business. It’s interesting to see that in ancient Egypt things ended just as they have always done.’

  ‘Perhaps. Perhaps not.’ Clifford was discouraging but one of the men from the second car said, ‘I think Mrs Pringle is right. It’s just an unfinished tomb.’

  Clifford grunted, ‘That’s merely supposition. Anyway, there’s more to see.’ He led the way down some rough steps into a small, lower cave where shelves had been cut in the rock. Here the walls were unplastered and there were no painted guidelines or panels. Looking about the empty tomb where no soul had sought instruction and no instructions were given, Harriet felt sorry for the builders who had been forced to abandon their work. While Clifford flashed his torch about, trying to whip up interest in a place that had ceased to be interesting, Harriet looked up and saw they were all crowded together beneath a gigantic stone that was poised, ready to be lowered on to the hole when all the shelves had been filled. She murmured in horror and sped up the steps and into the safety of the open air.

  Simon, hurrying after her, asked, ‘What’s the matter? Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes. It was that stone. If it had suddenly slipped, we would have been buried alive down there.’ At the thought of their death in the darkness and heat of that underground hole, she was convulsed with fear. ‘No one would ever have known what had happened to us.’

  Clifford, his followers behind him, approached Harriet with a satisfied smile. ‘You’re very jittery, aren’t you? That stone’s been propped up there for over a thousand years. Did you think it was waiting to come down on you?’

  She knew she was jittery. She had come jittery out of Rumania and then out of Greece, and now she lived in expectation of being driven out of Egypt. She said, ‘I’m sorry. I was silly. I’m inclined to be claustrophobic.’

  Appeased b
y her admission of weakness, Clifford smiled benignly and said they would go to the Fayoum and have their picnic under the trees. The promise of picnic and trees pleased everyone and the oasis, when they came to it, gave them an illusion of relief. There was shade from the massed foliage of palms, sycamores, banyans and mangoes, but it was heavy rather than cool. The sunlight, falling in shafts through the branches, lit dust motes in the air. Dust veiled everything, the dust of the road silenced their feet. Women, walking bare footed with pots on their heads, moved with a dream-like quiet, their black draperies grey with dust. Small houses stood by the road, simple cubes of whitewashed clay, with unglazed windows from which came the smoke of burning cow-cake. The warm, dry smell of the cow-cake smoke hung everywhere on the air.

  Where the road opened into a Midan there was a sphinx, its nose rubbed off by time, and here the cars stopped under the trees. Car rugs were spread out on the sand, packets of cakes and sandwiches were taken from the boot of Clifford’s car and everyone sat down, waiting for Miss Brownall to make tea on a spirit-stove. Sitting in the steamy shades, they watched camels plash by, grunting morosely, heads held high in contempt of the creatures they were forced to serve.

  No one was hungry except Simon who had had nothing since his canteen breakfast, but he was reluctant to eat food to which he had not contributed.

  ‘Tuck in. Tuck in,’ Clifford shouted at him, and everyone who had brought food urged it upon him. Simon tucked in.

  The heat now had a leaden weight so even the flies were stilled. The sun had passed its meridian and the light was taking on an ochre tinge that gave to the trees and the sandy air an antique richness. They all sat bowed, drowsy, and Harriet felt they had lost the present and were in some era of the remote past. Then Miss Brownall came round with cups of tea. They roused themselves and began to talk. The man who had spoken of Ozymandias, unwound his scarf from his hat and, sipping his tea, watched Harriet from the corners of his eyes. After some moments, he began fidgeting across the rug towards her, making an introductory mumbling and creaking in his throat that at last became words.