A Spider In The Eye

by Mark Hayes

  Generally, I have no issues with the monuments of triumphalism that so grace Imperial architecture. Yet somehow, building a two hundred foot high statue of Old Iron Knickers herself, with arms outstretched to form airship moorings, within a mile of the Giza pyramids, struck me as a tad overdone.

  British rule in Egypt had been going on for almost a century and a half. Keeping the peace between the native factions with typical Imperial diplomacy whenever possible and by force whenever necessary. Its official status was that of a protectorate, and as such, the ancient kingdom had thrived. Not that some of the locals appreciated it over much. Occasionally left-wing agitators, and religious factions would kick up a fuss, or flare up little insurrections. But I have never met a wealthy Egyptian that complained about their nation’s protectorate status, while the poor would be poor anyway. I doubt they cared who they called master.

  I took the lift down to the ground, where I walked out into the desert sun and a wave of heavy dry heat I hadn’t expected. The breeze on the walkways had masked the heat of the morning. Down on the ground, the air as dead as dreams of independence. As old Ra beat down on my head, I wished that I’d a hat with me at the very least. What’s the old saying about mad dogs and the midday sun? Well, it’s a good saying. The sweat was soon running from my brow, and it was only mid-morning, a fact I found mildly distressing. I’d served most of my career on short hauls and patrols around northern Europa and the Baltic States. I wasn’t used to the heat of tropical climes. Experiencing the desert heat made me even less eager to spend time in India. Of course, I was unaware of how cold it gets in the lost valleys of the Himalayas at the time, but I am getting way ahead of myself there.

  I flagged down a steam camel, or whatever they called the weird contraptions that pass for taxis. What I wouldn’t have given for a Hanson cab, though in truth I’d have given more to be catching one up to Piccadilly and a few of my old haunts.

  The contraption jerked and rocked, like a real camel as it fumbled its way along. Whoever thought it was a good idea to raise a boiler engine up on four stilts then attach unsprung wheels was, I decided, an idiot. An inventive idiot with a certain measure of genius, but an idiot all the same. A real camel would have been far more suited to the sandy road that led up to the pyramids.

  As I rode the damnable thing, I remembered hearing at some point in the past that some people have been known to get seasick on the back of a camel. It’s one of the reasons they get called ‘the ship of the desert’ in the first place. As an idea, it had always sounded a little absurd to me, until I sat on the back of that infernal contraption. Shared misery does wonders for empathy, I find.

  The ride, if the pitching and yawing about like a dingy in a force nine gale could be called such, took about ten minutes. The driver twittered on for the whole drive, in between furiously lashing at the device with a small whip. As a method of driving the machine, it made no sense to me. All I could think was the driver was hitting it with a stick because that’s how you got a real camel to do anything. I tried to ask the driver about this, but his English was so broken and accented he might as well have been speaking his own language for all I followed what he was saying. About the most I managed to gather between a flurry of Arabic insults he hurled at the machine was ‘Designed, be like real camel, but three times faster.’ Given as to how I was being tossed about more than a fat girl on a waterbed, I’m not sure it was worth the speed.

  At the foot of the ancient majestic monuments to the time of the pharaohs, there were a bunch of tourist centres. All flying the flag as it were, the old Union Jack that is. It struck me, as such places always did, a symptom of the British abroad, to always seek to recreate the old country. Visiting the pyramids was like visiting Lake Windermere at the height of the season, or some old castle in Cornwall. Little gift shops, café’s and cake stalls lined the road. Of course, there were local stalls pitted about as well, to add some authenticity to it all. Selling cheap Bakelite models of the great pyramid, with a little union flag sticking out of the top. But other than that it could be any attraction in England. Well, if it weren’t for the dust and heat. The odd pile of camel dung. The locals, shouting in Arabic. And of course, the tents pitched between tea shops selling carpets and steam bongs. In effect, it was all the bits of Britain I missed the least. All cream teas, tat and polite little finger sandwiches.

  I wandered amongst the shops looking for some place called The Victoria Tea Parlour where I was supposed to be meeting Miss Wells. It was an exercise in dodging beggars and hawkers alike. I’d no doubt there would be pickpockets too, but I relied on the uniform and my demeanour to dissuade anyone from taking a dip. Any good pickpocket knows a bad mark when they see one, and even a bad dipper knows better than to dip a uniform.

  The day was getting hotter, and my temper was getting the better of me when I had to shove away another Arab trying to sell me a ‘genuine’ statuette of Ra from Tutankhamun’s tomb. Judging by how many of them I was being offered old Tut must have had a tomb larger than the great pyramid itself. Ancient Egypt’s lower kingdom must’ve extended further than Egyptologists believed as well, as one had a ‘Made in Stoke on Trent’ sticker on its base. Still, it was good to see the potteries could still find a market for their tat, if nothing else.

  Finally, after an argument with a man selling sweetmeats about my lack of desire to taste his candied goat parts, I spotted a little tea parlour, nestled between the front paws of the Sphinx. Which was both my intended destination and the worst example of Imperial encroachment I’d seen so far in Giza.

  Luckily, I also spotted Maythorpe along with a couple of thugs in uniform I took to be the local police. They both wore fezzes with goggles attached on spring drops, as well as copper epaulettes that must’ve been like strapping hot-plates to your shoulders in this heat. I was, however, more concerned about the side arms in their white leatherette holsters. It was obvious that Maythorpe hadn’t yet given up on the idea of feeling my collar. I’d have called him an idiot, but the words I actually muttered under my breath were somewhat more choice.

  I ducked between two stalls and tried to be inconspicuous. As I was wearing my Company uniform, that was not as easy as it might have been. Red really is not the colour to wear if one is trying to sneak around. Despite this impediment, I did my best to remain hidden from view and watched the ever-earnest Maythorpe direct the police about their business. Wondering to myself what Maythorpe was doing when the theory of ambushes was explained at Sandhurst. Why he thought standing around in the middle of the road in uniform with two policemen at his side was a good plan, I can’t imagine.

  Regardless, with Maythorpe being so conspicuous I was tempted to chalk the whole expedition off as a bad idea. I was about to turn round and return to the ship, when a fight broke out between two local stall holders. They started yelling at each other in Arabic, that most aggressive of languages to my British ears. For all I knew they could’ve been lovers quarrelling, or two old friends happy to see each other, and sharing a boisterous joke. Though judging by the reaction of the two local policemen with Maythorpe, it was more serious than that. The local fuzz, or should that be fez, ran in to stop the argument escalating to violence as one of the stall holders pulled a knife from under his robes, all of which added further to the general ruckus.

  Maythorpe didn’t help matters, running after the fez shouting the odds. He was greatly irritated by the sound of him. From my hidden vantage point I found it hard not to laugh at the fool, so laugh I did, as he gesticulated wildly at the officers. He was clearly of the school of thought which dictated that when you spoke to the natives, you did so loudly and with much arm waving to negate the language barrier. The two fez equally clearly didn’t give a damn about what he had to say right then. They had their hands full with the man with the knife and a crowd enthusiastically egging him on. It was the kind of street theatre that was the same the world over.

  It was petty of me to laugh, I am sure, but I am a petty man at times
, and seeing Maythorpe’s ill-conceived plans go to ruin pleased me no end.

  Small victories and what not.

  I was still laughing to myself when someone came up behind me. I caught a whiff of perfume, which considering the overwhelming smell of the market, camel and scones are an odd mix, came as a pleasant new assault on my senses. Not least, because I recognised the scent from the Captain’s cabin the previous day.

  “The thing about arranging a distraction, my dear Mr Smyth, is once those you’re distracting are, not to put too fine a point on it, distracted, one needs to make the most of it,” the wearer of the perfume said, while nudging me forward gently but with a certain firm insistence.

  “Of course, Miss Wells, of course,” I said, still in good humour and, taking the hint, I walked towards the tea room, skirting the edge of the baying rabble. Maythorpe had now progressed from gesticulation to outright arguing with the local fez, loudly too, just to add to the general uproar.

  It was a measure of my buoyant mood that as I fell into step with the delightful Miss Wells, I wasn’t even fazed by her looming, ever present, companion. She did hurry us along, however, no doubt as aware as I was that the distraction would only last so long and the irritating Maythorpe would undoubtedly be a problem once more when order was restored. Though as a local fez steam wagon turned into the street, air horns blaring I came to the conclusion it might be a while before everything calmed down.

  I risked a look over my shoulder as we ducked through the curtain draped over the doorway. In time to see the knife wielder throw his blade aside and shrug at all the fuss, while Maythorpe was surrounded by half a dozen fez now. All of whom seemed more interested in arguing with the English officer than arresting anyone. Maythorpe seemed incandescent with rage, though it might just have been sunburn.

  Inside the café, we were greeted by an Arab woman who was dressed for a Dorsett country fair. She even had a hint of a West Country accent mixed in with her local patois. This made for a strange mix of language.

  “Take a seat my loves, and the prophet watch over you,” she said as she showed us to a private sitting room in the back of the tea shop. It had a fine red leather settee with odd brass handles on the arms, nestled into the corner, but no other seats, or even a table beside it. Which struck me as a little peculiar.

  While it was, of course, improper of me to join Miss Wells on the settee, she indicated that I should sit beside her, so who was I to argue? Besides, such gentlemanly manners as I might possess were not going to get in the way of sitting beside her if she wanted me to.

  “You may want to hold on, my loves, Allah be merciful,” the Dorsettian Arab said from behind her veil, as she wiped her hands on her daisy print cotton pinny. Before this had a chance to register as an odd thing to say, there was a loud clunking sound. The settee heaved, and as the floor began to rise around us, I realised that she meant the handles and not to each other.

  To be more exact, the floor was not actually rising, as was my first befuddled impression. Instead, the settee had started to descend down through the floor, or rather the section of flooring it was stood upon did.

  “What the hell?” I managed to say, aghast.

  “I did say we should have tea beneath the Sphinx,” Miss Wells replied, sitting primly, with one hand nestled on the brass handle at her side, and an utter lack of concern on her face. Her self-confidence managed to make my own surprise seem all the more foolish.

  At the corner of the settee, there was a small mechanical music box. A wax cylinder within it started to turn as we descended and a slightly irritating tune began to play. Crackling badly and partially drowned out by the sound of heavy cogwheels grinding at the side of the settee, it was nonetheless recognisable as the one about the girl from that beach resort in Brazil, going for a stroll.

  ‘DoBee, DoBee, Do Do, DoooBi,

  DoBee, DoBee, Do Do, DoooBi….’

  This was, I decided, quite the most irritating thing to happen to me all morning.

  CHAPTER THE TENTH

  Below The Sands

  “Mr Smyth. It’s so good to see you in more auspicious circumstances. You’re acquainted with Miss Wells as well, I see. How positively delightful. Do please come through.”

  The man speaking wasn’t one I ever remembered meeting. He was also, how can I put this, ‘odd’ is perhaps the best word, though it doesn’t really convey very much. Odd is such a bland word at times. Uncanny perhaps would be closer to the mark. There was definitely something uncanny about him. Unsettling too come to that.

  It was, I concluded, the spectacles that did it, definitely the spectacles. The lenses were just too thick; they magnified his eyes in such a way that when you looked straight at him, it was like looking at them through a pair of goldfish bowls. It was that and the way his hair was permanently greased down flat like limp seaweed out of the water. He also seemed to be always smiling too hard, as if he was making himself do so because smiling was a human thing to do and he wished to appear human. Which as that’s what he was, was all the more odd, when you think about it. There was this forced quality about him, a desperation to be liked, but in trying so hard to be likeable, he failed utterly in that goal. To be honest just looking at him made my skin crawl.

  I’ll admit a little hindsight may be creeping into my description here, but even with the merest of first impressions, I could tell he was an oddball, in a way that made even the oddest of people seem normal in comparison.

  “Hannibal and I are barely acquainted, Mr Gates,” Miss Wells replied, somewhat stiffly before I could say anything myself. I got a distinct impression from her tone that she didn’t much like the man who’d been waiting to greet us when the sofa reached the bottom of the shaft.

  For his part, he didn’t seem to notice.

  “Oh I am sure you will be in due time. You are after all both working towards the same goal and doing so under protest. Such things draw people together, or so they tell me,” he said, still smiling.

  I wasn’t sure I followed what he was saying. I wasn’t entirely sure he knew much about people either. He did, however, seem to be implying that Miss Wells was working for The Ministry under duress, not unlike myself. I filed that little snippet away for future reference.

  “I’m surprised they let you out of the lab, Mr Gates,” Miss Wells said, a touch of venom in her voice.

  “Mr Gates…” I muttered, with vague civility, while holding out my hand for a shake. His name rang bells in the back of my mind, though right at that moment I couldn’t tell you why.

  He looked at my hand as if for all the world he’d no idea what to do with it. Then looked back up at me with that same false smile. Miss Wells shook her head at me to signal I was wasting my time, so I shrugged and put my hand back down. A tad more disconcerted than before, if that was possible.

  “Erm, yes, well… M wishes to discuss things with you both in the meeting tomb,” Gates said, then turned and began to lead us away through the complex.

  I tried not to think about the word ‘tomb’, assuming, quite wrongly it turned out, that it was a slip of the tongue.

  “Is he entirely all there?” I whispered to Miss Wells as we walked a few paces behind him.

  The lady, however, declined to comment, taking a sharp breath instead and just shaking her head at me as we followed Gates around the corner. Which was where we walked past the first of the Sleep Men.

  It was standing stock still in an alcove, so still indeed that he could’ve just been a manikin. Though I’ve yet to see a day when fashion’s ever whimsical nature dictates a Harrods dummy be dressed in a heavy black woollen coat, top hat, and gas mask. It gave me a shiver to see him, despite the heat which was as prevalent down there as it was above ground. That they could dress so in such heat just made them seem even less human, if that was possible.

  That Miss Wells’s own guardian was a few steps behind us, keeping steady pace as his iron-shod boots hit the stone floor with an eerie rhythm did nothing to help my unea
se. I had expected the one she in tow. He had been there every other time I had seen her after all. I had, however, hoped to avoid any more of them. A hope in which it would seem I was going to be very disappointed. The one in the corridor was only the first down there. We passed several more as we moved through the complex of dusty hallways and rusting iron doors.

  The stones looked old. The doors, for all their rust, actually looked new in comparison. Installed by craftsmen who clearly had cared more about the practical than the aesthetic. Steel bolts had been driven into the sandstone walls, and frames hammered into place.

  There were paintings on the walls. Ancient things, the like of which you would expect to see in a museum. Egyptian of course. Those odd little pictograms, and figures in odd hats. The paintings were all flecked and worn but still impressive for all that. As we walked, I realised the whole complex stretched out under the sphinx and must have dated back millennia. For all, I knew the pyramids themselves were constructed over those same ancient tunnels. Hidden away under the desert sands, lost and forgotten, until the British Empire decided to co-opt them for its own nefarious needs. Raking scratches into walls and pictograms as they hung doors and bulkheads alike with little thought for posterity. Rigging up lights down forgotten corridors, by stringing up cables with galvanised hooks, with the same lack of regard for the history within those walls. An Egyptologist would have a fit were they to see the damage the Empire had done here.