Abdel poured the sergeant a cup of hot tea. The soldier leaned across the table, heaped three spoons of sugar into the cup, gave it a quick stir and then poured the contents into the saucer and began slurping. Carter, crunching on his toast, ignored the noise and signalled to Abdel to fetch his hat and coat.
There was a car waiting for them on the other side of the river. It spluttered into Luxor, scattering animals and children before it, and eventually drew up outside the building that the British Army was using as its headquarters.
Sergeant Adamson guided Carter through the entrance hall and down one of the narrow corridors to a small room. The door was open. Inside sat an officer chewing the end of his pencil. Adamson saluted.
“The gen’leman from The Valley, sir.”
Seeing the two at the door, the officer stood up and saluted back.
‘Typical starchy, vertical, chinless, public school product,’ Carter thought to himself. He felt a little uneasy, but he wasn’t sure why. He took off his Homburg and clutched it to his chest with both hands. The officer sat back down, drew out a sheet of paper and sharpened his pencil.
“Name?”
“Howard Carter, sir.”
“Cwistian name or surname?”
“Both, sir.”
“No. I mean ‘Howard’. That yaw surname or yaw cwistian name?”
“Christian name, sir.”
“‘Carter’. Also sounds like a cwistian name. That yaw middle name or yaw surname?” “Surname, sir.” “No more names?” “No, sir.” “How d’you spell it?” Blimey, thought Carter. ‘How long can this inane dialogue continue? He took a deep breath. “Aich Oh Double You Ay Are Dee...” “No. Surname first.” “See Ay Are Tea Ee Are.” “Now the cwistian name.” Carter’s raised voice showed irritation. He answered, each letter carefully
separated, “AICH OH DOUBLE YOU AY ARE DEE, LIEUTENANT.”
“Sir’ will do nicely, thank you. Date of birth?”
“May ninth, 1874. EM AY WYE...”
“Don’t twy to be funny. We don’t commend humour in His Majesty’s Armed Fawces. Sewious business, war. Wequiwes killing people, blood and whatnot.”
Carter rolled his eyes. His fingers tightened their grip on the fabric of his hat. ‘Why should I have to put up with this nonsense?’
The questions continued. “Mawwied?”
“No... sir.”
“Good. Don’t want mowr widows. Nasty job having to tell ’em.”
Carter felt himself chill. ‘He can’t be serious. This whatever they want me for this can’t be dangerous, surely?’
“Don’t think there’s any need for a medical. You look pwitty fit to me.
Wight... Sign here.”
“What am I signing, sir?”
“Just that you have been interviewed found fit for duty weady to serve your countwy all that sort of fing.”
“But what am I to be doing, sir?”
“Can’t tell you hush, hush and all that need to know basis only. You’ll be told what you need to know shawtly. In the meantime go and get yawself a cup of tea.” Then, even though there was no one there, he yelled over Carter’s shoulder, “Next!”
Carter was happy to leave the presence of this ‘commissioned product of our public school system’. But the tone of the officer’s earlier remark had disturbed him. ‘Surely he wasn’t to be sent to the front? He was too old... surely? The only thing he’d be good for would be translation. That was safe duty... surely?’
Boiling hot, copiously sugared tea out of a chipped, white, enamelled mug did little to quell his anxiety but he drank it down all the same. His hat on his lap, he sat at the canteen table looking down at the tea leaves in the bottom of his drained mug.
Then he heard the click of hobnails on the tiled floor outside. The canteen door opened and a military policeman appeared. The policeman drew himself to attention. “Mr Howard? Mr Howard?”
‘Blimey,’ thought Carter. ‘The scholar got my name wrong after all.’
“Here!” He smiled and got up.
“Major Dorking wishes to see you, sir. Please come this way.”
The MP led him noisily down a long, marble floored corridor until they reached a door with a white label pasted on it, which read: ‘MILITARY POLICE U.C.O.’
As the MP reached to knock on the frosted glass panel in the upper half of the door, Carter caught his arm. “What does ‘U.C.O.’ stand for?”
The MP stared at him for a moment and then furtively glanced both ways along the corridor.
“Under Cover Operations,” he whispered.
Carter’s eyes widened. He released the man’s arm and the soldier knocked.
There was a loud, stentorian shout from within. “Come!”
The MP opened the door and entered ahead of Carter. Snapping to attention and saluting he announced, “Mr Howard, sir.”
The major was sitting behind a collapsible metal desk covered in a mêlée of dossiers of various thicknesses, some more dog-eared than others. The man had a full beard.
‘No doubt hiding a weak chin,’ thought Carter. Indeed he was so hairy that Carter couldn’t see his teeth even when he spoke, just a ripple of hair.
“Glad to make your acquaintance, Mr Howard. Please take a seat.”
“It’s Carter, sir. Howard is my first name.”
“Me apologies, Mr Carter. Damned irregular filling your name in back to front like that. Sergeant, take this back to Lieutenant Horsell and get a new one and make sure it’s filled out correctly this time.”
“Sir!” The MP took the paper and was gone.
“Carter. Heard a lot about you. Understand you’re some kind of art dealer. Work in the bazaars a lot trade in antikas and the like got a lot of local contacts speak the language and all that.”
“I have done some trading, sir, yes. I am on good terms with most of my contacts. And I am fluent in Arabic written and spoken.”
“Just what the doctor ordered.” The major leaned closer as if there were others about who should not hear. He lowered his voice. “Y’see, we need someone to pick up on the local talk. Keep his ear to the ground, you understand. News of the Turks and such like. We believe there are spies in the bazaars working for the Turks keeping an eye on our movements and reporting back to their masters in Damascus. That’s where they’re bivouacked at present. We’d like to know who they are. We’ve got a man assigned to the Arab Bureau out of Cairo. He’s in the desert right now can’t remember which one moving with Faisal. Name’s Lawrence, Major Lawrence. Speaks the language like y’self.”
Carter had heard much of King Faisal but nothing of Lawrence. The name didn’t mean anything to him. ‘Rather him eating Arab food, riding camels and sleeping on carpets than I. So they want me to do the same thing. Snoop around the Arab community. I can do that. Safe duty in the bazaars of Luxor and Cairo.’
The major continued, “You will, of course, get some compensation for your trouble. Not much, but I’m sure it will come in handy. Ten shillings a day.”
“Most generous, sir,” commented Carter, now feeling less irritated and much relieved. “How do I do this reporting? And to whom do I report?”
“You’ll pass your information to Sergeant Adamson preferably by word of mouth kind of casually in bars and such like. He will never be in uniform when you meet. It’ll look like you’re meeting with a trading partner.”
Carter smiled. ‘Not ‘H’Aich Queue’ Adamson?’ he thought. It all sounded rather farcical. A game of undercover cops and robbers played by a mixed band of commissioned products of the British public school system, a common garden lackey who couldn’t speak the King’s English and an Arabic speaking archaeologist, acting as a spy.
“What kinds of information am I to look out for?”
“Any old information. You’ll know what’s important to us. You’ll know it when you hear it. We don’t expect you to make enquiries. Make you too obvious. Just keep listening. You’ll pick stuff up. Just be alert and report back to us
when you have something.”
Sergeant Adamson drove Carter back to the ferry.
“Looks like we is goin’ t’ work togever, sir. A h’absolute pleasure, sir. H’I’m really looking forwud to it. Which, may h’I ask, are your favourite bars?”
Carnarvon had returned to England half way through their first season in The Valley. It had been more like painstaking mining than excavation. The tons of debris they had moved had yielded nothing and there was so much more of the area as yet untouched. It would take years to clear everywhere to bedrock and great patience to see it through. For the time being, however, there were other, more urgent things on the earl’s mind. The armed forces were to requisition his home to serve as a convalescent hospital for soldiers recovering from their injuries.
As he rode back through the fields towards his house, Carter thought about his sponsor. ‘It is imperative he sticks with this. In his preoccupation with affairs at home perhaps he will forget these early disappointments and return refreshed, invigorated, energetic to do more. When this flap’s all over.’
As he neared his house, a dog barked. Gaggia ran out to welcome his returning master.
“How are you doing, you mangy old bastard, eh? Miss me? Abdel feed you, did he?”
Apart from his balding coat, the dog was fit enough, but he stank of the paraffin Carter had been using to treat his condition. The two trotted into the house and Carter went straight to the drinks cabinet and poured himself a gin. He sat back in his wicker chair, took a long draught and smiled.
‘So now I’m a spy. The feedstock of thrillers. Doing my bit for England.’ “To King and countwy!” he mimicked and took another swig. ‘Listening in to the conversations of the Arabs I go around with, I doubt I’ll find out a single thing of any use at all to the bloody war effort.’
As the alcohol began to take hold, he felt melancholy creeping over him. And, as he fell asleep, Miss Dorothy moved back into his dreams...
This summer in England had been truly wonderful. Howard had been as happy at other times but not in this way. She had not changed a bit. Always understanding, she had patiently accepted his reasons for not connecting in the previous seasons. Now, after all, the war had intervened and, sadly, no doubt there would be additional cause for extended separations. But this hardship they would share with millions of others. And a hardship shared is a hardship lessened, so they say.
They were reunited appropriately at teatime in the Ritz Hotel on Piccadilly. Dorothy had dressed in her newest outfit and, armed with a pretty flowered parasol, she had come prepared to take a walk in Green Park and enjoy the sunshine.
In the staid lounge of the hotel, over teacakes and crumpets with melted butter and assorted condiments, Carter recounted the adventures of the years they had missed together. He enlightened and amused her with stories of his conscription into the intelligence unit of the British Army in Egypt and his singular failure since to obtain one scrap of useful information on the Turks or their spies from his contacts in the bazaars of Cairo and Luxor. Perhaps there had been none for the taking.
At the same time, he confessed that he should not even have told her this ‘Idle Talk Costs Lives’ spoke the posters all about the streets. They both shared the comical irony with subdued giggles.
“Why don’t we take a promenade in the park, Howard? The weather is so lovely right now.” She leant forward and lowered her voice. “There we can talk without worrying if we are disturbing anyone or if anyone is eavesdropping!”
There were lots of couples and several families taking a walk in the park that day. A small boy ran past them spinning a hoop, lost control of it on the downward incline and, in his efforts to catch it, tripped and somersaulted on the grass. The hoop careered into a passing baby carriage, alarming the nanny pushing it but doing no real harm. She stood with the hoop in her hand looking all about for the culprit responsible for the incident. But the boy had the presence of mind to remain where he had ended up, sitting on the grass supported with his hands behind him, looking nonchalantly skyward. The baby began to cry. She dropped the hoop by the side of the pathway and pushed the pram on down the hill. The boy quickly recovered his toy and took off in the opposite direction.
Dorothy smiled. She took Carter’s arm and gave it a slight tug. “Let’s sit in the shade of that tree over there, Howard.”
They walked over to the base of the tree. Carter took off his jacket and spread it on the grass. She sat down and he sat next to her, took off his Homburg, unbuttoned his waistcoat and rolled up his shirtsleeves. He pulled a stalk of fresh grass and leant forward. With his arms about his knees he twiddled the stalk thoughtfully between his lips.
“Penny for them, Howard,” she said.
Carter sighed. Staring pensively ahead across the park he said, “I am forty. At least halfway through my life. A life so far full of halves. A strange existence is it not, Dot? I spend fully half my life digging up the past in pursuit of an unknown quarry. I don’t know what the next find will be how great, how small but I know that my goal is discovery, hopefully one day a great discovery and fulfilment. The other half of my life? The other half of my life...” His voice died away momentarily. “...It has no goal. I feel unfulfilled. It seems I am living an existence like a Dr Jekyll and a Mr Hyde. Every winter and spring Dr Howard Jekyll is fulfilling his needs attempting to exhume the Egyptian dead. Each summer and autumn Howard Hyde continues a frustrated search for fulfilment in the land of the living a so-called ‘normal’ life.”
“You are no Jekyll and Hyde to me, Howard,” Dorothy broke in. “It is not an ‘average’ life you lead, no, but it’s what you want. There is nothing ‘average’ about you, Howard.”
“If it were not for the unbearable summers, Dr. Howard Jekyll would be in Egypt the year round. He would need for nothing else. But there the summers are unbearable and so he comes here. And in coming here he finds he needs something else. Not now, though. Not today. Not now he is in good company.”
Dorothy smiled. ‘That’s better,’ she thought. ‘That wasn’t for effect. I do believe he means it.’
Carter ceased his staring into the middle distance and turned to look at her. He spoke quickly. “Dot, I do so enjoy your company. I would like for us to spend some time together. Are you doing anything the next few days? Will you come with me to visit the town where I grew up?” It took all his strength of will to get the words out.
“Oh, that would be such fun. I will have to rearrange some appointments. Nothing important. For next week, right?”
“Right. Next week. I could meet you at King’s Cross on Sunday. There is a train at two in the afternoon if they have not changed the schedule.”
His face reflected the pleasure of his anticipation. It was as if a great weight had been removed from his shoulders. Dorothy glowed back at him. They shared the moment. He slapped his thighs with excitement. They got up and walked on down the slope towards Buckingham Palace.
The following Sunday Carter purchased two first-class tickets at the station. They sat opposite each other in window seats. After a few minutes the drabness of the back streets was behind them and views opened up over wide expanses of farmland, hedgerows and copses. Each time he stole a look at her she was looking out the window. She caught him once and he flashed an embarrassed smile back, shifting his gaze to the outside once more. The smoke from the engine fell to the ground and billowed about their side of the carriage, temporarily extinguishing the view. They both instinctively drew back to look at each other. Meeting each other’s eyes at the same time, they both smiled. Carter felt compelled to speak.
“I have made two reservations at the White Heart in Swaffham. Small rooms, I’m afraid, but each has a washbasin and the bathroom is on the same floor. I have always found them cosy. And the food’s not bad either.”
“I’m sure it will be lovely, Howard. I am looking forward to this.”
“Please don’t raise your expectations too high, Dot. This is a farming community country folk,
country comforts, nothing more and nothing less.”
“On the contrary, Howard. My expectations are very high. At the very least, I do not expect to be disappointed.” She winked at him.
Carter couldn’t really fathom what she might mean by it and it troubled him when he couldn’t detect the meaning in things. He took it as sarcasm.
“Well, you might be.” It was all he could think of in response.
“I don’t think so. You haven’t disappointed me ever. This cannot be an exception.”
They arrived in the early evening and went straight to the inn. Carter registered for them both and they went up to their rooms to drop off their bags. Dorothy’s room was indeed small a solitary single bed; a dressing table with so little space between it and the bed that there was no room for a chair; she would have to sit on the foot of the bed to attend to her toilet.
It didn’t bother Carter. He had been used to so much worse in his various encampments in the desert. This was comparative luxury. Everything is relative.
Dorothy unpacked her things and hung them in the tallboy. She powdered her nose and went downstairs to join Carter in the lounge bar. He was sitting in a ‘snug’ in the corner halfway through his first gin. His eyes lit up as she arrived and he got up to show her to her seat.
“What’ll you have?”
She bit her lip pensively. “Mmm... a sweet sherry, I think. Thanks.”
He went over to the bar to order her drink and get himself another gin. She watched him. He was wearing the same creased and baggy grey tweed suit he had worn in London. The Homburg for once was not on his head and the obvious thinning on top was now clearly exposed. Although he was adequately presentable, Dorothy couldn’t help herself musing: ‘He does not look after himself well. He needs someone to take care of him. But would he allow it? He is not one to take orders or advice from others.’ She felt more of a maternal concern than a physical attraction for the man.
He, on the other hand, had metamorphosed at last. He was attracted to and very much enjoyed the company and conversation of this Miss Dorothy Dalgleish.
Carter turned to walk back to the table with the drinks. He allowed himself a few moments to drink in the pretty little vision before him. She had a heavenly round face, pale blue, smiling eyes and a perfect complexion. And, although petite and extremely slim, she had a firm and shapely chest. Whenever he had been with her, as now, she had been dressed to the neck. He had never seen any sign of cleavage. But there was some recognisably distinct fullness there pressing outward against the tight cotton of her print dress.
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