Tutankhamun Uncovered

  The rabble was suitably impressed. Without argument, they began the difficult climb back up the rope to the cliff top, Carter checking each man for contraband before he handed him the rope. He found none.

  About thirty minutes later, Carter sat alone on the edge. He turned his face upward and shouted toward his colleagues at the top.

  “Sheikh Mansour! I am going inside! Hold the rascals until I return!”

  Gaggia barked an acknowledgement.

  Carter got down on all fours and dragged himself into the small aperture the robbers had excavated in the tomb entrance. It was an arduous and uncomfortable journey down the narrow, rubble filled tunnel. Because of the tomb’s situation at the bottom of a cleft, the tunnel had completely filled with flood debris and was almost totally choked. After about fifty feet the robbers had reached a wall of limestone. At this point they had excavated in many directions, searching for a way onward, eventually discovering that the way ahead was to the right. This far into the tomb, the amount of debris lessened and there had been no need for further tunnelling. Carter scrambled down the pile of rocks choking the passageway until he reached the chamber floor. Here his torchlight caught the yellow translucence of a quartzite sarcophagus lying open at the edge of another passage which itself descended yet further into the darkness. The sarcophagus was impressive but empty, and there seemed to be little else about. He crawled on down the passage in the hope of finding more below. But he was to be disappointed. Water filled the cavity ahead and he was unable to penetrate any further. So far as he could see the robbers had gone to considerable effort, not to mention risking their lives, to find nothing of value that was in any way portable.

  Gaggia barked with anticipation as Carter pulled himself back up the rope and re-established himself safely with his colleagues at the top of the cliff.

  He turned to the anxious sheikh. “Search them once more and, if you find nothing, let them go. They can have found little, if anything, of value. The tomb is almost completely filled with rocks from the flooding. It requires careful excavation. We shall begin tomorrow. I am tired and I hurt, it seems, everywhere! Post a guard. Let’s get back.”

  The journey back down to Castle Carter seemed to be over almost as soon as it had begun. Carter had fallen asleep the instant he’d sat himself on the donkey. The combined effects of mental stress, physical exhaustion and lack of sleep had at last caught up with him. How he managed to stay upright during the rocking, rolling and sometimes stumbling descent was a mystery a kind of narcoleptic balancing act. He fell into bed as the sun was rising.

  There was something familiar about the banging on the door that dragged him unwillingly out of his slumber and into the daylight.

  “Sar’nt Adamson, sir, h’at your service. H’I ’ave been sent by the Colonel to h’ask you to front h’up at ’is quarters h’as soon as you are h’able, sir. H’if you please, sir.”

  “What is it this time, sergeant? I thought the army had no more need of my services.”

  “H’on the contrary, sir. You h’are a h’integrool part h’ov the war effit. H’England cannot do wivout you, sir. So h’I am led to believe.”

  “Indeed, sergeant. Indeed. Well, what is it this time?” Carter knew what the answer would be.

  “’Ush, ’ush, sir. H’as you is aware. H’in the Intelligence Service no one knows wot h’anyone does.”

  “Surprise, surprise,” muttered Carter under his breath.

  “Beggin’ yer pardon, sir?”

  “Nothing, sergeant. Just trying to shake the sleep out of my eyes. I have been up all night.”

  “H’oh, sorry, sir. H’Abdel didn’t say. H’I wouldn’t ’ave burst in like this ’ad I known.”

  “Abdel didn’t answer the door?”

  Adamson paused. “Well... no. Not now you mention it, sir. No, maybe ’e didn’t. H’I do believe h’I burst in ’ere h’unannounced, as it were. Me apologies, sir.” And with a continuing lack of feeling, “Can you please get dressed quickly, sir? The colonel’s waiting.”

  Carter took his time. The army could wait. “Abdel! Abdel! Wake up, man. I need you at once!”

  Abdel appeared at the door in a state of partial consciousness.

  “Ah. Good man. I have to go to the UCO over the river. While I’m away I want you to get the fellahs organised with a reis. Hosein will do if he’s available. Get back to the tomb and begin clearing the entrance passage. It will not be easy. Get them to construct a gantry of some kind so that the men can access the place more easily and in greater safety. Be sure they sift everything for broken stuff. I want a full accounting when I return. Well... Get on with it!”

  The servant left the room. It would be some hours before he had regained his senses sufficiently to begin doing what his master had asked of him. In the meantime Carter accompanied Adamson to UCO HQ. He hadn’t met the colonel before.

  ‘This has to be important,’ he thought. Colonels have no time for civilians unless they really need them.

  His conviction that the matter had to be so important was reinforced when he found himself admitted to the colonel’s presence immediately he arrived at HQ.

  “Carter! Alhamd’Allah!” The colonel stood up as soon as he saw Carter enter the room. “Name’s Lawrence. Damned pleased to meet you at last. Please sit down.” He waved towards the only chair on the opposite side of his desk.

  Carter took his seat and looked the colonel up and down. He was not a big man by any means and was extremely thin, thin to the point that his linen uniform hung off him so loosely that he almost assumed the form of a tube. An incongruously large wristwatch was strapped around the outside of his left sleeve. He wore an Arabic headdress, as many did in these parts, it being the most practical for relief from the heat. This one was unusual in that it was far more extravagant in both the design and the quality of material than any Carter had seen before. The colonel had it draped, it seemed purposefully, about his shoulders. The head cloth framed a large, elongate face, somewhat out of proportion with the rest of the body. Carter looked into the deep blue of his eyes. They seemed strangely sad. There were no smile lines radiating from them. There was an intensity in his gaze. The colonel stared directly at him.

  “Mr Carter,” he began. “I know a bit about you. But this is the Intelligence Service, is it not? So you would expect that, would you not?” he smiled. “Actually I know a bit about you not through the IS but through reputation. You are very well known in these parts. I am sure you are aware. Well respected as an artist; as a trader; as an Egyptologist; as an Arabist; as a linguist. I have long wanted to make your acquaintance. I think we have much in common. Hopefully we can be friends.”

  Carter was puzzled by the man. He was different from those he had previously met in the UCO. There was an educated, even scholarly feel about him an academic, surely. He had an aura of confidence and sophistication that came only from a solid education at a very good school. At the same time, however, he seemed one who had endured experiences in the extreme. One who had been touched by horror more than once. It was in the face. Carter was greatly intrigued. His personal curiosity and his empathy for the man compelled him to listen.

  The colonel continued. “But you will be anxious to know why I have summoned you here. The fact is, I need your specific skills to help me with the problem which now faces me. And I mean me, not the king’s army.”

  ‘That’s a relief!’ thought Carter.

  “I am temporarily in Cairo. Spend most of my time in the desert. But right now I’m having to put up with Allenby and his entourage. Career army you know the type not good for anything else. Not much of a gift for fighting either, if you ask me. Anyway, Allenby’s in the process of mustering a large force to support Faisal against the Turks. It’s going to require a lot of artillery big bang stuff. While he’s engaged at that, my job is to cut the Turkish lines of supply. The Turks are using the railway infrastructure which bridges the deserts. We ambush the trains. Sounds dangerous but actually it isn’t.
It’s pretty easy really. The Turks aren’t that well prepared think that when they’re out in the middle of nowhere no one in their right mind would bother to come all that way through all that nothingness to clobber their train. They forget that the desert is the Arab’s backyard. We fall on them wherever we wish.”

  “We?” asked Carter.

  “Well, me really, and my Arab militia. Guerrillas if you like.”

  Carter’s earlier uneasiness was creeping back. What is he leading up to? Could this mean they at last have come to summon me to the front? “Never mind that. The subject of our meeting has nothing to do with the war.”

  The Egyptologist’s sigh of relief was almost audible.

  “Mr Carter, my travels through many deserts have taken me to and through places that no Englishman has ever seen very few living men of any race for that matter. In the course of my work I come across objects left by the ancestors of the desert’s present landlords. Ancestors, I believe, who in fact did not live in deserts but were, during their lives, surrounded by lush vegetation and fertile fields all this now turned to barren sand and bare rocks. I have been fortunate enough to have been schooled in the literary arts and in language but, although I have read archaeology, my schooling has lacked any depth of teaching in the ageing of antiquities. Please enlighten me about these...”

  So saying, the colonel bent down and picked up a large and clearly weighty sack and placed it on the desk between them.

  Carter helped the colonel untie the cord about the neck of the sack and they opened the mouth fully, rolling the hessian down until the top of the pile of objects, each wrapped rather awkwardly in newspaper, was revealed. As he unwrapped the first, Carter couldn’t believe his eyes. This man truly had an eye for quality. It was a Neolithic hand axe of beautifully polished, frosted quartzite.

  The colonel looked at him expectantly. “It’s Neolithic,” said Carter. “Perhaps six thousand years old maybe older.”

  “My word!”

  As they progressed through the hoard, Carter realised the importance of this meeting. The man could recall the provenance of most of the objects he had collected over the past two years. Their quality and variety were sufficient to stock a small museum. He wondered if he dare ask the key question.

  Carter picked up a piece of pottery and examined it closely.

  “Picked that up in the Rubal-Khali at Ubar at least I think it’s the site of Ubar. Ruined walls, buried in sand. What isn’t around here? Been looking for the place for a year. Camel train route. Can’t really miss it if you keep your eyes open. Plan to go back there one day. Satisfy my curiosity... And this. Roman. From Um el Jamal, some way northeast of the Dead Sea. But then you probably know that.”

  All Carter could do was repetitively nod his head. He was virtually speechless.

  As another rare piece appeared, he could contain himself no longer. “Colonel,” he started, “would it be presumptuous of me to enquire whether you might consider donating these to the British Museum?”

  Lawrence looked up at Carter in surprise. He had not once suspected any of the objects to be of any real value. He had merely appreciated the thrill of finding them and wished to learn more about them.

  “You cannot be serious, Mr Carter. You mean to tell me these pieces are significant?”

  “Indeed I do, Colonel. Most are of considerable historical value, let alone their artistic merit. It would be a sin for them to be enjoyed by just one person. They need to be shared with others.”

  “I’ll be damned!”

  “You have a good eye, Colonel.”

  Lawrence reflected for a moment. Carter became anxious now hearing of the value of his discoveries, the colonel might wish to keep them for himself. He struggled for something additional to say that might help convince him to release the objects. He was just about to speak when the colonel said, “Damned nuisance carrying them around with me all over the desert. The bag just keeps getting heavier. Can you find a suitable address for them, Mr Carter?”

  A relieved Carter quickly responded. “Most assuredly, Colonel. Leave them with me and I will see to it that they get the very best of homes. If you would be good enough to give me an address where I can always make contact with you, once I have finalised the arrangements for placement I would be glad to write to you and tell you where they are situated.”

  “Just write to me at HQ, Cairo. It’ll find me wherever I am eventually.”

  The colonel looked at his watch. He stood up.

  “Excellent! That’s settled then. A load off my mind, I’ll tell you. Well met, Mr Carter. I hope it will not be too long before we meet again.”

  Carter drew himself up and half bowed in respect. “Colonel. And perhaps you will have more finds to share!”

  “Perhaps.” The colonel appeared a little crestfallen. “Perhaps. But I fear the engagements which face me next will leave precious little time for idle rock hunting.” He regarded his watch again. “Got to dash... Sergeant Adamson! Carry the sack for Mr Carter, there’s a good fellow. Your servant, Mr Carter. Goodbye.”

  “Your servant, Colonel Lawrence,” Carter responded.

  They shook hands and Carter left the room.

  “Bet you fawt you wuz for h’anuva assignment, Mr Carter, sir.” Adamson chimed in with a grin as they walked back to the ferry.

  “Must admit the thought had occurred to me, Sergeant. But in the event a most gratifying encounter. Fine man that colonel.”

  “’E’s not a real colonel, sir. ‘E’s a Lieutenant colonel.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Nufink much, I ’spose. But this one’s a loner. ’E doesn’t ’ave no command h’at least not a British command. ’e looks after the bleedin’ fuzzy wuzzys h’organises ’em, like, tries to make fightin’ men of ’em! Bloody h’undisciplined lot. ’E ain’t got no chance in ’ell. Ha, ha, ha!”

  “I wish him well, notwithstanding. And so should you.”

  “Oh, I does, sir. Don’t get me wrong. ’E’s a good man an’ no mistake. But ’e’s got a ’opeless task. Sad fing is ’e finks ’e can do it.”

  “That’s half the battle, sergeant. A fighting man like you should know that. Believing in one’s self and what one could achieve given the will and the effort... It makes men of us all.”

  The sergeant went silent and looked ahead in disinterest. The draft had got him into this man’s army. The end of the war or injury would get him out. He wanted nothing more. In the meantime he’d do his best to stay out of harm’s way. He had nothing more to say to men of conviction.

  The allies were winning the war. At great cost in men, it was true, but the war was being won nonetheless and at long last. The battle for Arabia was over and this resulted in Howard Carter being officially relieved of his duties at the UCO.

  His patron, also, leaving hospital after a painful illness, had finally been permitted to repossess his country seat. He was feeling fitter and in better spirits than he had for many months and, buoyed up by his expectation of new and greater discoveries alongside the Norfolk man in the three-piece tweed. He was itching to get back to work in Egypt.

  Carter, however, did not feel at all anxious to receive him just yet. Before Carnarvon returned to Luxor Carter very much wanted to be able to demonstrate that he had made some progress. He had reviewed his remaining bank balance and decided he had sufficient funds of his own to muster a gang of labourers to work during the period that Carnarvon was on his way from Southampton if, indeed, he should come this year at all. There was little time to lose and much to do. The more of the grunt work he could get done before the earl arrived, the longer he might maintain his lordship’s interest.

  The aristocrat had come a long way with the Egyptologist and he was keen to move forward to greater things. He fervently believed that Carter would deliver. As for Carter, he knew in his heart that the tomb was down there somewhere within the boundaries of the area he had outlined when they had made their plans together. It had to be, plundered
already no doubt, but there notwithstanding. He knew also that it could take years yet to find it.

  He planned to work his men in shifts, around the clock. The object was to remove as much debris as he could before his patron arrived, always hoping that the earl would see another season out before visiting Egypt.

  And there was another to please the new Monsieur le Directeur of Antiquities.

  Pierre Lacau was easily distinguishable in a crowd and particularly in the desert. He was a broad man of commanding height. He almost always wore a dark suit. On his large head, and contrasting starkly with the suit, he supported a mass of thick, grey hair which extended to a full beard and copious moustache. The eyebrows were black. Because of his size, the man held absolute presence in any gathering. As director he had position and authority and he knew it. Worse for Carter, however, Lacau was French.

  But to his great relief the new director’s first visit to the site of Carter’s excavations went off extremely well. Lacau even commended him personally on his approach. “Removing all loose rubble to bedrock a most excellent practice, Mr Carter. It has not been attempted in so systematic and responsible a manner before. We shall finally learn what lies beneath the rubbish of ages of indiscriminate and irresponsible digging. I am sure we shall all be most handsomely rewarded by your thoroughness. Bon chance, monsieur!”

  And he left.

  Carter was pleased. Their first meeting had gone well. At the same time, he hoped that the director’s last words ‘WE shall ALL be rewarded’ were not all they appeared to be. He had already shown that his approach to ‘division’ was far more strictly biased in favour of the Cairo Museum than had been the practice of his predecessor. He had taken the beautiful, almond-coloured quartzite sarcophagus. It was the only thing of value that had come out of the tomb that Carter had risked his life to save from the robbers. Carter felt the action entirely inconsiderate, but he was powerless to influence the decision. Should he now be fortunate enough to come upon something truly exceptional, he feared that, but for a few of the more miserable artefacts, all would be retained in Egypt. His patron’s reward would be the fame accompanying discovery, not the proportionate share of antiquities to which he had hitherto become accustomed as a right.