Levkas Man

by Innes, Hammond;

  He went on to describe its discovery by some workmen in the gravels of the Sussex Ouse in 1912, how it had been accepted as genuine for forty years, and then he was explaining the way in which the whole thing had been bust wide open by a backroom anthropologist in the basement of the British Museum. His voice, his whole manner of telling it, had a sort of boyish enthusiasm that was infectious. Like Dart on the Taung skull, he made the Piltdown mystery sound like a detective story. First, the chemical test that had shown three times as much fluorine in the skull as in the jaw bone, proving beyond doubt that the two were quite unconnected. Then Geiger counter tests, with all the animal remains recording a count of between 10 and 25, except three elephant teeth, which gave counts of 175, 203 and 355. Finally, a world-wide search that tore the whole thing to shreds by indicating Tunisia as the only source of fossil remains of elephants giving such high beta ray counts.

  He lit another cigarette. ‘That was in 1953–55,’ he said. ‘Over forty years after—too long a gap for the man who perpetrated the hoax to be identified.’ The thin parchment skin of his face was crinkled in a smile. ‘Extraordinary, isn’t it? Picture him yourself, stealing off to Sussex one week-end with a pocketful of bones filched from some travelled family’s private collection, then creeping out in the moonlight to bury them in a gravel pit where he knew workmen would discover them. And all those years, watching and saying nothing—just laughing to himself at such utter nonsense being taken seriously by the leading anthropologists and palæontologists of the day.’

  The picture was so vivid, so detailed I couldn’t help it: ‘You would have been a student yourself when the bones were originally discovered.’

  He looked at me with his head on one side like a bird. ‘Yes, that’s so.’ He chuckled quietly to himself, then reached for his drink as though to drown his amusement. ‘But what Pieter did wasn’t done for a joke. He’d no sense of humour. None whatever.’ He was frowning, his face suddenly serious. ‘He was in deadly earnest. But unfortunately for him he was in Africa, out in the bush, not in a gravel pit in Sussex. There were no quarry men digging around in the cave-shelter where he buried his bones, so he had to dig them up himself. A youngster like that, rushing his fences …’ He shook his head, no ghost of a smile. ‘However well disposed you were, you couldn’t help smelling a rat. And then, when he wouldn’t let the evidence out of his hands, only photographs—well, they tore him to pieces, those that bothered. And now, of course, those books published in the Communist countries.’ He sighed and gave a little shrug. ‘A carbon-14 dating of 35,000 BP—that’s something no anthropologist will readily accept for Cro-Magnon man. And from him of all people … they’re not going to like it, not at all.’

  ‘But they’re scientists,’ I said. ‘Surely, if the evidence is overwhelming …’

  ‘Where did those bones come from—did he tell you?’

  ‘No. But he seemed pleased when I told him you felt he’d no right to keep the location to himself. He said they’d talk, they’d pass it on and soon everybody would know. Isn’t that how things become established—the gradual accumulation of evidence?’ And I began telling him again about the red dunes, how this had established in the old man’s mind the low level of the Mediterranean during the Ice Age.

  But he refused to accept that the dunes formed a vital link in the chain of evidence. ‘I think you are confusing two things here. In my view, the essence of Pieter’s genius is that he is willing to carry on an ethological—to use an American term—an ethological study, whilst at the same time developing in the field a new theory covering what to us has always been an evolutionary gap. If you had read his Journal … but then you probably wouldn’t have understood it.’ He sipped at his drink and turned to Sonia. ‘I have spent most of today reading and thinking about a report of some very interesting psychological experiments carried out on rhesus monkeys—controlled experiments in captivity set against careful and protracted studies of these nearest-to-human primates in the wild. And I have been comparing the conclusions this Harvard scientist arrives at with those reached by Pieter Van der Voort, not as a result of experimenting with monkeys, but achieved by taking a hard, detached look at himself. It’s a fascinating study, starting with his childhood. His conclusion, basically, is that “normality” is only achieved within a social framework, that the loner represents the extremes, producing at one end of the spectrum the most debased of creatures, at the other end the most brilliant—the genius, the prophet, the great leader.’ He chuckled quietly. ‘The trouble is that Pieter cannot make up his mind into which category he falls.’

  Sonia shook her head. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said.

  Nor did I. ‘He went there to escape. It was the only place he knew where he could hide up and at the same time still be in contact with the evidence that supported his theory.’

  But Gilmore shook his head. ‘An experiment I would call it. These days we are so dazzled by our material progress—supersonic flight, nuclear physics, the moon landings, quasars, lasers, etc., etc.—we are apt to forget that our ancestors were quite remarkably advanced in other ways. You say that he was escaping into solitude. But remember, he had given way to his natural aggressive instincts—to the devil that is in all of us. And what if Christ were right—what if forty days and forty nights of lonely fasting and praying is the medically exact formula for inducing a state of self-hypnosis where environmental, even perhaps hereditary, instincts can be overcome? This I think was what he was trying to prove. Not an experiment with poor little captive monkeys, but an experiment with his own flesh, himself under the microscope, and then to have it interrupted …’ He hesitated, frowning. ‘Lying in my bunk today I tried to put myself in his place, imagine how I would react when faced with a man like Holroyd seeking to take advantage of something I had discovered.’ He shook his head. ‘Not easy.’ He turned to Sonia again. ‘You know he half killed a man in Russia—at a dig of his near Tashkent?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes. He told me. It was when he was ill, his mind rambling, and I wasn’t sure.’

  ‘Oh, it was real all right. He goes into it in great detail in his Journal. A Bulgarian. He tried to throttle him with his bare hands, a blind fury of rage after the fellow had stolen some artefacts from his tent. Fortunately his assistant was near at hand, otherwise he’d have killed the poor devil. A fit of uncontrollable violence like that …’ He looked across at me. ‘Now perhaps you understand why he was so disturbed, so mortified at his blind, instinctive attack on Cartwright.’

  That night I dreamed I faced my father, both of us hell-bent on murder. Maybe it was the prawns we’d had for dinner. I was berthed in a pipe cot up for’ard amongst the sails and I woke in a muck sweat thinking I’d killed him. After that I dozed fitfully, feeling we were both of us doomed. Then suddenly it was four o’clock and Bert woke me with a cup of tea.

  We were away at first light, motoring south in the wake of a big trading caique, the old canal banks straight lines of stone in a vast area of shallows. The flat marsh country, the grey dawn, depressed me and my mood was sombre. Ahead, on its hill, rose the massive bulk of Fort St George, and beyond it, the bare bleak island hills stood like early prints, rimming the open roadstead of Port Drepano.

  The sun rose as we left the Canal, keeping between the three pairs of buoys that marked the dredged channel, and the towering heights of Levkas were touched with gold. The sea was glass, not a breath of wind. By seven-thirty we were abreast of Skropio, a steep little wooded island owned by a Greek millionaire, and half an hour later we entered Port Vathy, the houses sleeping in the morning sun and donkeys browsing at the water’s edge. There was a small fishing boat selling the night’s catch and near it a caique loaded with bright-coloured Turkish rugs. The Customs Officer greeted us in his own home, dressed in vest and trousers, not yet shaved, and when Bert had obtained permission to visit the inlets of Meganisi provided he finally cleared from Vathy, Florrie began to make enquiries about Holroyd.

  ‘Holerod. N
é, né.’ The Greek official nodded vigorously and told her that the whole party had arrived the day before in a caique from limáni Levkas. They had enquired about a man who had been digging the year before in a cave beyond Spartokori and he had taken them to see Zavelas. Would we like to talk to Zavelas who spoke English and knew everything that went on in Meganisi?

  We found him on the waterfront, sitting at a table in the shade with the Pappas. He was a big, powerful man with a hooked nose and iron grey hair. The Greek Orthodox priest was younger, a very striking figure in his black habit, tall black hat, his dark beard combed and silky and his long hair drawn back to a little bun above the nape of the neck. I think it was the presence of the priest that made Florrie excuse herself and return to join Sonia on the boat.

  Zavelas was a very different man to my garrulous friend at Preveza, quieter, more reserved. And very much tougher. He had gone to sea as a kid, tramps first, then whaling and sealing out of Gloucester, Mass. He had served in the U.S. navy during World War II, had been a lumberjack out west in the Rockies and had finished up as a cop in San Francisco. ‘Fisherman’s Wharf—you know it?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I did one voyage through the Panama Canal and up to S.F.’

  He nodded, pleased. ‘A good place. But plenty tough. I guess Port Vathy is quieter, eh?’ He was smiling, his blue eyes staring at me very directly. Either he came of pure Greek stock or there was a touch of the Viking in his ancestry.

  He was not the official headman, but his American background, particularly his police experience, set him apart from the rest of the inhabitants of the small island community. The police chief at Levkas was a personal friend of his—he mentioned this quite early on in the conversation, thus establishing his unique position. I got the impression that he and the Pappas virtually ran the place. Certainly the Customs official treated them both with deference.

  Nobody had ordered coffee, but it came and I think it was on the house. I offered him a cigarette. ‘English, eh, I guess we don’t see many English cigarettes here in Port Vathy.’ He took one. So did the priest and I left the packet on the table. ‘Now, what’s on your mind, fella?’ He was suddenly a San Franciscan cop again, watching me closely as he lit his cigarette and began sipping noisily at his coffee. ‘This guy—’ he indicated the Customs officer—‘says your name’s Van der Voort and you’re in’erested in a man named Holerod who arrived yesterday.’

  Holroyd had come in by caique at four-thirty in the afternoon, had left the other two members of his party to set up camp on the waste ground at the head of the inlet and had walked alone to Vatahori. He had got back to Port Vathy a little after nine and had then arranged with Vassilios, a local fisherman, to take them round to the west side of the island in the morning. ‘Now, you tell me something.’ His gaze fastened on Bert. ‘Two days ago you slip a man ashore at Port Atheni without informing the Customs officer. Why?’

  Bert was too astonished to say anything and Zavelas smiled, his eyes cold. ‘You think we don’t know what goes on in our own island?’

  ‘I didn’t think it mattered,’ Bert said. ‘He’d been here before—’

  ‘Okay. No need to explain. We know all about Dr Van der Voort.’ He turned to me. ‘And you’re his son. That right?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I have told you, Kapetán Constantinidi is an old buddy of mine. He is Chief of Police in Levkas.’ And he added, ‘You know Demetrios Kotiadis? Then I do not need to explain. We have been expecting you.’ His blue eyes were staring at me. ‘You wanna talk to the Doctor first or this Professor Holerod?’

  ‘Holroyd,’ I said.

  He nodded, smiling. ‘Like some more cawfee? No? Okay then, we go.’ And he got to his feet.

  Five minutes later we were chugging out of the inlet in the little boat he kept for fishing. ‘The cave is in the Meganisi Channel facing Levkas. The Doctor took me there once, but there ain’t nothing to see—just rocks and a big square hole in the ground he dug himself.’ He was leaning forward his head close to mine so that he could talk above the noise of the engine. ‘He was camped there all on his own for about a month last year. Pappadimas took supplies out to him from Vatahori.’

  ‘Why not from Vathy?’ I asked. ‘Or Port Spiglia? That’s even nearer.’ Vatahori was at the north-east corner of the island.

  ‘I guess because the Doctor and Pappadimas are old friends. When he first came to the island—that was before I got back from the States—he made Vatahori his base and hired Pappadimas and his boat to explore the whole of Meganisi. also some of the little islands like Kithro and Arkudi parts of Levkas, too. I figured he must have been some sort of geologist But then last winter Pappadimas showed me the collection of flints and bone fossils he’d left with him. Brought out a whole box full last year, and when he got cheesed off with digging around in that cave, he’d stay a few days with Pappadimas and his family, sitting for hours over that box of relics, making notes.’ We had turned the corner of the inlet now and he was steering close in to the rocks. ‘If he didn’t have Doctor in front of his name, reckon I’d say he was a nut-case. But then I ain’t had any sort of an education and all the long words he used—it was Greek to me.’ And he laughed.

  We were already opening up the entrance to Port Spiglia It was a wild little inlet with the village of Spartokori perched high above a sheer rock cliff. The first cat’s paws of the day breeze were just beginning to mark the flat surface of the water as we turned south into the Meganisi Channel. It was a narrow gut with a ridge of the Levkas mountains towering above us to starboard and a small island dead ahead, close in to the Meganisi side. ‘That’s Tiglia,’ Zavelas said. ‘The cave is just back of the shallows. And over there—’ He pointed to the Levkas shore. ‘You see that bay? It’s called Dessimo. The Doctor was over there for a time last year.’

  Inside of Tiglia Island the sea was a bright emerald green—shallows and a sand bottom. And as we opened the cove, we could see a boat drawn up close in to the rocks, the expedition’s mess tent a bright splash of blue. Zavelas leaned towards me again. ‘First thing the Doctor did when your friend landed him at Vatahori was to get Pappadimas to bring him out here.’

  ‘Did he leave him here?’

  ‘No. They went back to Vathori that night.’

  ‘And yesterday?’

  ‘Yesterday the Doctor is at Pappadimas’s house. He is in Vatahori all day. But that don’t mean he’s still there today.’

  He steered the boat into the shallows where the water was like crystal, the sand bottom very clear, and then he cut the engine. A short dark man wearing an old pair of khaki shorts, tufts of black hair showing above a dirty vest, waded out and caught our bows, drawing us in beside the other boat. ‘This guy is Vassilios.’ The fisherman nodded and smiled, a flash of even white teeth in a brown stubbled face. They talked for a moment and then Zavelas said, ‘It’s okay. The Doctor’s not here. You wanna go up to the cave?’

  The little beach was littered with gear, no sign of Holroyd and the others, and only the one tent pitched. ‘Where is it?’ I asked.

  ‘Up there.’ He pointed to a pinnacle of rock away to the right. ‘Vassilios will show you.’

  Bert stayed in the boat with Zavelas and I went up alone, following the fisherman. There was a faint track, and behind the pinnacle of rock, we came out on to a sloping platform looking south down the channel. There was an overhang here, and in the recess below it, a pit had been dug about two feet down at the outer end, but much deeper at the back. All three of them were there on their hands and knees scrabbling at the earth where rain had collapsed the edges of the dig, sifting the dry soil through their fingers. ‘Here’s another one,’ Cartwright said. And the others peered over his shoulder as he rubbed the dirt from a shaped piece of stone. ‘That’s Solutrean surely?’ He passed it to Holroyd who nodded. ‘Definitely. Look at that willow-leaf point.’

  They were so engrossed they didn’t realize I was standing there, watching them.
‘It’s a pity we don’t know the exact level from which it came,’ Cartwright said.

  Holroyd laid the piece of stone carefully down with several others on the edge of the pit. They were all sharp slivers of a very dark colour, almost black. ‘The levels are probably disturbed anyway. We’ll know more when we start to dig at the back. But it definitely has possibilities.’ His tone was eager. ‘Look at this arrow-head.’ He had picked up one of the smaller slivers. ‘Obsidian. And very advanced work—typical late palæolithic’ He held it in his hands, peering at it, fondling it almost. ‘Beautiful! Beautiful work.’

  Vassilios moved, dislodging a stone, and Holroyd looked up, saw me and scrambled to his feet. ‘How did you get here?’

  ‘Boat,’ I said.

  He nodded, waiting, Cartwright and Hans Winters, still on their hands and knees, staring up at me. ‘Has Dr Van der Voort given you permission to examine his dig?’ I asked him.