There was only one way to find out, but we had no tools to dig with and the searing afternoon heat did not make it a very attractive proposition. Reluctantly we decided to return to the hotel and give the matter further thought overnight.
Over dinner we agreed on our course of action – we would buy a couple of picks and a shovel and go back and see if we could find an entrance to a secret tomb beneath the rubble. Next morning we were up early and, taking plenty of water with us, we bought the picks and shovel and headed back to try to discover our secret tomb. Kareem was worried about leaving the car near the track. “If there is a tomb and Gahiji or whoever is involved sees the car parked there they will immediately know someone is near the tomb.” Fortunately there was a big rock not far from the track and we parked behind it, hoping that this would provide sufficient cover.
It was not much fun carrying the water, picks and shovel back along the track. When we arrived we sat on a rock, drinking some of the water, trying to work out the best place to attack the rubble. We looked at the footprints again. “There are some
footprints that stand out amongst the others, Kareem” I said excitedly. “Look, there are prints from trainers amongst the Egyptian sandal imprints.” “You are right” he replied. “That would indicate my brother and the girl could have been here – or that the robbers had bought themselves some western footwear,” he added gloomily. “Think positive” I advised, trying to sound positive myself.
We decided to start work on the middle section of the rubble where all the footprints seemed to go and set to work. We did not know if the entrance – if indeed it existed – would be barely covered or almost totally buried. We worked for a couple of hours, with Kareem doing the bulk of the work. Fortunately for us, the entrance had only been covered with a minimum of rubble and when Kareem put his pick through into the hole he let out an excited scream. “Its here” he exclaimed “the secret tomb does exist!” We worked frantically to clear a hole big enough to climb through. Fortunately at the last minute I had thought to buy two torches and we were able to clamber through the hole and light up a long tunnel with steep steps. I didn’t much care for the darkness or the thought that we were going deep into the earth but I followed Kareem as he led the way deep into the tomb. When we came to the main chamber it was empty. We found two smaller chambers, also totally devoid of any treasures. Only the sarcophagus remained. “This must have been the tomb of someone important” Kareem commented. “Look at all the drawings on the walls. They are absolutely amazing and the colours are still so vibrant.” Getting over my disappointment at not finding any treasures I turned my attention to the walls and Kareem was right – the real treasure was probably in the stories told in the pictures, not objects which are easily broken or stolen.
Having satisfied ourselves that there were no treasures left in the tomb we turned to retrace our steps to the outside world. At the bottom of the steps Kareem suddenly bent over to retrieve something. “My brother’s St Christopher” he said in amazement. “Ramy has been here – he must have lost this, or left it here for someone to find. He always wears this. Finally I feel I am close to my brother and at last I have some idea of where he has been all this time. This must be the right tomb.”
As we started up the steps there was a loud bang and then a rumble. We looked up towards the light to see a shower or rocks bouncing towards us. “Get back” said Kareem “we must take shelter in one of the smaller rooms. We ran into the room with the sarcophagus. The rumbling kept coming and we could hear small rocks bouncing off the sides of the tomb and down the steps. After a few minutes, everything went quiet and Kareem ventured out into the large chamber. I crept out behind him and he shone the torch up the steps. “Someone just dynamited the entrance!” Kareem exclaimed. “I think the entrance is totally blocked” he informed me. “I can’t see any light coming through.” We ran up the steps, panting and gasping for breath and dodging small rocks and stones. When we got to the top we could see the entrance was well and truly blocked. We looked at each other in horror. “I think Gahiji or someone involved in this has seen us or the car and come to make sure we don’t tell anyone about the tomb or ask any more questions about the others. I think we have been deliberately buried alive.” Kareem said despondently.
The horror must have shown on my face as Kareem put his arms on my shoulders. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry Anna. I wasn’t thinking. I’m sure we’ll find a way out or they will come and dig us out when they have decided what to do with us. Please, don’t worry, we’ll think of something.” By now I was sobbing hysterically. The thought of being buried alive was terrifying. “You know they won’t come back for us” I cried. “They have left us to die and no-one knows we are here. We are going to DIE in this tomb” I screamed.
He held me tightly as I cried – great racking sobs of fear and pent-up anxiety from the past few weeks and Kareem’s disappearance. Up until now I had been strong, but being sealed in this tomb was just too much to bear. At last I cried my last tear and dabbed ineffectively at my tear-stained face and swollen eyes. “I’m sorry” I said at last “I’m just so scared”. “So am I” Kareem replied, “but I am sure we can figure a way out of this. Did we bring the water inside with us?” “Yes, I put it just inside but the picks are still on the other side of those rocks.” “Even if we had the picks with us I suspect there are sufficient large rocks over the entrance to ensure we can never dig our way out” Kareem said. “I’ll go and see if the water survived the blast. Go and sit down and we’ll think about how we are going to get out of here”.
“The water is safe” he called out from the top. That probably just prolongs our agony, I thought to myself. We sat side by side on the bottom step, two forlorn figures trying to cope with thoughts of our mortality, at the same time wondering what fate could have befallen Ramy, Yasmeen and Masud. “I think my brother must be dead” Kareem said eventually. I couldn’t dispute it. If they were willing to kill us, why would they not have already killed the others? “We don’t know that” I said, a little unconvincingly. “We should try and work out what we think happened”. “First, we must have a good look around whilst we still have light from the torch” Kareem stated taking charge. “Well, the batteries should last a while” I said “seeing as how we just bought them.” “The trouble with things in Egypt”, Kareem replied “is that you don’t know how long they have been sitting on the shelf”. I smiled weakly at his logic. It would have been better if he had just agreed with me. “Okay” I said “let’s go exploring”.
We went up the steps again, stepping carefully over stones and rocks on the way. At the top the light was completely blocked. “This looks hopeless’ Kareem said. “We’ll go and have a good look at the back of the tomb. If it is completely sealed we will have to start tearing these rocks away with our hands, in the hope that we can make a hole small enough for you to crawl out of and go and get help.” We trudged back down the steps and Kareem carefully examined the walls of the main chamber. “I can’t see anything here that would suggest another tunnel”. We moved on to the small chamber with the sarcophagus. Again Kareem could find nothing that suggested another opening in the walls. We went into the other small chamber, with the same result. Despondent we returned to our seat on the step. “There is probably enough air down here that we can live quite a while” I said after a while “and you are supposed to be able to go without food for a few days, although my stomach already thinks its hungry”. “Mine too” Kareem agreed. “It seems our only option at the moment is to try and move some of the rock” he said after a few minutes.
We climbed the steps to the top once again. We put the torch on a step to give us light. “We need to try to keep the rocks we move to one side so we have access to the steps” Kareem decided. “Try and place them rather than throwing them”. We set to and started moving some of the smaller rocks. It was very hard on our hands and soon my nails were broken and my fingers were bleeding. Worst of all, the exertion made us thirsty. Afte
r a couple of hours we were tired, thirsty and hungry. We decided to try and ration the water and only took a couple of mouthfuls each. “Let’s turn out the light and try and get some sleep” Kareem suggested. “It will be cooler in a few hours and it would be better to work then”. We lent against each other and, despite our uncomfortable circumstances, soon fell into an exhausted sleep.
I woke first and sat blinking in the darkness trying to remember where I was. Even though I had drunk nothing for the last few hours I needed to go to the toilet. I eased myself away from Kareem and gingerly went down a couple of steps. There was no chance he could see me. I heard Kareem moving “Anna, where are you?” he called out. “I’m just over here – back in a minute” I said. I returned to snuggle up against him. “Ah, I know what you were up to” he said. “I’ll be back in a minute too”. There were no little alcoves in the tomb’s corridor or its chambers - nowhere we could use as our toilet. It was going to become quite unpleasant in here pretty quickly. Not that we’ll last that long anyway once the water is gone, I thought to myself grimly.
We went back to work moving the smaller rocks. Soon there were only bigger rocks and we had no tools. “Find a suitable rock to use as a wedge” Kareem instructed me. We both found a discarded rock to use as a tool and Kareem managed to remove a couple of the larger rocks, but behind them there was always another solid wall of rock. “This is hopeless” I said after a while. “I can’t stand looking at this any more. Lets go down into the chamber and have a break”.
We picked our way carefully down the steps and went into the small chamber without the sarcophagus – it was less depressing. Sitting against each other we turned off the torch to conserve the battery. The thought of being totally without light was one that haunted me, probably even more than being without water.
“So what do we think happened to Ramy and the others?” I asked in the darkness. “Well,” Kareem replied “we know Ramy was here. I think they used Yasmeen to blackmail her father into telling them where the tomb was.” “Perhaps they used them to take out all the treasures” I suggested. “Everything has gone and there are no bodies here either.” “Thank goodness. It does seem possible” Kareem agreed. “But what happened once the tomb was empty?” Neither of us wanted to think too much about that one. “Maybe they have only just finished and they let them go. Ramy is probably already back in Australia” I suggested lamely.
We decided to try and get some sleep. I was just dozing off when I heard a scratching sound. I tried to reach the torch without disturbing Kareem but he woke straight away. “What’s up?” he asked. “I can hear something scratching” I replied. “It’s probably a rat” Kareem said, stating what I had already suspected. “What if there are lots of rats?” I asked, thinking that would be almost more than I could cope with right now. Kareem shone the torch at the back wall and, sure enough, there was a pretty big rat scratching at the bottom of the wall. ‘Its only one” Kareem said reassuringly. “I expect he got trapped like us when the dynamite went off.” “Well, there’s nothing here for him to eat, I haven’t even seen a beetle. I guess he’s also thirsty” I replied, almost feeling sorry for him. Hopefully he would die of thirst before he was hungry enough to eye us up as his next meal. We watched the rat for a while and then, suddenly, he disappeared. “He’s gone” I said, stating the obvious. “But where? Kareem asked. “If it’s a solid wall of ostraca he can’t have gone through it. There must be a hole there – even if it’s a very small hole.” Kareem had brought his digging tool with him and he ran over to where we last saw the rat. He stabbed desperately at the wall where the rat disappeared. For a while, nothing happened. Then he let out a yell, as the tool went through near the floor. He worked at the hole for a while and then he said “Actually there is something other than limestone here. Where the rat went through it is like a join where limestone meets plaster. I think what we have here is an entrance from another tomb, or corridors to another tomb, which has been sealed over. Unfortunately that means I am going to have to deface the hieroglyphics to make a hole big enough for us to get through.” “That’s the least of our worries”, I thought to myself. Kareem worked for several hours to make the hole bigger. It was slow and laborious and his hands were blistered and bleeding. I took a turn but didn’t make much progress – still, I had to do something. We were relieved when our efforts finally produced a hole big enough to shine the torch through. We could see that there was a space behind it, which seemed to go for a few feet. Would there be anything beyond that, or were we completely wasting our time and energy?
After a few hours we turned off the torches and slept again. I was so thirsty as we were rationing ourselves to a few mouthfuls at a time and my stomach was rumbling with hunger. I couldn’t decide what was worse – being thirsty, being hungry or being confined. The three together made for a very miserable and depressed human being. We tried to console each other with thoughts of “we’ll soon be out of here” but we both knew our chances of finding a way out, even through another tomb, were fairly remote.
When we awoke, stiff and sore, we returned to our hole in the wall with renewed vigour. As always happens after sleep, our optimism returned and with it our confidence in finding a way out. Kareem went for it like a man possessed. We watched the beautiful hieroglyphics falling away and eventually the hole grew to the size of a man’s head. Another look with the torch confirmed that there did indeed appear to be another tunnel – but how far did it go? I took over for a while and then Kareem returned to the task. After a few hours the hole was big enough for us to step through – we had made it! I hugged Kareem with joy.
Grabbing the other torch and what was left of our water, we stepped through the hole.
2. What Lay Beyond
As we stood on the other side the torch flickered and died. Kareem was right about the storage life of batteries in Egypt! Fortunately the other one had hardly been used and I quickly turned it on to check our new surroundings. There was a long tunnel in front of us, quite low, with bare walls and of course completely dark. No beautiful stories were depicted on these walls. We set off along the tunnel, shining the torch this way and that as we went to see if there were any tunnels or chambers leading off it.
After about half an hour we found a tunnel off to the right. Which way go to? There was no way I was going to explore one on my own whilst Kareem took the other. “I think we should keep going” I whispered. “Why are you whispering? “ Kareem asked “no-one is going to hear us. My guess is we should take the one to the right.” We headed off down the right-hand tunnel. It went for about 400 metres and then came to a dead end. “Maybe it led to another tomb” I said, not really caring. We retraced our steps and continued on our original path.
We must have walked for about three kilometres before I saw a shaft of light ahead of us. Kareem saw it at the same time and we looked at each other and whooped with delight. We hurried towards it, hoping against hope that we had found our way out. There were steps up to the light and we could see a gate barring our way – but there was daylight and, switching off the torch, we climbed the steps like two excited children.
We reached the gate and peered out. There was no sign of life – just sand and ruins. “It looks like the old workman’s village of Deir El Medina“ said Kareem “That was where the villagers who worked on the tombs lived - they stayed near the tombs when they were working and only went home for their days off”. “How are we going to get out?” I asked impatiently, shaking the steel gate to no effect. “We may have to wait for someone to come along” Kareem replied patiently. “If I am right, this is only about 10 minutes from the Antiquities Inspectorate and lies between the modern villages of Qurnet Murai and Sheikh Abd el Qurna. Also it is a tourist site, although we are obviously at the wrong end of it. I understand they only open the main street to the tourists so they do not come this far.”
I sat down, exhausted. We were so close to freedom and yet we were still entombed. I took a drink of water and handed it to
Kareem. “Not more than a few mouthfuls left” he commented. “We should shout for help” I suggested. It is very quiet and someone might hear us.” “Its worth a try” Kareem agreed “but our voices may just stay within the hills of the village”. I didn’t care “Help” I yelled “Somebody help us. Over here – we’re over here. Help”. Kareem added his voice “Anybody there? Anyone out there? Help”.
There was no response to our cries and the sun was dropping behind the hills. “Maybe tomorrow, Anna” Kareem said. “Let’s get some rest.”
We slept fitfully longing for morning to come. Eventually the sun came up and we started our vigil. Surely someone must come this way occasionally. I just hoped it wouldn’t be Gahiji!
It was not long, however, before our prayers were answered. A man on a donkey was making his way towards us – unhurriedly and singing quietly to himself. “Look Kareem - there is someone coming” I exclaimed. We yelled out together – for a while he was too far away to hear us. Then slowly we saw him looking around, puzzled as to where the voices were coming from. “Over here” we screamed “Over here in one of the tombs”.
Missing in Egypt Page 10