The Egyptologist - Arthur Phillips [122]
It occurs to me I may have made a mistake in Ahmed, perhaps misunderstood that purser’s slovenly Arabic on the boat, approached the wrong man from the brawl, left a fighter for honour behind me.
My predicament: I need men for Door D and I need to pay Ahmed for his work last week, and I am not in a position to call in authorities at this time, though his crimes will be avenged when I am stronger.
My foot is numb, but now my shin and calf burn.
Can Carter really have found something? Buried his find for weeks while patiently awaiting the return of his patron? Difficult to imagine. And now he lures away my men? Of course: my men are trained, hardened. Carter would naturally seek such men out, indifferent to leaving me in the lurch.
I dress in native garb and limp to the ferry, then hire a donkey to ride into the Valley. I ask one of the workers in Arabic if it is true they are hiring here, and he replies in English—I cannot say why, perhaps it is policy on the site (a damned good policy, now that I think of it). Ask him what news, and his response is reassuring: yes, at the bottom of the stairs they found a door covered with Tut-ankh-Amen seals, but now that door is down, and behind it there is only a blocked passageway, entirely filled with rubbish. The tomb was plundered a few thousand years ago.
One simply must sympathise with Carter, even in his aggression and provocations. He has found a tunnel of rocks, with the whole world watching and his patron called back specially from England for the sight.
Monday, 27 November, 1922
Cable from CCF: NEWSPAPERS FULL OF EGYPTIAN DISCOVERIES! MARVELOUS. NEVER DOUBTED YOU. PARTNERSHIP WILL WIRE NEXT SUM SHORTLY—SEND DETAILS.
I have trouble believing this. American newspaper coverage? The Nordquists, I suppose, may have said something to a reporter, or perhaps Margaret and J. P. O’Toole. Smart girl. More likely, it is a result of Carter’s noisy error, the Press taking the opportunity to write up all the current excavations. I hope this does not bring too many unwanted observers up here, but publicity protects me as well: the Antiquities Service can hardly shut down an expedition that has already attracted the world’s notice, no matter how unintentionally.
I am alternately a victim and a beneficiary of distance. I cannot control from here what CCF hears or thinks, and so now, thanks to the Press, he has decided that all is well again. I cable my reassurance to my nervous Master of Largesse: GLAD TO HAVE YOU BACK. OUR DISCOVERY WILL DWARF CARTER’S, WINLOCK’S, OTHERS. SEND MONEY AT ONCE.
Either way, the return of his enthusiasm renews my confidence; I can put Ahmed behind me. I find my makeshift wall in good condition, untouched. I replace a few of the fallen rocks, balance them in the corners, but it is a frustrating game of spillikins. I am tempted to knock it all down, rush right in and continue my work, but without a new team, without better tools, before the money arrives, it is still too soon. Patience wins out.
Evening, back at Villa T. It turned out to be quite hard to reach Carter’s staircase today. Said one of his men, “The electricity is being installed through the whole place.” The whole place? Yes, indeed: yesterday Carter, Lord Carnarvon, and Milord’s daughter, Lady Something, and some Inspector from Antiquities burrowed to the end of their rubbish tunnel and found another door, behind which (damn their speed—they must be recklessly hammering the things down) is quite a scene, evidently, though the natives are much too pleased with knowing something to reveal it easily. If the blacks are to be trusted, little King Tut-ankh-Amen, missing these 3200 years, has turned up bearing statues, gold, chariots, jewels, vases, thrones, couches, clothing, manikins—no end of treasures, says one of the chattier workers. Imagine, I say to him, taking him by the shoulders, what a truly significant king at the end of a dynasty carrying everything with him into his tomb