The Nine-Spoked Wheel, page 9
‘It’s Marryat here. I’ve got myself taken on all right, but there are one or two things I’d like to ask you about. Can I come to see you straightaway? I won’t keep you very long.’
‘Of course you can. And, since I’m off duty, I can even offer you a drink.’
‘Thanks. I rather think I need it.’
*
Diana Revers was putting the two-year-old to bed. ‘Whisky or beer?’ Revers asked.
‘If it’s not a strain on the economy, whisky please.’ Revers poured whisky for both of them.
‘Lord, that’s good,’ said Marryat. ‘Inspector Revers, I’ve had a most horrible afternoon.’
‘I rather feared you might. But I gather you stuck it out?’
‘Yes. I’ve been given permission to join the team, but put firmly in my place and told that it can be only in a supernumerary capacity. Still, that’s good enough. The Number Two, George Armitage, seems a very decent chap. I’m going back to the camp to sleep there tonight.’
‘You seem to have done jolly well.’
‘Where I really did well was in keeping my hands off that insufferably pompous man Arbolent.’
‘I know just what you mean. But his discoveries seem to be of some importance.’
‘Well, I suppose so. I don’t doubt that Arbolent has found some interesting inscriptions, but his extension of his theories seems to me preposterous. But that’s Arbolent all over. He’s able enough, and he’s certainly done some good work, but all this ballyhoo is not scholarship, Inspector – it’s more a newspaper stunt. Yes, I know that academics like me can be criticised as stick-in-the-mud; and there’s so little money for archaeology nowadays that without newspaper sponsorship some really important work would never get done. But the interests of a newspaper and of a scholar are not the same. If this had been a university dig, or, say, a British Museum dig, every find would have been carefully evaluated before any announcement was made at all. I read in the Sunday Examiner that you were present when the cremation urn was found.’
‘I was.’
‘So you saw the urn, but have you any idea of even its most approximate date?’
‘Dr Arbolent put it early in the second millennium BC.’
‘He may think so, he’s a considerable expert, and his views deserve respect. But he’s prostituting scholarship by rushing off into sensational print. You cannot date an urn just by looking at it. You need to make measurements and exact comparisons with similar urns that have already been dated, you need thermo-luminescency tests on the pottery, and Carbon-14 tests on the remains of any organic matter found with it. Of course he and the Sunday Examiner have covered themselves by saying that they’ve published only preliminary findings, that every sort of test is going to be carried out and all the rest of it, but the harm’s done. Arbolent would say that this is professional jealousy. That may come into it a bit, but I don’t think so. It’s more a question of respect for standards. I’m not explaining very well, I’m afraid.’
‘You’re explaining perfectly well, and my own instincts are all on your side. We’ve both been brought up to test the evidence, I suppose. But you said you wanted to ask me something.’ Revers poured another drink.
‘Yes, I do, but I’m not sure that it’s quite fair. More than that, though, I just want to talk to you. I don’t know why Arbolent took me on.’
‘You seem pretty eminent in his own line. I’ve been asking the Ministry’s experts about you.’
‘Yes, but he would regard me as a rival more than anything else. At one stage this afternoon he accused me point-blank of wanting to jump on his band-wagon, and I began to walk out. Then he suddenly changed his mind, came as near as he’s capable of making an apology and asked me to stay. Why?’
‘There’s bound to be a lot of controversy over his views. Perhaps he thinks you’ll strengthen his position.’
‘I thought of that – in fact, that’s what I played for when I asked to be taken on. But it’s not good enough. If I were Arbolent, I wouldn’t want me around. He’s making a great reputation with the lay public. I’m not a layman. It’s understood that I’m not part of his team, I can’t make statements to the Press or anything like that, but I don’t fit in with this sort of sensational archaeology, and I should have thought that my mere presence in the camp would rather cramp his style. I’m sure he wants to try to use me for something, but I haven’t any idea what.’
Revers said nothing for a moment. Then he changed the subject slightly. ‘What was it you wanted specifically to ask me?’
‘Well, I’d very much like to have a look at the burial chamber underneath Paul’s stone, if possible when Arbolent’s not there. I understand that the place is still under police guard. I wondered if you could give me a note to say that I can go in. But I don’t know that this is very fair to Arbolent. He’d hate to have me sniffing around at his discovery in his absence.’
‘I see what you mean, but I want you to examine the place. It’s not just a matter of Dr Arbolent’s discoveries –there’s the mystery of Paul Clayton’s death to be unravelled. How would it be if we went there together? You could feel that you weren’t snooping on Dr Arbolent, but helping me. I agree that we don’t want Dr Arbolent around. According to the evening paper, he’s holding a big Press conference in London tomorrow, so he’ll be safely out of the way then. Can you arrange to meet me at the stone some time tomorrow?’
‘Yes, but may I telephone you to fix the time? I’ve got to try to detach myself from Armitage, and I’m not clear yet how to tackle this. Will you be at your office tomorrow?’
‘What sort of time?’
‘That’s just the difficulty. They’re working on the Great Barrow – I think no more work is being done at Avebury for the moment. I feel that I ought to go down with Armitage in the morning. They knock off for dinner at noon, and I’ll try to telephone some time between twelve and half-past, to fix a meeting for the afternoon. Would that be all right?’
‘Splendid. I won’t go to lunch until you’ve telephoned and I’ll keep the afternoon free for any time you like.’
*
Marryat felt it was high time that he left the Reverses to such family life as they had, so he gave himself a meal in Marlborough and got back to the camp just before nine. Armitage was listening to the radio in the Mess hut. He was obviously glad to see him back so early. ‘How about a drink before turning in?’ he said. ‘There’s not a bad little pub about half a mile away.’
‘Thanks, I’d like that,’ Marryat said.
V
Tombs and Ancient Mariners
BREAKFAST WAS AT 07.30 and work at the dig started at 08.30. Marryat, interested in contemporary man as well as in the past, thought how alike were the groups assembled for an archaeological dig, whatever part of the world they might be in. Some individuals would get up, appear for the start of breakfast shaved and tidy and enjoy a leisurely meal before starting the day. Others would stay in bed to the last possible moment, throw on some clothes, gulp down a cup of tea and a bowl of cereal and go off to work in a rush. Whatever the matutinal habits of individuals, however, time-keeping for work was usually good.
Dr Arbolent had gone off to London overnight to prepare for his Press conference, and the circus of reporters, photographers and TV crews had, for the moment, departed with him. There was an air of slight relaxation about the camp.
Marryat himself belonged to the decently-and-in-order breakfast school. Armitage, he suspected, was by nature a last minute getter-up, but that morning, in deference to his new colleague, he was ready with Marryat for breakfast at 07.30. After breakfast they walked to the Great Barrow. Juliet, having done her stint of canteen duty, came with them, for her first day of actual work on the site.
It was a beautiful morning. The barrow was on the crest of a rise overlooking the Vale of Pewsey, and the view as they walked to it was breathtaking: the Downs, dotted here and there with clumps of trees, rolling away into the Vale, the whole landscape set in a great arc of sky.
‘I’ve read the newspapers, of course,’ Marryat said, ‘but, as I told you, I’ve been away in Greece. I really know very little about the actual discoveries here. What, exactly, has turned up?’
‘Well, my own field is Post-Roman,’ said Armitage, ‘so I’m no sort of expert on the Megalithic period. And I don’t know a lot anyway, because before his announcement in the Sunday Examiner, Dr Arbolent was curiously secretive about things. We’ve been digging a hitherto unexcavated section of the barrow, and come across a number of unsuspected burial chambers, very much older than those previously known. The barrow lies roughly east and west. The west end, with an impressive entrance portico, is well known, and is in all the reference books. It gives onto what I understand to be a typical series of passage graves, the passage ending in a blank wall of apparently solid earth. Dr Arbolent began working on this wall last year, and found that behind the earth bank was a piece of dry-stone walling. We have cut through this wall and found another passage, leading to a whole new series of burial chambers. They seem to have been disturbed or robbed in antiquity, for apart from some rather jumbled skeletal remains, they were mostly empty, with next to nothing in the way of grave-goods. Dr Arbolent thinks that the wall was erected in antiquity to seal off the older tombs from the western graves, perhaps when some new dynasty succeeded whatever group had used the eastern burial chambers.
‘The most important finds are some inscriptions and shallow carvings on some of the stones in the tomb walls. It is staggering to think of writing in Britain early in the second millennium, or even, Dr Arbolent thinks, belonging to some period in the third. I can’t pretend to read the script, but Dr Arbolent has identified it as proto-Phoenician, suggesting that instead of the Phoenicians giving an alphabet to the western world, some race here in Britain gave it to the Phoenicians. There are four tomb-carvings so far discovered, representational outlines of some kind of seagoing boat. But you can see them for yourself in a few minutes.’
The barrow site was roped off, with a watchman on duty in a little wooden hut. He recognised Armitage and let him through the barrier, but before Marryat and Juliet could go in they had to sign a declaration, endorsed by Armitage, that they were there for the purposes of bona fide private study and would not attempt to photograph anything without permission. ‘All this is a very great nuisance,’ Armitage said, ‘but it’s been forced on us by the hordes of sightseers we’re having.’
*
The barrow was lit by electricity from a generator, and as they were ahead of the work party from the camp, Armitage had to start the generator before they went in. It was a high-grade outfit, and Marryat was impressed by the quality of the lighting. The way to the eastern tombs was clear of rubble and Armitage led them to the newly excavated chambers. The farthest was still half-full of earth. ‘Dr Arbolent thinks that there are still more tombs beyond this one,’ Armitage explained. ‘We’re cutting into that wall now – the team will be on clearing out this mess this morning.’
They left the work-in-progress and went into one of the now tidily cleared chambers. The entrance, through the passage wall, was barely three feet high, and they had to crawl through it. Inside was a little, narrow room, about four feet wide by seven feet long, and just under six feet in height. Marryat, who was about five feet ten inches could just stand upright, but Armitage, who was six feet, had to stoop. Juliet, at five feet seven inches, was more comfortable, but the little room was fairly crowded by the three of them.
‘There’s one of the inscriptions,’ Armitage said, ‘and there’s one of the boat carvings on the facing wall.’
Marryat studied the inscription first. It was cut in letters about one inch high, on a single slab of sarsen forming part of the dry-stone walling. The characters were sharp, and remarkably clear. ‘It’s certainly not unlike an early Northern Semitic script – say Lebanon-Phoenician,’ he said, ‘but it has curious traces of Italian-Greek. I would say Umbrian rather than Etruscan. You can see that it must be read from right to left, like modern Arabic, which is a characteristic of early Umbrian. But it’s a very odd mixture, and the suggested date is, as you say, staggering.’
‘Can you read it?’ Armitage asked.
‘After a fashion. There are two words, Lauchme, although it appears to be written here as Lauchmis, which is Etruscan for “king”, and Thefars, which appears to be a name. There is a well-known Etruscan name Thefarie, which occurs in an inscription near Lake Trasimene, but here, like the first word, it seems to end in a sibilant. The occurrence of these sibilants is interesting, for early Phoenician was full of sibilants, most of which were abandoned when the alphabet was adapted for Greek. The puzzle here is that the letters are not any normal Phoenician-Greek but seem to be an admixture of much later Italian scripts.’
‘Is this writing really 4,000 years old, Mr Marryat?’ Juliet asked.
‘Dr Marryat,’ Armitage corrected her.
‘Gee, I’m sorry. I just didn’t know.’
Marryat patted her shoulder. ‘Continue not to know,’ he said. ‘Most people call me Tony, anyway. As for your question, I can’t possibly say without making a long comparative study of the inscriptions.’
‘How would you date this burial chamber?’ Armitage asked.
‘That’s certainly more my line. I’d say early, very early – I wouldn’t quarrel with a date well back in the second millennium. It’s a pity there are no grave-goods. But you say there were skeletal remains?’
‘Yes, there was a considerable heap of bones, and, I think, at least four skulls. They’ve been sent for radio-carbon analysis.’
‘Well, that should help. Of course, what you can never tell is how long after the construction of the tomb burials took place – they may have been spread over centuries. From the method of walling, and general design of the chamber, I’d say it was not later than around 2000–1800 BC – at least 1,000 years older than the burials at the western entrance. It’s a most interesting and important find.’
‘What do you make of the picture?’
Marryat studied the shallow carving for some time before replying. It was an outline drawing, with the primitive simplicity of a child’s work, of a single-masted sailing boat. It had no touch of perspective, and it was hard to make out whether the sail, attached to some sort of yard, was hung square-rigged across the mast, or set fore-and-aft. On looking at the picture closely, the apparent simplicity disappeared, to reveal a sureness of touch, both in drawing and in stone-cutting, that betokened artistry of a high order. Three slightly wavy lines beneath the boat gave a wonderful impression of the sea, with a stark economy of drawing. The hull had something of the lines of an Arab dhow, and there seemed to be a steering oar. Marryat, who had done a fair amount of sailing, thought that it looked remarkably seaworthy. ‘It’s extraordinarily effective,’ he said at last, ‘but the period is utterly baffling. The drawing has a touch of primitive cave-painting, of a period long before mankind was capable of building a tomb like this, or a boat like that. It also has a touch of almost modern impressionism – with the absence of perspective employed deliberately for effect. The craftsmanship is superb.’
‘This is probably the best picture of a boat as a boat,’ Armitage said, ‘but it doesn’t show much detail. Dr Arbolent thinks that one of the other pictures suggests clinker-construction with overlapping planks. The other two boat pictures seem to me fairly rough as boats, but Dr Arbolent regards them as the most important of the lot because they show a curious superstructure rising above the deck. He thinks that this represents a cargo of great stones being brought by sea for megalith-building. You’ll see them in the next tombs.’
‘It’s standing prehistory on its head all right,’ said Marryat, ‘but the correlations at the moment seem to me grotesque. The script is bewildering, and the picture even more so. But it’s astonishingly interesting, and I’m immensely grateful to you for showing it all to me.’
*
The work party had arrived. Armitage took Marryat and Juliet briefly into the other fully excavated chambers, and then they went to the workface. ‘I’m in charge of things here, and it’s rather tricky work, so you must excuse me,’ Armitage said. He had things well organised. Two of the party were carefully attacking the wall with small picks. Others were shovelling earth and rubble into barrows, labelling each barrow with a card, numbered and dated, and filled in with a note of the precise location in the chamber from which the barrow-load came. ‘The barrows are wheeled outside for sifting,’ Armitage explained. ‘Everything that isn’t earth is labelled and kept for examination later. Dr Arbolent does this himself.’
The pickaxe crew were cutting a narrow opening in the wall. As the work advanced, timber baulks were brought in to support the roof around the opening, each baulk painted with a code number. ‘We prepare them beforehand in the workshop at the camp,’ Armitage explained. ‘We measure approximately the length of timber required for each job, cut it, and give it a code number. Then, when it’s needed, it can be erected quickly, without having to have much packing.’
Marryat and Juliet, having no definite jobs allotted to them, joined the barrow team, wheeling filled and labelled barrows from the chamber to the sifting party outside. It was hard work, and they were not sorry when knocking-off time came. Armitage congratulated both of them – he was clearly pleased by Marryat’s readiness to abandon status and undertake a purely manual job. ‘Dr Marryat knows his way about a dig better than any of us,’ he said. ‘I’ll try to find another job for you, Juliet. As a matter of fact, we’re one short in the workshop today. I wonder if you’d report there after dinner and give a hand?’
As they walked back to the camp, Marryat said to Armitage, ‘Would you mind if I didn’t come back to the dig this afternoon? I’d rather like to go to Avebury to see the place where Paul died.’
