Some free counsel, Bev, should you ever be in just this situation: this is not the time to panic or show weakness. My hips absolutely continued their nocturnal travels, though my native bearer was now wide-eyed and whimpering, and his supporting arms were sagging when he was supposed to be holding up the side of the pyramid. I barked some convincing Arabic at the intruder, meaning to have him scurry off thinking he had interrupted a heavily armed Egyptian gentleman in a standard evening’s pursuit: “Name yourself, accursed swine eater.”
He replied in calm English with an Aussie ring: “General Allenby.”
“Right then,” fucking Marlowe enunciates in English. “You’d best have leave to be off base at this hour, soldier, and have a signed chit for that motorcycle I heard.” You would have been proud of my rough sergeant’s manner, Bev, and that I still refused to break my martial rhythms. “Name.” He saluted smartly and answered. “You’ve not heard the end of this. I’m ordering you back to base immediately.”
“Yes, sah, Captain Marlowe, sah, right away, sah.” The ready use of my name did dishearten me a bit, as you can well imagine, and if I’d had more wit or confidence I could actually hit anything with the damned toy, I would have reached for my Webley, shot the digger, finished my engagement in peace, and found an explanation later. As it was, I heard his ’cycle buzz away, I stirruped my mount back into the shadows and tried not to think about it.
Next day, though, I admit I was a bit concerned about repercussions, but my tormentor did not keep me suffering for long. Before my servant had even finished telling me that an ANZAC was waiting outside at my request, into my tent strode this same jackeroo of the previous evening. “At my request?” I repeated with a tone, dismissed my servant, and set to winding my puttees myself.
“Had the impression you were unhappy with me last night, sah.”
“Not at all, not at all. All you Aussies have proven to be excellent soldiers. No unhappiness at all. Anything else then?”
“If I may, sah, beg leave to enquire, what is it about the Australian fighting man that most impresses you, sah?”
I finished my puttees, sat back on my daybed, and considered the little shit, though he gazed militarily into the middle distance, where I am sure he could see the universe laying itself out very well indeed for him.
“I suppose that would be the native Aussie discretion, wouldn’t it?”
“Our watchword, sah.”
“Quite.”
“Sah, if I may say, interesting this: the ancient Egyptians so respected this particular trait—discretion—above all others that they gave military promotions for just that.”
“Funny, I can’t say I recall ever reading that.”
“No, sah? Well, state education down under is terribly thin, you know, sah, so it spurred me to independent scholarship.”
“I see. Yes, you may be right, ancient cultures rather up for interpretation at the end of the day, aren’t they? I shall look into that claim, perhaps contact an old don. Anything else today, Private?”
“Shall I write my name down for you, sah?”
“Shouldn’t be necessary, I don’t think.”
“Very good, sah, at your service, sah.”
He had me, Bev. I swallowed my dignity, and a few days later I had business again at the Aussie base at Tel el Kebir. There I mentioned to the appropriate AIF company commander that one of his number, who had some Arabic, had been of particular use on a series of counterintelligence interrogations I had been conducting, and certainly not my place, of course, but the fellow might merit a bump up to lance corporal if they had an opening in those lofty ranks. The price? I had to listen to the most excruciating stories about this captain’s fiancée back in Melbourne and coo over a photograph of the most unspeakably hideous woman in the history of that sex, if she was not in fact a shaven wallaby in skirts.
Thus endeth my steamy adventure, B. I should think I’m in the clear, and have heard the last of my nasty Sven from the bottom of the earth. Of course, I shouldn’t be surprised if he turns up expecting a few piastres for his continued discretion, but he should also know that I can make his life quite miserable here, have him detailed to something awfully unpleasant if not absolutely fatal.
In other exciting news from the scene of mankind’s great endeavour on behalf of world peace, I found something rather extraordinary in the bazaar this past week, though I can hardly believe it is not an imposture. I bought it on the strength of its convincing appearance, better than the usual absurd forgeries. I am not done deciphering it, but it appears to be something of potential interest on a rather arcane point of Egyptology. Of course, despite meandering back into the bazaar, I cannot find the fellow who sold me it again, so all of my new questions about its provenance and authenticity are virtually unanswerable, but I wonder if you might not do me a small service, Bev? Might you ask dear, doddering Clem Wexler how best to preserve and ship to him a particular “aged document”? Be a dear and write back instantly upon his response, quite the highest priority. Also, Bev, while I do think I can pass letters to you unread, I shouldn’t think yours to me will be treated with equal respect. Phrase wisely, dearest friend.
Chinlessly,
Go-go
23 April, 1918
Bev, you asinine anthrophile,
Do try not to be an absurd little girl about what I do and do not include in my letters to you. Do not lecture me on any of your newest virtues, none of which even remotely convince me. I shall continue to write what amuses me and what I believe will amuse you, my dearest friend. My method of conducting counterintelligence operations is as sound as any other I have seen. None of my young native agents have conspired with the Enemy, that is certain; I keep them much too sated, a preventive technique every security service should use. So I shall not censor myself for you, nor shall I protect what you so unconvincingly term your sensibilities. Do you think I write the same stories to little Theo Grahame or any of our other old dinner companions? Of course not. You are my one and only true correspondent. I never asked you to live like a grey Dominican friar on my account (and even they, I think, make a point to enjoy themselves more than you do, relaxing with nuns and half-wit peasant boys and such, threatening them with hellfire if they talk).
But what of Wexler, damn you? You were in such a hurry to complain (and quite indiscreetly) that you neglected to do the very simple thing I asked of you, you rotten man. Now go run across town right now before Wexler finally expires and disintegrates and the charlady sweeps up the resulting grey powder. Tell him these words: “Hugo’s found some p. that seems to confirm Harriman and Vassal and wants to send it to you safely. How?” Be sure to pronounce the question mark, or he’ll likely assume you’re a Red Indian and have you thrown out of his rooms.
As for my other little business, it has taken a turn for the exceedingly droll. As I recall, I left off having engineered a promotion for my matilda and was then waiting for his inevitable request for funds. This never came. I began to hope that we were satisfied with our promotion, that we were most proud to show off our new lance corporal stripes and administer a bit of lance corporal punishment to those who seemed to merit or at least relish it, but no: one morning, I had instead a baffling message from an Aussie sergeant, the jolly mate in charge of his camp’s front-gate guard details. He politely requested that since I was so regularly dispatching our new lance corporal out on counterintelligence missions at all hours of the day and night without, understandably, having time to issue individual passes each time, might I at least fill out some standing order for the rotating guard to have as a reference? Well here was a puzzle. I sent my batman to trek out and rustle up my pet Aussie, and that very evening in trots the colonial. Since our last meeting, explains grinning young Sven, he has adopted the habit of leaving his camp whenever he feels the urge, giving my name as his pass: “Intelligence mission for Captain Marlowe,” he tells the guards, zipping in and out on a ’cycle requisitioned with the same words. “See Captain Marlowe
for authorisation documents.” A garish display of cheek, you’ll agree. And what was he doing on his missions? Houris? Brawling? Not a bit of it: he has, on my good name, gone out half a dozen times to . . . wait for it, Bev . . . explore the monuments! He has been at archaeological sites, trying to meet the few excavators still working despite the explosive distractions of this modern War. “May I speak openly, sah?” he bellows. Of course you can, ducks, but do keep it down. Prepare yourself, Bev: it seems our little Aussie just loves Egypt and Egyptian studies, crazy mad for them. He does not want anything else from me, really, on the soul of his favourite koala, he just wants to talk to me about ancient Egypt. “How would I know anything of that?” I ask. Ah, well, he knows all about me, you will be as alarmed as I was to hear. He knows not only that I read the pharaohs at Oxford but that I am due “to go back and finish up and become a University professor,” he says with stars in his eyes. He shyly confesses that having learned this some time ago, he had approached me prior to our first encounter in the desert, back when I spent that week at Tel el Kebir, though I have not the slightest recollection of him. When I understandably paid him no attention there, he took to following me about whenever he could, and even stole out of camp and came across to our base that fateful night, just to introduce himself again. But he saw me leaving and assumed I was off on a “walkabout to gaze at the unparalleled beauty of the Gizeh pyramids,” and off he set to catch up with me. He tells me all this as if I shall be pleased to hear it.
A cloying tale, but what the devil does he want from me now? Why, just what any ordinary blackmailer wants: he wants lessons in Middle Egyptian. Trembling to exhibit his hidden depths for me, he takes pen and paper from my table to prove he can already write hieroglyphs, hieratic, and demotic. He taught himself, he claims (do be sure you are sitting down for this, Bev), from books in an Australian lending library run by his first love, a woman who died tragically, breathing her last in his arms. And now he simply wants to discuss the history of the kings with me. In short, Bev, I am being blackmailed into tutoring an antipodal, autodidact, widower, criminally inclined, would-be Egyptologist. Surely you know the type, an old story. Do tell me when I am boring you, love.
My pupil is a complete naïf but has strange, unconnected depths of knowledge, bottomless lakes of Egyptian expertise separated by vast beaches of ignorance. He is aware of this and wants the land flooded evenly. While we are at it, he would also like to learn Arabic, which he has already started to murder on his own.
He has come to my tent three times since—a forty-mile trek, Bev! Such devotion! He treats me absolutely with awe. Tales of Oxford hypnotise him, like a cross-eyed cobra swooning for a wog’s warbling flute. I whisper “Balliol” very softly and he begins to grow faint, though not so faint that I am able to begin instruction in the pedagogical method I think would be more pleasurable. I tried this once or twice (one does lose count), thinking it would be amusing and would also release the young scholar’s unpleasant hold over me. But I was trying to plant my seed in desert sand, I am sure you are relieved to learn, Bev: “Very koind of ye, Cap’n, but I don’t wanna waste yer toim, we should troy t’discuss just serious matters.” The beast. If I looked like you, of course, we would have progressed nicely by now.
Do write me of what I am missing at home. Tell me of the seasons. Tell me if my name ever comes up in conversation anymore. Tell me there is still a place for me back there. And for Christ’s sake, tell me what Wexler says.
Your dusky prince of Egypt,
Go-go
29 July, 1918
Dear Bevvy,
Heartbreaking, honestly. Thank you for your efforts, and thank you for passing the news. Not that she ever thought much of me, but tell the poor widow I send my most heartfelt condolences, and that her husband meant the world to me. Say it better, say it how you would. I am not joking—he truly was important to me, really, dipsomania and senility aside. He was a pedant, of course, and his goal in teaching was to produce, before his soul seeped from its body, as many scholars as possible who thought and spoke precisely as he did. I think he probably succeeded: before I left Oxford, I had noticed a half dozen of the younger men had taken to pulling on their earlobes and saying, “Maybe so, maybe so, but I do doubt it,” when they wanted to shut someone up. Poor old Clem. I truly wanted his advice on this papyrus, damn you. Damn him.
But, Bev, read on! I had just read your letter when my little orphan came in for his lesson. (Oh, yes, he is an orphan, too; the story is extraordinary, and not without some real bathos—you, I’m certain, would be sobbing.) He saw at once I had received bad news, and I was moved by a gust of nostalgia to discuss Wexler with him, the way he taught, his nicknames of my invention (The Ibid Ibis, I-Doubt-It, The Sic Bastard), certain methods and debates we had, including the fascinating questions of the particular historical issue surrounding that item I may have found. Of course the boy sat stock-still, agape and starved for junior common rooms, whatnot. After a few minutes, I regained hold of myself, and was prepared to start on our day’s topic (religious cults of the Theban kings), but he interrupted me and asked quite simply how he could go about being admitted to Balliol. He is really quite something, full of surprises. “Well, do let’s see,” I replied, all seriousness, “did you finish your schooling in Australia, or just learn at the lending library?” He was silent. “Well, that does make it rather difficult, doesn’t it, ducks?” Not to mention that moist sheep smell they all give off.
We began our tutorial (which consist mostly of me summarising certain events or themes, and giving him lists of books to read should he ever return to civilisation, some of which he has surprisingly already read, most of which he has not and which I attempt to summarise for him as well). Today, though, after only a few minutes, conversation slipped back to the glories of Oxford. This was entirely his doing, and while at first I indulged him and myself, it was becoming rather irritating, and so I said that discussing Oxford was too painful for me still, as it invariably brought back memories of (almost a reflex now to pull up his name when lying is necessary) poor Trilipush, my greatest friend there, an orphan just like you, ducks, but now missing these many months in the Bosporus campaign. (Sorry to drop the news on you so suddenly, Bev. Had I not mentioned? Oh yes, Ralph volunteered, don’t you know, to lead a detachment of bronzed, broad-shouldered seamen to approach Constantinople by water, swimming actually, as Ralph, preferring not to be too ostentatious, declined a ship. Not a word from him in months. Do pray for our chum.)
The colonial, eager for any holy relic of my saintly existence in the promised land of Oxford, pleads for details.
“He was my dearest friend at Balliol, quite my inseparable mate, the golden boy, the hope of Egyptology, the orphaned son of Kentish gentry, the renowned sportsman, scholar, and soon-to-be gentleman farmer. He and I joined up for the good fight together, the pride of the Balliol Egypt men, served here with me side by side at the beginning, but he simply must insist on combat, mustn’t he, and off he strode to help your countrymen in storming the empire of fezzes, our lovely lost boy.” I really did go on a bit, quite sure my pupil was catching the joke, on and on I went, reminisced over our triumphs and antics in our varsity days, Ralph and I, this and that about Ralph’s marvellously colourful childhood and career, really anything that came into my head to avoid our drab little tutorial, but as I went on, I saw the fool had absolutely no idea. And of course that made me curious to see how far things could go, and off I went, rather exaggerated here and there about it all, promoted into reality some things you and I would have liked, Bev, rebuilt Oxford in our image for him. I was thinking only of you in some of my additions, particularly the serving dwarves, chosen in ferocious competition for their servility, discretion, fluency in foreign tongues, and perfectly dimensioned tininess.
He has an unquenchable thirst for details, our blackmailing orphan, and I was tireless. What did we eat there? What was it like to know we were of “the fortunate chosen nobility”? As God is my wi
tness, Bev, he asked me this. What were my parents like, and what sorts of things pleased them when I was a boy, and what methods did I use to “determine when they were about to thrash” me? That was a difficult one, I must say. You know the governor: can you imagine wee, wordless Priapus “thrashing” anyone? And, for all his self-taught and Hugo-enriched knowledge of Egypt, he really hasn’t the faintest idea of how the twentieth-century world operates or who resides in it. I asked him why the War was on, why we were fighting the Germans and the Turks. Admittedly, I cannot say myself just why either, but he really had no idea, mumbled something about the international bankers and capitalists, but not with any conviction. Does he know how Parliament is elected or the name of the American president or what language they speak in Austria-Hungary or the rules of cricket? He does not.
I have now decided I am enjoying my blackmail, a pleasant pastime with this fawning dolt. I think you would rather enjoy it, too, Bev. “Until next time, then, sah,” he says with a merry wave, gathering up his notes and hypothetical reading lists, a last worshipful wink at his private Oxonian tutor. “I’ll learn all of this for next time, no question.” How lovely for you, ducks. That will come in handy when you return home to breed kangaroos.
Congratulations to you, too, BQ, on completing your studies. I wonder if you’ve given a thought to our postwar existence, which must become a reality someday. Finally the gentlemen in charge will run out of slaughterable young men and the Belligerent Powers will have to take a rest to breed up some more. And in that interval, I, of course, shall be back at my studies, with an eye to warming Clem Wexler’s chair someday. I shall need a housekeeper cum companion, and I shall insist on one with a high-level degree in Frog Letters, if you know anyone who might be interested in the post, keeping in mind, of course, my ferocious temper and Byzantine requirements.