The contrast between this lot and our nervy Smart Alec couldn’t have been greater – they were telling me to wander off into the blue on my own. A couple of the guys looked amused: they wanted to know what I was going to do. What I decided was that I’d better see a bit of old Egypt to tell the kids about, while I could . . . I’d seen bugger-all so far.
Before I set off the Sergeant we’d rescued from a walk on the wild side advised, ‘Watch out for the snakes, sir. They like the big old stones, and they are all poisonous. Don’t go stroking them like they were cats.’
‘No, Sergeant. Didn’t Cleopatra try that and come unstuck?’
‘It’s not far, but if you get lost, stay put, and shine your torch upwards now and again. I’ll come out and find you.’
I took my small pack, in which were a water bottle, compass and my pipe and tobacco. Once I was away from the tankies the moon was so large that I didn’t need the torch. It shone a cold white light on the old narrow track, and even the smallest of boulders threw a shadow. I made plenty of noise, whistled and kicked stones. Maybe if the snakes heard me coming, they’d get out of the way: there was nothing out here big enough to look on me as a snack anyway. It was cool, though, after the heat from the tanks, and I was glad of my jacket. After ten minutes I stopped, and lit up.
Apart from the occasional distant laugh or shout from the camp, it was absolutely silent out there, and I lost even those noises after the second ridge. That huge moon and a billion stars – you’ve never seen anything like it. I felt something like a huge sigh go out of me . . . and felt suddenly and oddly content to be myself, and who I was, and where I was, and when. It was as if life stopped just briefly, in order to give me a breather. I know that you’ll laugh, but it was one of those moments after which you’ve never once ever been afraid of death again. Dying, yes – I know that’s going to hurt – but death? No. I was in the most barren place on earth, where the animals and insects and even some of the humans wanted to kill me. Where there was no water, and nothing but stones and sand, and little Charlie was taking time to play the philosopher. My old dad was going to love this when I told him.
What they’d told me was that the ruins were on the far side of a rough scarp and, because they were precisely where the hard desert met the sand sea, they ducked and dived a bit. It all depended what the wind had been doing. Sometimes all you could see, they’d said, were a few stones poking above the sand . . . and sometimes the ruin was very exposed. Something built by the Romans they thought. Nobody had seen it on this trip. They didn’t seem even vaguely curious.
The track angled over a ridge in the moonlight. There was a thick band of shadow before it: I’d have to watch myself. The Lieutenant had assured me that the Gyppoes were far away – back in Cairo by now, old boy, bearing a couple of their wounded – but that didn’t stop me being reassured by the weight of my little pistol in my pocket.
When I thought of Romans, I tended to think of gladiators in the amphitheatre, traders in the forum, and Vivien Leigh in skimpy slave-girl outfits, but what I saw on the far side of that ridge was none of these. It was a theatre. Columns and walls, and semicircles of flat stone seats: everything was bigger than I had imagined, and deep, and still standing head-height to a tall man. I was at the top of the ridge, which was actually the top remaining level of maybe fifteen or twenty tiers of seats: sand was pushed up into their angles, so in a way they looked like a series of descending waves under the moon. And the moon. It was behind and above the stage; almost balancing on the wall of remaining masonry. It dazzled me.
The man standing low in the stage area didn’t dazzle me at all. In fact he looked rather annoyed to see me. The feeling was mutual. As I turned away he spoke.
‘Do not go, English soldier.’ He spoke conversationally, and in a cultured deep voice. He hadn’t raised his voice, since the theatre was still doing its acoustic magic. One of my problems was that I wasn’t an ‘English soldier’, was I? – Not in the technical sense, that is – whereas he was a soldier, and dressed like one. His KD trousers were proper trousers, not shorts. I was also pretty certain that he wasn’t English. What had that tankie said about the wogs? Back in Cairo by now, old boy. Yeah: ask me another! This man not only looked like a soldier, but the sort of soldier you didn’t fuck about with.
And his suggestion was not a suggestion at all: it was a bloody order. What had I got myself into this time?
He beckoned me to come down to him. I thrust my hand into my jacket pocket for the reassurance of my pistol. He shook his head, and glanced to my right then to my left.
I
