The Lost Army Of Cambyses

by Paul Sussman

  He sniggered at his joke and returned to his desk. Khalifa replaced the Davies and went through into the second room, which had shelves to either side and a row of tables down the middle. On the one furthest from him, beside a window overlooking the gardens, were two teetering piles of books. He sat down and, taking the top volume from the nearest pile, started reading.

  It took him three hours to find what he wanted. He eventually tracked it down in a slim volume entitled A Journey across the Great Sea of Dunes, written in 1902 by an English explorer, Captain John de Villiers.

  De Villiers had set out to retrace, in reverse, Rohlfs' landmark expedition of 1874, starting from Siwa with local guides and a train of fifteen camels, and heading out across the desert towards the oasis of Dakhla 600 kilometres to the southeast. Twenty days later sickness and insufficient supplies had forced them to divert to al-Farafra, where the journey had been abandoned. What interested Khalifa, however, was not how the expedition had ended, but something that had happened eight days after it had first set out:

  It was on the morning of this eighth day that Abu, the boy of whom I have already spoken, pointed out a most extraordinary sight far off across the dunes, somewhat to the east of our line of march.

  My first impression was that the pyramid, for such it was, must be a mirage, or optical illusion . . .' Khalifa paused, pondering the unfamiliar words, then stood and went over to the librarian, asking for an English-Arabic dictionary. The man pointed one out, and, taking it from the shelf, Khalifa returned to his desk and flicked through it.

  'Ah!' he said, finding the words. 'Sirab. Tawahhum basari. I see.'

  He returned to the text, keeping the dictionary open beside him, referring to it frequently.

  It certainly did not seem possible that it could be of natural provenance, both because of the extreme precision of its form, and, more telling, the absence of any other such formations anywhere within the vicinity.

  As we drew closer, however, I was forced to reconsider this initial appraisal. The pyramid was, it transpired, both real and of natural creation. How it had arisen, and when, I cannot say, for my expertise does not, sadly, extend to matters geological. All I can report is that it was a most exceptional addition to the landscape, huge beyond reckoning, erupting from the dunes like the head of a javelin, or, a perhaps more appropriate simile, the prong of a trident, such as that wielded by Poseidon (we were, after all, in the midst of a Sea of Sand!).

  Some sort of joke, Khalifa presumed.

  It took us much of the day to reach this fantastic object, and necessitated a not inconsiderable diversion from our set course. Several of the men were against going towards it at all, believing it to be a thing of ill omen and harbinger of evil, the sort of charming superstitious bunkum to which the mind of the Egyptian Arab appears particularly susceptible (they are, in many ways, as Lord Cromer has so rightly indicated, little better than a nation of children).

  Khalifa shook his head, half amused by the comment, half annoyed. Bloody arrogant English!

  I gave ear to the men's concerns and did my best to quell them, conceding that large rocks could indeed be frightening, although generally in my experience only to those of a feminine or childlike disposition, and certainly not to such hardened men as they. That seemed to have the desired effect and, despite some churlish mutterings, we continued onwards, attaining our goal late in the afternoon and setting up camp at its base.

  There is, I am sure you will concede, only so much that can be said about an outcrop of rock, even one as curious as this, and I believe I have exhausted most of it in the previous few paragraphs. I would, however, draw attention to one particular aspect of the feature, namely certain markings discovered close to its base, on the southward side, which, on closer examination, proved to be rudimentary hieroglyphs.

  My command of the ancient Egyptian language is as limited as that of geology. I knew enough, however, to hazard a guess that the signs spelt out a name: 'Net-nebu'. An early traveller, no doubt, who had passed by this very spot several millennia before we ourselves came to stand upon it.

  Later that same night, as Azab the cook served up dinner, I raised a toast – in tea, sadly, not wine – to the intrepid Net-nebu, wishing him retrospective good health, and hoping most sincerely that he had reached his destination safely. The men too raised their cups, solemnly repeating my words without, I suspect, having the least idea what they were talking about. It appeared to lift their spirits, however, and a sound night's sleep was had by all.

  Khalifa read through the description twice to make sure he'd understood it properly, scribbling the odd note to himself, then turned to an appendix at the end of the book. Here there were extracts from de Villiers's expedition diary, with details of the distances covered each day, and on what compass bearing. By measuring these against a basic map of western Egypt he was able to get an idea of the general area in which the pyramid-shaped outcrop was located. He asked the librarian for more detailed maps, and set about pinpointing it precisely.

  This took longer than he thought. He went right down to a 1:150,000 scale map, but couldn't find the outcrop anywhere. There was something that might have been it on an enhanced satellite map of the Dune Sea, but it was by no means clear, while a 1:50,000 Egyptian military survey, on which it would almost certainly have showed up, stopped just to the west of the area he was concerned with. He began to think he wouldn't find it.

  In the end he did. On a Second World War RAF pilot's chart, of all things, kept in the library more as a historical memento than for any geographical information it might contain. Nonetheless it provided a detailed topographical picture of the area between 26 and 30 degrees of both longitude and latitude, and there, roughly halfway between Siwa and al-Farafra, sticking out from an otherwise empty landscape, was a small triangle with the legend 'Pyramidal Rock Formation'. Khalifa slammed his hand on the desk in delight, the sound echoing through the room like a gunshot.

  'Sorry,' he whispered to the librarian, who had put his head round the door to see what was going on.

  He noted down the rock's co-ordinates, checking and rechecking to make sure he had them exactly and then, wondering if his friend Fat Abdul still organized desert tours, stood up and stretched. Only then did he notice it had gone dark outside. He looked at his watch. Past eight o'clock. And he'd promised to be home by four for the children's parade.

  'Dammit!' he hissed, snatching up his notebook and rushing out. Zenab would not be happy.

  33

  THE WESTERN DESERT

  By nightfall there was still no trace of the army and Dravic was growing impatient.

  All day long he had stood staring at the work below, waiting for the cry to go up that something had been found. Hour after hour had gone by, the sun burning down on him, the flies swarming around his face, the huge rock towering overhead, its outline trembling in the outrageous heat, and still the cry hadn't come. The vacuums had worked nonstop, lowering the ground around the base of the rock by almost ten metres, but there was nothing. Just sand. Thousands upon thousands of tons of it, as if the desert was mocking him.

  A couple of times he had descended into the excavation trench himself, poking around with his trowel, cursing anyone who happened to be nearby. For the most part, however, he had remained beneath the shade of his umbrella, chomping on his cigars, wiping the sweat from his eyes, growing increasingly anxious and frustrated.

  As the sun went down and the sky darkened, the air growing mercifully cooler, they set up giant arc lamps all around the excavation, flooding the valley with light. The chances of the illumination being spotted out there in the vastness of the desert were negligible and, anyway, it was a risk they had to take if they wanted to push on with the work. Every available man was issued with a shovel and sent down into the trench to dig. There was now a whole army down there, labouring furiously beneath the blazing white light. An army searching for an army. Yet still there was no sign of it.

  He was beginning to w
orry that Lacage might be right. Perhaps the army was further down than he'd thought. His estimation was that it ought to be between four and seven metres below the desert surface. That was what he'd told Sayf al-Tha'r. Between four and seven metres. Ten at the outside. But they were down to ten now and there was nothing. Absolutely nothing.

  They'd find it eventually, of course, but time was pressing. They couldn't stay out here for ever. As each day went by there was more chance of their activities attracting attention. The desert was remote, but not so remote that they could hide in it indefinitely. They had a week at most. And if the army was fifty metres down they wouldn't be able to get much of it out in that time.

  'Where is it?' he muttered, sucking angrily on his cigar. 'We should have found it by now. Where the fuck is it?'

  He clenched his fists and worked the knuckles into his temples. He had a furious headache – hardly surprising, given that he'd been standing up there for over twelve hours. He needed to calm down. Take his mind off things. He shouted to one of the men below, telling them he was going to his tent and that if anything happened they should call him immediately, and then turned and walked back down towards the camp. He had a bottle of vodka in his bag. A few shots of that and he'd feel a lot better. And perhaps he'd get a couple of hours' sleep as well. He could do with it.

  As he walked, however, another idea gradually came into his head, causing a smile to spread slowly across his huge face. Yes, he thought, that would really take his mind off things. He'd get a wash, have a few drinks, eat, and then . . .

  He reached the camp and, weaving his way through the stacks of equipment, stopped in front of a tent and put his head through the flap. Inside Tara and Daniel were lying curled on the floor. They sat up when they heard him enter. He looked briefly at Tara and then spoke to the guard in Arabic. Daniel grimaced.

  'You animal, Dravic,' he hissed. 'One day I'll kill you.'

  Dravic burst out laughing. 'Then you'll have to come back from the dead to do it.' He spoke to the guard again and left.

  'What was all that about?' Tara asked.

  Daniel didn't say anything, just sat staring at the ends of his boots. He seemed reluctant to answer.

  'What did he say?'

  He muttered something.

  'What?'

  'He said they're to take you to his tent in two hours.'

  She looked down at her watch. Eight-fifteen. She felt as if she was going to be sick.

  LUXOR

  As Khalifa had expected, Zenab wasn't happy with him. She was watching television with Ali and Batah when he came in, and fixed him with one of her fiercest glares.

  'You didn't see me, Dad,' chided Ali. 'I was on the Tutankhamun float. I was one of his fan-bearers.'

  'I'm sorry,' said Khalifa, squatting in front of his son and ruffling his hair. 'There was something I had to finish at work. I would have been there if I could. Here, I bought you something. And you, Batah.'

  He reached into the plastic bag he was carrying and pulled out a shell necklace, which he gave to his daughter, and a plastic trumpet.

  'Thanks, Dad!' cried Ali, seizing the instrument and blowing loudly on it. Batah rushed out to look at herself in the mirror. Ali followed.

  'It's once a year, Yusuf,' said Zenab when they were alone. 'One afternoon a year. They so wanted you to be there.'

  'I'm sorry,' he said again, reaching for her hand. She withdrew it and, standing, moved across the room and closed the door.

  'I got a call this morning,' she said, turning. 'From Chief Hassani.'

  Khalifa said nothing, just pulled out his cigarettes.

  'To say how pleased he was about your promotion. How it would mean more money, a subsidized flat, a new school for the kids. I said, "It's the first I've heard about it." He said you'd be home soon to tell me. That it was a really good career move for you. Went on and on about it.'

  'Bastard,' muttered Khalifa.

  'What?'

  'He's getting at me, Zenab. Getting at me through you. Telling you all the good things this promotion will mean and hoping you'll persuade me to take it.'

  'You're not going to take it?'

  'It's complicated.'

  'Don't fob me off! Not this time. What's happening, Yusuf?'

  Ali started banging on the door. 'Mum! I want to watch television.'

  'Your father and I are talking. Go and play with Batah.'

  'I don't want to play with Batah.'

  'Ali, go and play with Batah! And keep the noise down or you'll wake the baby.'

  There was a defiant trumpet toot and the sound of a door slamming. Khalifa lit his cigarette. 'I have to go back to Cairo,' he said. 'Tonight.'

  She was still for a moment and then came over and knelt before him, her hair spilling across his thighs.

  'What is this, Yusuf? I've never known you like this before. Tell me. Please. I have a right to know. Especially when it's affecting our lives like this. What is this case? Why won't you take the promotion?'

  He put his arms around her and rested his forehead on her head. 'It's not that I don't want to tell you, Zenab. It's just that I'm frightened. Frightened of getting you involved. It's so dangerous.'

  'Then I have even more right to know. I am your wife. What affects you affects me too. And our children. If there is danger I should know about it.'

  'I don't fully understand it myself. All I know is that innocent people's lives are in danger and I'm the only one who can save them.'

  They remained like that for a moment and then she pushed him away, looking up into his eyes.

  'There's something else, isn't there?'

  He didn't speak.

  'What?'

  'It's not . . .'

  'What, Yusuf?'

  'Sayf al-Tha'r,' he said quietly.

  Her head dropped. 'Oh God, no. That's in the past. It's finished.'

  'It's never been finished,' he said, staring down at his knees. 'That's what I've realized with this case: it's always here inside me. I've tried to forget about it, to move on, but I can't. I should have stopped them. I should have helped him.'

  'We've been over this, Yusuf. There was nothing you could have done.'

  'But I should at least have tried. And I didn't. I just let them take him away.' He could feel tears welling in his eyes and fought to keep them back. 'I can't put it into words, Zenab. It's as if I'm carrying a huge weight on my back. Always I'm thinking about Ali. About what happened. About how I could have done more. And now, with this case, I have a chance to put things right. Maybe not bring Ali back, but at least redress some of the evil that's been done. And until I do that I'll always be incomplete. Half of me will always be trapped in the past.'

  'I'd rather have half a husband than a dead one.'

  'Please try to understand. I have to see this through. It's important.'

  'More important than me and the children? We need you, Yusuf.' She seized his hands. 'I don't care about the promotion. We don't need more money, a fancy flat. We get along fine. But I care about you. My husband. My love. I don't want you to be killed. And you will be if you carry on with this. I know you will be. I can feel it.' She was crying now and buried her face in his lap. 'I want you here, with us, safe,' she said, choking. 'I want us to grow together, a family.'

  From Batah's bedroom came the muffled screech of his son's trumpet. Firecrackers were popping in the street below. He stroked her hair.

  'There's nothing in the world more important to me than you and the children,' he whispered. 'Nothing. Not the past, not my brother, certainly not my own life. I love you more than I could ever express. I would do anything for you. Anything.'