A Fight in Silence

by Melanie Metzenthin

  Fritz picked it up and examined it. ‘I’d say he buried it somewhere for about six months to make it look old and valuable.’

  ‘You may be right, but I’d really like to know where these burial caves are.’ Richard turned back to the boy. ‘So, what do you want for the map?’

  ‘Five marks.’

  ‘Five marks?’ Richard was amazed. ‘I’ll give you twenty pfennig.’

  ‘Old map. Only one map of grave. Five marks.’

  ‘He knows plenty about German money,’ said Fritz drily. ‘You can drink yourself silly for five marks.’ Then he took a good look at the map himself. ‘What’s your name, my lad?’

  ‘Hassan.’

  ‘Right, Hassan. Before my friend here gives you his hard-earned cash for a fake, show me what your map’s good for. Where’s our camp?’

  Hassan immediately showed them not only the exact location of the camp but also quite deliberately pointed to a symbol in the no man’s land between the German and British front lines where the burial cave was allegedly to be found.

  ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if our young friend also does business with the Brits,’ commented Fritz. ‘He knows the area well, whatever he’s up to.’

  ‘D’you think there could be something in it?’ asked Richard. ‘After all, the biggest archaeological finds came about with the help of grave robbers, didn’t they?’

  Fritz shrugged. ‘I really don’t know. There might be. Buy the map if it’ll make you happy!’

  Richard negotiated the boy down to one mark and then asked him if he would agree to a photo. Hassan agreed with a big smile so Richard photographed him at his carving and promised Fritz a print for his children.

  ‘And what do you think, Fritz? Shall we take a look there tomorrow?’

  ‘You can’t seriously believe we’d get leave of absence for that, surely! A nice trip into no man’s land to look for a secret burial site?’ He shook his head.

  ‘We wouldn’t have to say what we wanted the leave for,’ retorted Richard. ‘We’ll only be away a couple of hours – they can all think we’re enjoying the desert flowers or something! Anyway, it’s very quiet at the Front just now. We can afford the time for a bit of an excursion.’

  ‘So am I supposed to risk my reputation for this?’ said Fritz good-naturedly. ‘OK then, I’ll sort out the leave of absence, but we’ll have to walk for a good hour to get there, so get yourself a compass and some rations.’

  ‘And a torch and my camera. Goes without saying.’

  ‘Do you know, this is the craziest thing we’ve ever done?’

  ‘In what way? I consider it to be absolutely normal. When in Egypt, the typical cultured German will visit ancient burial sites. What would be crazy is not to do it.’

  ‘You know we could get into real trouble for this, don’t you?’

  ‘Fritz, be honest. Is there anything I’ve done of late that hasn’t got me into real trouble? And if we’re caught out, what’s the big problem? We’ll talk our way out of it, say we went the wrong way or pretend we’d had a drink or got sunstroke. They’re hardly going to put their two best doctors in front of the firing squad or on punishment duty. They need us too much here.’

  ‘You’re right there,’ acknowledged Fritz. ‘But I’m warning you, if there’s nothing there, you owe me a couple of beers!’

  Chapter 46

  ‘I’m starting to feel like that Karl May explorer Kara Ben Nemsi, but without the horse,’ grumbled Fritz, wiping the sweat from his face. ‘D’you really think this thing exists?’

  ‘Well, the map shows quite clearly the pile of five stones marking the entrance to the cavern.’

  ‘I think this was a bad idea. Wouldn’t it be better to go back before we run into the English or get spotted by an enemy plane?’

  ‘We’ve come this far, so let’s keep going for another ten minutes or so, then turn back if we still haven’t found anything.’

  Fritz was ready to disagree when Richard saw the pile of stones, easily recognisable between some gnarled tree stumps and a patch of dried-out grass.

  ‘See that?’

  ‘You’re right! At least the boy wasn’t making it up.’

  They walked towards it with caution, keeping an eye on the surrounding terrain. Nobody was in sight.

  ‘Are we some way from the British lines?’ asked Richard. Fritz looked at the map. ‘I’d say about as far from theirs as we are from ours.’

  Richard was right by the pile of stones now.

  ‘There’s an opening here; it leads downwards!’ he called out to Fritz, then took off his kitbag, which had food, water, torches and his camera inside, got down flat on his belly and shone his torch inside.

  ‘Anything to see?’ asked Fritz, crouching down beside him.

  ‘It doesn’t drop down very deep and then it goes level. There really does seem to be some sort of shaft.’

  ‘What if there are snakes down there? Something poisonous? Or perhaps the place is cursed, like the tomb of Tutankhamun.’

  ‘If that’s the case, then Hassan wouldn’t have come back so cheerful, surely?’

  ‘OK, agreed, but there still might be snakes and scorpions.’

  ‘Fritz, I never knew you were such a coward!’

  ‘Hey, a bit less of that, please! One of us has to show some common sense, now you’ve got the explorer bug.’

  ‘I’m going to climb down.’ Richard got the extra torch out of his kitbag, handed it to Fritz and reached for his camera.

  ‘And what am I supposed to do if you get bitten by a snake?’

  ‘You’ll think of something. You’re a surgeon, aren’t you?’

  The opening was very narrow and Richard eased himself forward on all fours. He gave a start when a little creature darted across his hand, but it was only a lizard, nothing to fear. Composing himself, he continued to make his way, and after about three metres the gallery widened out and led into a small chamber roughly four metres square in size. He stood upright and gasped when he caught sight of the many wall paintings showing Egyptian gods.

  ‘Fritz, this is unbelievable – come and see! It’s all true, what the boy told us.’

  Fritz was soon at his side. He’d brought the kitbag with him and cleared away all trace of their presence from the entrance. ‘Just in case a reconnaissance aircraft comes by,’ he said.

  They flashed their torches around the chamber.

  ‘Hey, there’s the sarcophagus.’ Fritz pointed towards a huge, sand-coloured stone receptacle, its cover broken in two on the ground. The inner sarcophagus itself lay empty. ‘Plundered – I might have known.’

  ‘D’you think we’re the first Europeans ever to come here?’ asked Richard.

  ‘I should think so. Who on earth would ever pay for an excavation here? The whole area’s so inhospitable.’

  He shone his torch on the wall paintings. ‘Look at that! Wonderful. That’s the Opening of the Mouth ceremony, and here you can see Anubis leading the dead towards the throne of Osiris. It’s not as impressive as the photos you see of the Valley of the Kings, but it’s—’ He suddenly stopped talking. ‘Did you hear that?’

  ‘Hear what?’ asked Richard.

  Fritz drew his pistol from its holster. ‘Torch off!’

  Richard did as he was told, then heard the same as Fritz. From above them came men’s voices, speaking English!

  Instinctively, he too reached for his gun, the first time since his military training. He’d never thought an army doctor would need to use a weapon. Had someone been watching them? Had someone followed them all the way here? Richard’s heart pounded. Under the cover of darkness, Fritz pushed his friend back behind the sarcophagus so they had at least some cover.

  ‘Over here, Arthur!’ shouted someone in English as a new beam lit up the chamber. ‘There really is an old tomb here! It’s quite remarkable!’

  They heard scratching and scraping, as though a second man was now also crawling along the gallery.

  ‘Hey, look!
Is that a German kitbag?’

  Fritz shot up from behind the sarcophagus. ‘Hands up!’ He gave the order in English.

  Richard was on his feet too and trained his pistol and his torch on the two British soldiers, who were stunned to find themselves confronted by a pair of German officers. Slowly, they raised their hands.

  ‘We’re from the medical service,’ said one of them. ‘We’re not in a fighting unit.’

  Fritz looked more closely at the man opposite him. ‘Maxwell? Maxwell Cooper?’

  ‘Yes,’ came the hesitant reply. Richard saw how the Brit was trying to see their faces in the glare of the torches. ‘Do we know each other?’

  ‘It’s me, Fritz Ellerweg.’

  ‘Fritz? Good Lord! You really do get everywhere!’

  ‘Listen, this is really awkward for all four of us. But tell me honestly, how many more of you are lurking outside?’

  ‘None,’ said Maxwell, earning a kick on the shin from his companion.

  ‘None?’ said Fritz. ‘Do you give me your word?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Good. Then can we talk as the old friends we are? Put away our guns? Or do you insist on war?’

  ‘I rather think this place looks a bit like Switzerland,’ said Maxwell, ‘and medical officers don’t wage war.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Fritz said, lowering his gun.

  But Richard kept his gun where it was, pointing straight at the two Englishmen. He reverted to German with Fritz, saying to his friend, ‘Can’t you at least tell them to take off their gun belts?’

  ‘Maxwell’s a good friend of mine. He wouldn’t lie to me.’

  ‘And the other one? Looks really sinister. I wouldn’t trust him an inch.’

  ‘Keep it that way,’ the second man snarled in German. ‘I can’t stand you damned Krauts.’

  ‘See? We’ll have to watch that one.’

  ‘Stop all that, Arthur,’ hissed Maxwell.

  ‘Don’t tell me to trust a German,’ said Arthur icily, and in English this time.

  ‘The position you’re in, you have no choice,’ said Richard. He spoke in English so as not to exclude Maxwell from the dialogue. ‘I am the one with the gun. It is for me to decide whether I trust you.’

  Maxwell tried to smooth things over. ‘Listen, my colleague’s home was bombed in the latest air raid over London. It was sheer luck that his wife wasn’t home. She’d never have survived it.’

  This only stoked up Richard’s anger. ‘Oh, so does he think he’s the only one? My own home was razed to the ground by British bombers, and our neighbours met a miserable end in the basement where they’d gone for shelter. It was luck too that my wife and children weren’t at home. But the difference between the two of us is that I know how to distinguish between the Royal Air Force and an innocent party.’ He gave Arthur a long, hard look, the camera hanging around the Englishman’s neck catching his eye and prompting his next remark. ‘Anyway, you can’t despise all Germans if you go around with a Leica II on show. Or is that a battle trophy?’

  ‘I didn’t say that I despise all Germans,’ retorted Arthur. ‘I said I didn’t trust any!’

  ‘You don’t have to do that,’ said Richard. ‘It’s enough if you give me your word not to shoot if I put my gun down. Even if it’s naive and stupid of me to trust an embittered Brit.’

  Arthur hesitated. ‘You have my word,’ he said with a nod.

  ‘Well, at last,’ said Richard, stowing away his pistol. Fritz and Maxwell both sighed with relief.

  ‘So what on earth are you both really doing here?’ asked Maxwell.

  ‘Yesterday we bought a map from a Bedouin boy that shows the route to an undiscovered tomb,’ explained Fritz. ‘We thought we’d have a look, seeing as it’s quieter at the Front at the moment.’

  ‘A map? Is it like this?’ Maxwell reached into his uniform jacket pocket, pulled out a folded parchment and slowly opened it out. Richard and Fritz stared at the map.

  ‘That little trickster!’ hissed Fritz as Richard got their own map out of his kitbag.

  ‘Here’s mine.’ He showed it to the two Englishmen. ‘Identical. Right down to the well-thumbed edges. Seems to be a flourishing Bedouin business model.’

  Maxwell burst out laughing. ‘I bought mine over a week ago, but it was only today it felt safe enough for a jaunt into no man’s land. We thought, Oh well, the enemy’s quiet, nobody’ll notice if we’re out for a while.’

  ‘Our logic too!’ Fritz grinned. ‘Isn’t it nice of the enemy to give us a bit of peace so we can indulge our cultural interests?’

  ‘Nobody would believe us! Have you been here for long?’ asked Maxwell.

  ‘No, we got here just before you. May I introduce my closest friend, Dr Richard Hellmer? We met during our first semester as young students.’

  Richard and Maxwell shook hands.

  ‘And this is Dr Arthur Grifford,’ said Maxwell, presenting his companion. ‘We haven’t known each other as long as you two, but long enough to have been on a few mad trips!’ He laughed.

  Arthur Grifford didn’t look too pleased about the friendly introduction and accepted Fritz’s outstretched hand only after some hesitation.

  ‘I knew those Bedouins had a deal with the enemy,’ he muttered to himself.

  ‘I wouldn’t call it a deal. They just sell both sides their rubbish!’ observed Richard.

  Arthur ignored him so as to avoid shaking hands with yet another German.

  Meanwhile, Fritz was enthusiastically shining his torch on the wall behind the sarcophagus. ‘Maxwell, you’re the hieroglyph expert. What does all this say?’

  ‘Hang on, it looks really interesting.’ Maxwell went over to him and started explaining the significance of the various images.

  Arthur clapped his hand to his forehead in frustration.

  ‘Headache?’ asked Richard, keeping a sharp eye on him still.

  Arthur’s tone was icy again. ‘We’ve got other problems at the moment, more than hieroglyphs.’

  ‘You’re right there,’ conceded Richard. ‘Getting any decent photographs in this light is a real challenge. Well, for you, that is. I’ve got a Leica III, you see.’ He held out his camera for Arthur to see. ‘This one doesn’t need such a long exposure time, and I’ve got a good flash. Sometimes it’s worth investing in the latest technology instead of making do with a cheaper, older model!’

  ‘Show-off!’

  Richard laughed. He trained his camera on the painted walls and took a number of shots. Although Arthur had obviously decided to treat the Germans with utter disdain, Richard noticed how interested he was in the finer details of the camera, although he was too proud to ask him any questions.

  Meanwhile, Fritz and Maxwell seemed to have completely forgotten there was a war on. They were exchanging news about their families, showing one another the photographs they always carried with them.

  ‘Harri’s really grown!’ exclaimed Maxwell.

  ‘And is that lovely young woman really little Sarah? She’ll be married before you know where you are, and then it’ll be Grandpa Maxwell!’

  Arthur made very obvious coughing noises.

  ‘Frog in your throat?’ Richard’s quip didn’t raise a smile. He thought for a moment, then decided it was time for some straight talking. ‘Listen, I can understand why the war makes you detest every German but, presumably, you didn’t always feel like that. You speak German, you use a German camera, and your colleague here is good friends with a German.’ He nodded towards Fritz and Maxwell, deep in conversation about new methods in surgery. Maxwell was listening attentively while Fritz explained how skin grafts he had carried out during the amputation process could guarantee better results in any later use of prosthetics.

  ‘You surgeons are a breed apart,’ said Arthur.

  ‘I’m not a surgeon, actually.’

  ‘Really? So what are you?’

  ‘I’m a psychiatrist.’

  Arthur gave a low whistle. ‘You could do with sort
ing out Hitler then.’

  ‘I’m a psychiatrist, not a miracle-worker.’

  Arthur hesitated before carrying on. ‘You won’t lose your rag if I say a few bad things about your wonderful leader then?’

  ‘He is not my wonderful leader. I didn’t vote for him.’

  ‘That doesn’t tell me anything. You’re all always cheering him.’

  ‘You have absolutely no idea what’s been happening on the ground in Germany over the last ten years or so.’

  Arthur fell silent.

  ‘So what’s your specialism?’ Richard expected a touchy reply and so was surprised when Arthur simply said general medicine.

  ‘I had no desire to go to the Front,’ said Arthur, ‘but once we’d been bombed out at home, it seemed like a good solution. My wife’s a nurse and reported for duty at the field hospital at the same time. I reckon we’re the only couple both to enter the medical corps. It’s not how we planned our future together, to be quite honest. But there’s no point in having a family now, and who knows how long this war will drag on.’

  ‘Didn’t your wife want to come and see the tomb as well?’

  ‘We didn’t tell anyone what we were planning. They’d all have said we were insane. I didn’t even tell Lisa.’

  Neither spoke for a while. Fritz and Maxwell had moved on to the effectiveness of antibiotics.

  ‘Did you sign up of your own accord?’ Arthur asked Richard.

  ‘Long story. It’s almost as incredible as us meeting here in this tomb.’

  ‘Will you tell me?’

  Richard could hear that Arthur’s icy tone had vanished. Had he managed to penetrate the Englishman’s armour? Or maybe he was making the best of the situation because he knew Maxwell and Fritz would carry on talking for a while yet.

  ‘OK, why not? You’re welcome to pass it on to your press scribblers, but leave my name out of it if you want to spare my family. I can’t possibly broadcast this in Germany – it could literally be fatal, but the world must know.’

  ‘I’m intrigued. Go on!’

  So Richard told him about the Law for the Prevention of Progeny with Inherited Diseases, about how, as a psychiatrist, it was his job to write expert statements assessing patients’ productivity, about the killing of those considered unworthy of life. Arthur’s face registered increasing disbelief as he listened.