Super Short Stories

by Stan Mason

  ‘Very well,’ began the archaeologist, with forlorn scepticism, ‘where’s the exact site of this ancient battle?’ he asked eventually. He considered it was more than probable that the guide was operating some kind of a scam in order to obtain work and some money. These people were renowned for becoming involved in shabby financial schemes of one sort or another. However, as a result of his continually lack of success in his field, Townsend became more than eager to fasten on to any coherent details granted to him about an important battle which had occurred in the past.

  ‘Down zer,’ returned the man, pointing to a vacant spot towards the centre of the valley.

  ‘That’s rather inconsistent with the terms of any battle,’ retorted the archaeologist. ‘I mean, if there had been some kind of a skirmish here neither army would have wanted to become trapped in a valley. At least one of them would have remained at the brow of the hill.’

  ‘Well that ees where eet took place,’ the guide told him firmly as though he had witnessed the event.

  ‘How do you know a battle was actually fought here?’

  The man turned to stare at him directly, almosts challenging in his adamant attitude. ‘It ‘as been known for over two thousand years,’ he replied, his eyes reflecting a pride which hadn’t been there before. ‘My family, we live ‘ere since time long past. Even before zat. We always live in zees valley. Zis story ‘e was told by my father, ees father, and all my ancestors before ‘eem. Zey tell us so we remember always, telling us to pass it to our children. Zat’s ‘ow I know about eet.’

  ‘So you feel certain... .about this battle taking place here in this exact spot. You’re absolutely certain.’

  ’Of course. I shall f course. I shall take you to zee exact point as shown to me by my father.’ Without hesitation, he turned and walked down the hillside under the watchful eye of the archaeologist. ‘Aren’t you coming weeth me?’ he asked frowning, after looking back some twenty metres along the path.

  Townsend nodded before making his way to the little man and they continued onward together. Eventually, they reached a spot where the guide stopped and pointed down at the earth.

  ‘’Eer! Thees ees the place where the battle ‘appened,’ he pronounced boldly. ‘Weethout any doubt, eet ees ‘eer.’

  The archaeologist inhaled deeply to stare bleakly at the spot. There was just a spread of sand but he realised that many layers had been deposited by the wind over a period exceeding two thousand years. If the guide was correct in his prediction, the problem now was to determine how far down everything had been buried. He had visited Knosses in Crete where Sir Arthur Evans had cleared the site after a tsunami wave had deposited thousands of tons of mud over it some centuries earlier. Well no tsunami wave had ever featured here but that meant very little because wind-blown sand could bury the past extremely deeply over a considerably long period of time!

  Shortly after he had assembled his crew to work the site, a glimmer of good fortune moved in his direction. He picked up a magazine and read about a revolutionary new invention which would save him a great deal of time and trouble in his field of operation. Subsequently, he flew to Berne in Switzerland to visit the inventor, a man called Helmut Weiss.

  ‘My machine is unique,’ stated Weiss arrogantly. He was a wizened, little bald-headed, middle-aged man who insisted on wearing a white coat in his home as though he were a scientist at work. ‘It uses a specific type of ray to seek out what lies in the ground below. The range is approximately fifty feet and it’s able to detect bones which haven’t yet turned to powder. One simply turns on the machine and looks into the monitor. Different images are projected upwards, showing themselves in shades of grey and black. I am working on a colour scheme but that is for the future.’

  ‘How easily can such details be identified?’ asked the archaeologist with great interest.

  ‘Come, I will show you.’ Weiss took him to outside into the garden and led him to a device which stood there ready for action. He pressed a switch to turn it on and the monitor lit up fairly swiftly. ‘As you can see, I have buried a number of items approximately forty feet down, including the body of an old dog who died. They can be seen quite clearly on the screen. Better still, you can identify the depth of any bodies or artefacts with a measuring device I’ve introduced into the system. I’ll show you.’ He depressed a green button on the machine and a series of mathematical data appeared on the screen. ‘It’s quite precise, I assure you.’ He paused for a moment to stare at the face of the archaeologist. ‘Do you think this device will be of any value to you?’

  Townsend’s eyes sparkled and he felt excitement well-up inside him. The invention would save him thousands upon thousands of pounds. Not only would he be able to determine the exact site of bodies buried in the past but the time involved in the effort of searching and months of needless digging would be negated entirely. As far as he was concerned, the invention had been sent from Heaven! He familiarised himself with the device and the two men entered into serious discussion for its transfer.

  The next day, the archaeologist returned to Israel stimulated in mind and thought, together with the precious machine which he rented from Weiss for a period of one month. Without delay, he arranged for it to be wheeled out to the spot in the valley identified by the Egyptian guide, and then pressed the switch to turn it on. Moving it forwards and backwards, he searched over a distance of some fifty yards but, despite his efforts, he could find the remains of only two bodies and no weapons or artefacts.

  He turned to the Egyptian guide in anger. ‘I thought you said a battle took place here between the Philistines and the Israelites. At this exact spot.’

  ‘That’s correct,’ affirmed the guide. ‘Thees ees where eet ‘appened. I know eet for certain.’

  ‘Then why is this machine showing only two bodies and no weapons or artefacts?’ demanded Townsend angrily, beginning to believe that he had been extremely foolish to be taken in by the guide’s tale.

  ‘Battles were fought very differently in ancient times,’ came the reply. ‘For example, in Persia, zee two armies would face each ozzer before the battle. Zen a poet from each side would read out ‘is work. On one occasion, zee poetry was so forceful zee opposing army decided not to fight because zey believed the powers of zee words made zeir enemy stronger than zem. Some very strange things ‘appened in the past.’

  ‘What did your ancestors pass down to you about the battle that was supposed to have taken place here? What did they actually say to you?’

  ‘Zey told me eet took place in zees valley, right ‘ere. Philistines against zee Israelites. It is zee absolute truth, I swear it on the lives of my family.’

  ‘And yet this machine shows up only two bodies and nothing else. How do you account for that?’

  ‘I can’t say,’ responded the guide. ‘Maybe zees machine ees wrong. She don’t work properly.’

  ‘In a pig’s ear!’ countered the archaeologist testily. ‘You’ve given me the wrong information. That’s the truth of the matter.’

  ‘No, I give you zee right information. I tell you wiz all my ‘eart, eet ees right.’

  ‘Well let’s gather the men together and start digging. At least we know there’s two bodies, and we know where to dig and at what depth.’

  He gave a signal to the leading crewman who blew a silver whistle twice. Immediately, the driver of a small digging machine started the motor of the vehicle and it moved slowly towards the spot which had been marked by Townsend with a white pole. Its powerful shovel began to delve into the sand, raising great loads which were deposited a short distance away. Very shortly, there was a large hole six feet deep, six feet long and four feet wide. The leading crewman blew on his whistle four times which prompted a number of workers to stand up and collect their shovels. They approached the hole and some of them dived into it continuing to shovel out the sand. The newly-invented
search machine had identified the first body about thirty-five feet below the surface, underneath the area being dug out by the mechanical shovel. At this stage, the operation could be carried out forcefully as there was no need to be delicate. However, the sand was too soft and the more the workers tried to dig out, the more it fell into the hole. Consequently, the operation was held up for half-a-day until a giant mechanical digger could be brought to the site. However, even the work of that enormous machine became pointless as the soft sand continued to creep into the hole. It became necessary to adopt a different policy... one that was relatively dangerous. After the shovel of the digger dug into the sand, it was lifted up a fraction, enough to allow three workers to get in behind it. A large wooden screen was passed down and they leaned against it with all their might to shore up the sand. Shortly, they were replaced by pit props set at an angle against the screen to hold it into position. This was ideal because the sand six feet down was much firmer and less likely to fold inwards into the hole. They then used other boards along the sides until they hole was six feet deep, ten feet wide and eight feet long. From then on it was possible for Challenger, the mechanical digger with long extending arms, to dig down almost another twenty-seven feet.

  When the machine showed that the digger was getting close to the first body, Townsend stopped the operation and the mechanical shovel drew back to allow the workers to enter the hole. They began to focus on one spot and dug carefully with this hands to reach the body. Eventually, the image of a prone profile came into sight. As the sand was carefully brushed off, it could be seen to be a mass of white bones held together by a complement of sand which acted in two ways. Firstly, it had clearly preserved the bones over such a long period of time and, secondly, it had cemented them retaining them in the same position as they were when the person first passed away. Townsend called off the workers and climbed down the ladder with a miner’s helmet on his head. He pressed the button to turn on the torch in the relative darkness and used a fine brush to dust off the sand from the outside of the bones.

  ‘We can actually get this body onto a stretcher as it is,’ he exclaimed excitedly, ‘and take it to the top in one piece.’ He looked up and called out the names of his two favourite workers with whom he had worked with before knowing that he could trust them fully. ‘Fayad, Mahmoud Ali, come down and help me to dig out the rest of this body.’

  They clambered down the ladder and started to move the sand from the sides of the body until it was practically clean. Then they called for a stretcher which was brought down and placed the bones in their totality on to it with great care. Once secured, it was drawn slowly up to the top to face the heat of the sun for the first time in over two thousand years.

  ‘Now for the other one,’ commanded the archaeologist examining the search machine regarding the second body. ‘It shouldn’t be too difficult to get to. It’s only about ten yards away from the first one. We can dig a tunnel from down below to get to it.’

  They laboured in the darkness below using hand shovels to reach their prey beavering away with the sweat pouring off them. It was late in the day when they came across the second body and Townsend used a light brush to smooth away the extraneous sand. Once again he was faced with a set of bones still in the same position as when the person died. However, in this case, the cadaver was wearing a metal helmet and a full set of armour on his body. The sand had preserved the metal and had cemented the bones together. On this occasion, however, the body was of giant proportions... reaching some seven feet in height. The tunnel was relatively small and it became difficult to get the bones on to a stretcher but patience won the day in the end and, with a great deal of careful manoeuvring, Fayad and Mahmoud Ali managed to shift the body out of the tunnel to the ladders in one piece. The problem from now on would rest with the expert analysts. But from Townsend’s point of view there were a number of non-analytical questions flooding his mind. Who were these two people? Where did they come from? How did they die? And what information could they provide on the past? After all, he was still relying on the word of an Egyptian guide that these bodies were killed in a battle between the Philistines and the Israelites. It might well turn out that they died only a thousand years ago being simple peasant farmers working the land in Palestine.

  The bones of both bodies were placed delicately into a vehicle and driven slowly to Tel Aviv where they were laid on two stone slabs in the city morgue. The two pathologists employed to do the work were well trained in their art and they intended to take their time in undertaking detective work of an unusual nature to unlock any secrets which existed in the past. They set to work almost immediately, dusting down the bones with specialised equipment until most of the sand was gone.

  ‘Quite amazing!’ commented Chaim Musaphia, the leading pathologist. ‘The bones remained together in full allowing us to determine the height of the bodies when they were alive. They were clearly both men. The short one probably died of a heart attack because all his bones are intact. The very tall one, who was clearly a warrior, died from a blow on the head. His skull is fractured at the temple, a fraction below the helmet.’

  Rebecca Schwartz, his assistant, looked at the bones and examined them carefully. After a while she turned to Musaphia with a wry expression on her face. ‘Yes,’ she added calmly. ‘The very tall one suffered a severe fracture to the skull with a single blow. It was bad enough to have killed him outright. Whatever hit him not only fractured the skull but it drove the bone deeply into his brain. Unfortunately, the designer of the helmet made it about five centimetres too short at the temple. Otherwise, this warrior would have lived to fight on.’

  ‘But he wasn’t struck by a blunt instrument. The fracture is small and neat,’ continued Musaphia thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps he was hit by a flying object... such as a small stone or a glancing arrow. It struck the temple, killing the man instantly and bounced off having done the damage.’

  ‘That would seem to be a reasonable solution,’ returned his assistant as they set to work on further examination of the remains of the two men.

  Townsend didn’t return to the site. He sat patiently on a seat outside the morgue waiting to hear the results of the examination. The same questions flooded through his mind almost driving him insane. Had he found something of value or not? It was almost two hours before the pathologists emerged from the room. Marcus leapt to his feet anxiously, awaiting their verdict.

  Musaphia paused for a moment to gather his thoughts. ‘It’s quite clear that both bodies are men. They died over two thousand years ago. The tall one was a warrior buried in full armour. The markings indicate that he was a Philistine warrior but you can check that detail later. He had a fractured skull seemingly caused by a flying stone or perhaps an arrow which struck his temple and glanced off, having driven part of his skull into his brain. The smaller body was that of a fairly young and he appeared to die of fright or some fearful action. His face is twisted in agony and it appears he is holding a piece of parchment in his right fist.’

  ‘Parchment?’ echoed Townsend blankly. ‘Is there any writing on it?’

  ‘We haven’t determined that yet,’ replied Schwartz quickly. ‘The bones are extremely brittle and if we opened his fist, they would almost certainly crumble. We couldn’t take the risk.’

  ‘We have to find out what the parchment contains,’ said the archaeologist firmly. ‘We need to know.’

  ‘You realise what that means,’ said Musaphia bluntly. ‘The preserved body of the smaller man would be ruined by breaking the bones of his hand.’

  ‘Is there no other way of removing the parchment?’ asked Townsend deeply concerned about the matter.

  ‘No, I’m afraid not,’ Schwartz informed him candidly.

  ‘Then it’ll have to be done,’ decided Townsend flatly. ‘You’ll have to break his fist. After all, the most important find appears to be the Philistine.’

  ‘Very wel
l,’ continued Musaphia. ‘If that’s what you really want. But you do realise that the parchment may contain nothing. Even if it does, the ink used may have faded to infinity.’

  ‘I’m willing to take that chance,’ exclaimed Marcus eagerly.

  ‘Very well,’ replied the pathologist. ‘Let’s go inside and find out the truth.’

  The three of them entered the room and Musaphia broke the bones of the smaller man’s fist with extreme care. They fell into powder under the pressure but released the parchment which still remained intact. Marcus stared at the fragment as it lay on the table without daring to touch it.

  ‘There’s writing on it,’ he said excitedly, pulling a pad and pen from his pocket to copy out the precise inscription in case it faded away. ‘There!’ he said exultantly. ‘I’ve copied the details exactly. I’ll take it to the translator at the museum immediately. What a piece of luck! It might hold a clue to his identity.’

  After expressing his gratitude to the two pathologists, he raced from the morgue to reach the museum. There he found Hymie Segal, the main translator of ancient languages. He showed him the details he had copied from the parchment, asking him to determine what they meant. Segal screwed up his face as he stared at the inscription.

  ‘Hm,’ he muttered, pulling at his small beard. ‘It looks like ancient Hebrew but in a peculiar dialect. I’ll need to do some research on it.’

  He went away leaving Townsend sitting on a seat in the museum, returning after some twenty minutes with the result.

  It was two months later when the archaeologist returned to England, flushed with success. At last he had found something of real value in his field and he was going to be renowned by his peers for the find. After giving interviews to reporters from all the major newspapers, both British and international, he made his way to the family home near Norfolk to appraise them of the details. At dinner that evening, as the family were seated at the long oak dining table, his father, who sat at the head, turned towards him quietly.