The Dig (18 page)

“Leave me? What do you mean?”

“I have to go to London. To make arrangements with the British Museum. It’s Phillips’s idea. I’ve been turning it over in my head all night, but I can see that he’s right. He believes the sooner the treasure is in the BM, the better. Everything we have found so far, along with anything we may find in the future. Plainly that’s the place for it, although he anticipates Reid Moir trying to create trouble and claiming it belongs in Ipswich.”

“But surely any finds belong to Mrs. Pretty.”

“Ah, well, that’s another question altogether.”

“Is it?”

“Absolutely,” he said. “No doubt there will have to be an inquest of some sort to decide just where it is going to end up. But in the meantime, it’s imperative that the finds should be properly examined and catalogued. Phillips has decided that while I am away, he will work with you in the burial chamber. Frank Grimes should be here in a day or two, although there’s still been no word from Ward-Perkins or Crawford. Do you mind awfully? I’ll be as quick as I can.”

‘When were you thinking of leaving?”

“Well,” he said, “there’s a train at a quarter to eight.”

It was only then that I noticed his suitcase standing fastened and strapped by the door.

“You’d better be going.”

Stuart stayed where he was, looking down at me. “I am sorry, darling.” He bent forward and kissed me on the cheek. “You will be all right with the car, won’t you?”

“Of course.”

After he had gone, I remained in bed for a few minutes, flattening the sheet across my stomach, before getting up and dressing.

Driving down towards the estuary, everything looked smaller and more compact than before — the buildings, the streets, even the people. As if they had already shrunk into themselves to try to fend off assault. Beyond Melton and before the fork to Sutton, the road runs straight for several hundred yards. On the left-hand side are fields of sedge grass. On the right, mud flats with a few petrified oaks jutting out of them.

When I reached this stretch, I took my hands off the steering wheel. I did so quite without premeditation or thought to the consequences. The car drifted towards the center of the road, but stuck to its course.

As it gained speed, it seemed to be straining to take to the air, the stubby black bonnet rising like a prow before me. A cyclist went by in the opposite direction, his head down, unaware of any danger. Still I let the car carry me wherever it wished. I felt no fear, only a sense of being untethered, of hanging suspended between one realm and another. Sometimes I feel that the dead are more alive than the living, and that this life is just a preparation for another one, long gone by.

Just before the fork in the road, I grabbed hold of the steering wheel and swung it around. With a lurch of the chassis, the car rounded the bend, then began climbing the hill that leads to Sutton Hoo House.

Before we went any further with the excavation, Phillips wanted everything we had already found to be properly packaged up in order to be sent down to London. We needed something that was both soft and durable to pack the finds in. Newspaper did not afford enough protection, while straw and strips of burlap were too abrasive. I didn’t like to mention it at first — I thought Phillips might scoff at the idea — but when I suggested that the moss in the wood might prove ideal, he agreed it was worth a try.

I volunteered to go to the wood and collect some. As soon as I’d done so, Robert jumped up and said he wanted to come too. After asking me if I minded, Mrs. Pretty said that he could. As we set off, Robert slipped his hand into mine. He did so as if it was the most natural thing in the world. I felt the small bunch of his fingers, wrapped in my own.

The moment we stepped into the wood, the air grew cooler. The sunlight, filtered through the leaves, bathed everything in soft green light. We made our way down the slope to where Robert said the moss was at its thickest. This turned out to be at its bottom edge, where the trees were more thinly spaced than they were up above.

One of the men — Mr. Spooner — had kindly lent me a pruning knife. It was with surprising ease, as well as an enormous sense of satisfaction, that I was able to hack at the moss, tearing
it up by its roots and lifting it out in large squares. These squares, I found, could then be rolled up, or even folded over.

Robert helped me, stacking up the moss into piles. It wasn’t long before the two of us had laid waste a large area, turning it from green to brown. As we were working away, Robert told me that he had spent the night with the treasure underneath his bed. His mother had allowed him to keep it there on the understanding that he must not, under any circumstances, open the boxes — a condition he had managed to abide by, but only with the greatest difficulty.

“This is terribly exciting, isn’t it?” I said. “It’s just like something out of
Treasure Island
.”

“I don’t know. I haven’t read
Treasure Island
.”

“I’m sure you’d like it. I certainly did, although it was supposed to be for boys. But then I always preferred boys’ books when I was your age. There are lots of pirates and fighting. And a big chest full of treasure.”

“Is there a buried boat?”

“No, but there’s a desert island and a man with a long beard. He’s called Ben Gunn.”

Together we pulled up another square of moss. A host of black beetles ran about, trying to escape the sudden intrusion of daylight.

“Is it worth a lot of money?” Robert asked.

“Is what worth a lot of money?”

“The treasure, of course.”

“Oh, yes,” I said. “A great deal of money. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that.”

“How much money?”

“Well, that might be quite difficult to work out. There’s nothing to compare it to, you see.”

“More than a hundred pounds?”

“Definitely more than a hundred pounds,” I told him.

“More than a thousand?”

“I would say definitely more than a thousand too.”

He laughed uncertainly, as if he found this impossible to believe.

“But it’s not just its value that’s important,” I went on. “What’s even more exciting is that it comes from a time when everyone thought that people had become very primitive. From the Dark Ages. That’s why they’re called the Dark Ages, you see. Because people were thought to have slid back into darkness. You know about the Romans, don’t you, Robert?”

“They had centurions. And legionaries.”

“Exactly. Well, after the Romans left Britain in around AD 400, it was thought that instead of going forward and becoming more clever, people went backwards. They practically became like cavemen again. But this proves they didn’t do that at all. If they were capable of making jewelry like the pieces we discovered, they must have been much more clever than anyone ever dreamed of. So, it’s very exciting indeed. One of the most exciting things that could ever have happened, in fact.”

“And is it ours?”

“How do you mean?”

“Does it belong to Mummy and me?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “And I’m afraid I don’t know how they decide that either.”

“But it was found on Mummy’s land, wasn’t it?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, then, it must belong to us.”

“Yes …” I said. “Yes, it probably does. Why don’t we take some of this moss back? We must have cut more than enough by now.”

Standing up, I saw an enormous silver object floating in the sky over Woodbridge. It was roughly cylindrical in shape. On one end were what looked like fins. The other end was pointing downwards. While I watched, a second silver object rose steadily yet clumsily into the air beside it. When this had reached the same height as the first, it stopped.

Without my asking, Robert said, “Barrage balloons. Mr. Jacobs told me about them.”

“What are they for?”

“To stop enemy aircraft. They’re supposed to fly into them and then fall to the ground.”

I couldn’t help thinking that the chances of this happening looked extremely unlikely, although I didn’t say so. I put my arm around Robert’s shoulders and together we stood watching as the two balloons swayed apart and then bumped into one another, partly crumpling as they did so.

Picking up armfuls of cut moss, we began to climb back up the slope. As we did so, I felt suddenly as if the ground we were walking on was as thin and fragile as the crusted sand inside the boat. As if it might give way beneath our
feet at any moment and the two of us would tumble into a black abyss.

Halfway up the slope, we passed a small clearing. A khaki-colored bell tent had been pitched in it. The flap was tied back and the guy ropes fanned out all round. Inside, I could see a sleeping bag as well as some clothes scattered about. This, said Robert, was where Mrs. Pretty’s nephew, Rory, was staying.

“Isn’t he allowed indoors?” I asked, remembering what Phillips had said and wondering if Mrs. Pretty had some deep-seated aversion to houseguests.

He started to laugh. “It’s not that, silly. He likes being here.”

Apparently Mrs. Pretty’s nephew preferred sleeping out of doors. Somehow this seemed a very affected thing to want to do, although I didn’t say that either.

Slowly, Phillips made his way down the ladder. Every so often he glanced over his shoulder, almost as if he suspected that he was being observed, before lowering himself onto another rung. At the bottom, he stepped off as lightly as he could, hitching his weight up as a woman might do with her skirts. Walking on the balls of his feet, he moved down the ship until he reached the near end of the burial chamber. Once there, he sank to his knees with a sigh.

Without Stuart’s presence, the atmosphere had changed more than I would have thought possible. Everything was much more serious, more dour, than before. Even at break times there were no lighthearted moments. Scarcely
anyone talked to one another; they just buckled down to their appointed tasks. Having finished moving the spoil heaps from one place to another, the men had now been put to work uncovering the last few rivets in the bow section.

When this was finished, they were able to take the first complete measurements of the ship. It was just under ninety feet from one end to the other. The original ship, however, would have been even longer. The last six feet of the stern end is missing, sheared away. Phillips thought that medieval farmers must have been responsible. It was Mr. Brown who suggested the ship might have been deliberately put into the ground at an angle. He believes that the stern protruded above the mound like a great horn, thus ensuring it was clearly visible from the other side of the river. To my surprise, Phillips did not dismiss this theory out of hand, even conceding that it might have some validity to it.

Silently, we continued throughout the afternoon. I was working at the opposite end of the chamber to Phillips. Once in a while, I would look up and see him bent over, his braces stretched and taut. The sun beat down even more fiercely than before.

I was wearing a sleeveless blouse. I could almost see my arms and shoulders turning brown. Practically mahogany. This, though, was no time for vanity. I’d quite stopped caring about my appearance. The only thing that mattered was whatever lay inside the ship.

When Phillips appeared beside me, I gave a start — I couldn’t understand how he had got there without my being aware of it. The sides of his nose were shiny with sweat.

“Have you found anything?” he asked.

I showed him a fragment of what I thought was probably a pottery bottle.

“Nothing else?”

I shook my head. Meanwhile, Phillips kept looking at me in an oddly expectant sort of way.

“Have you found anything, Mr. Phillips?” I asked.

“I think I have,” he said. “Come and have a look if you like.”

As I came closer to his end of the chamber, I saw that Phillips had uncovered an edge of pale gray stone. Two flat surfaces were showing — both smooth and at right angles to one another. So far, he had uncovered about eighteen inches of the same straight pumice-colored, right-angled edge. At either end, the stone disappeared into the sand.

“Whatever this is, he’s a big chap,” Phillips said. “Perhaps we could each start in the middle and work outwards.”

Further clearing revealed that each surface was two inches wide. Once this was done, I moved to my right, following the leading edge along. All the time, I kept expecting to come across a crack or a broken edge. I could not see how such a large object had remained intact — especially if the roof had fallen on top of it. But there was no crack, nor any sign of damage.

Within an hour, the object had grown in length to almost three feet. Still, it was quite uniform and symmetrical, with
the edges perfectly smooth. Then, almost immediately, the edges began to taper. I assumed I must be close to one end of it by now. But as quickly as it had tapered off, the stone began to bulge out again. At the same time, the surface became more pitted and undulating. Fortunately, the sand was so dry I was able to brush it away without using the trowel. Phillips too appeared to be nearing the other end. This also tapered and then bulged out again.

Looking across, I saw that Phillips had put on a sudden burst of speed. Sand was flying up on either side of him. But just a few moments later, I noticed that he was no longer brushing. Indeed, he wasn’t doing anything at all. I watched and waited for him to carry on, but still he didn’t move.

I stood up and crossed over to where he was sitting. When I looked down, I gasped in surprise. There, staring back at me, was a man’s face. Its eyes were shut, its mouth pursed and it had a long pointed beard. It looked just like a miniature body lying in the sand. At the same time, though, I kept expecting its eyes to spring open, as if awakening from a long sleep.

Phillips didn’t say anything. He just reached out and stroked the surface of the stone with the tips of his fingers, doing so rather more tenderly than I might have expected.

Soon after resuming, I too uncovered a face. It was identical in size to the first, the shape of an inverted teardrop. This was also bearded — the strands of hair had been picked out in parallel grooves in the stone. But there was a subtle, scarcely definable difference in its expression. Whereas the first face
looked penitent, this one looked apprehensive. Fearful of what it might see if it were to open its eyes.