David Gibbins - The Mask of Troy

‘Sure,’ Jeremy replied, nodding enthusiastically. ‘About the eye of the crow and the eye of the camera, looking on Homer’s world, not ours.’

‘And earth being more powerful than both gods and men, yet being impassive, uncaring,’ Costas said.

Jeremy nodded. ‘That was published in 1952, but it was written in memory of a friend who died in April 1945, in the final weeks of the Second World War. It’s the poem I studied most intensively, along with The Shield of Achilles.’

‘Funny. Jack and I were just talking about that one,’ Costas said. ‘On board Seaquest II, before our dive.’

Jeremy cocked an eye at Jack. ‘Really? He and I talked about it in Oxford several months ago, when he and James came to talk about the Ilioupersis, just after Maria and I had found it.’

‘Jack.’ Costas narrowed his eyes at him. ‘You knew about Jeremy and Auden all along.’

‘I said you’d be surprised.’

Rebecca opened the old book, and examined the frontispiece. ‘This is what I really love,’ she murmured. ‘Where people have annotated books, written in them. It really makes them come alive.’

Dillen shifted in his seat, and raised the unlit pipe again to his mouth. ‘I was going to point that out to you,’ he said between clenched teeth. ‘Read the inscription out to us, would you?’

Rebecca angled the page, finding the best light. Jack got up to glance at it, to remind himself. The ink was faded, but the handwriting was bold, elegant. ‘ To Hugh, with love and affection from Peter. Remembering our summer at Mycenae, 1938.’

Jack glanced at Dillen. ‘That’s Hugh Frazer, your old schoolmaster?’

Dillen nodded. ‘And Peter Mayne, a fellow undergraduate of Hugh’s at Oxford. They both studied classics, and dug together on the British excavation at Mycenae just before the war. They were close friends.’

‘Must have been very close,’ Rebecca said, looking at the inscription again.

Dillen sat back, rocking slightly. ‘They were steeped in Homer, in a world of heroes and gods, of Arcadian groves and lovers. I think it was pretty innocent, though. The war changed all that.’

‘Of course,’ Rebecca murmured. ‘Young men in 1939. Just like the young men of 1915, over there at Gallipoli.’

‘They both became soldiers, army officers,’ Dillen said, putting his pipe in his mouth, thinking for a moment, then taking it out. ‘I know little about it, actually. They both ended up in special commando units, but I don’t know what happened to Peter in the end. Hugh never spoke about it, and I never pressed him. Hugh had been one of the first into the concentration camp at Belsen, so he’d seen the worst. When I was a schoolboy in the fifties, you didn’t speak to veterans about that. Chaps like Hugh who’d found some way of surviving mentally just wanted to get on with life. Maybe he’d talk now, though. The defences fall away in old age, all that suppression of trauma. They say talk can help.’

‘Where is he now?’ Costas said.

‘Lives in a flat in Bristol, the same place as when I was a schoolboy there. My parents had been killed by German bombing in the Blitz, and he put me up. He’s frail, but perfectly alert. I visit him a couple of times a year. I owe him a visit about now.’

‘Maybe his friend Peter was killed,’ Rebecca murmured, staring at the inscription.

Dillen put his pipe in his mouth, dry-sucked it, then took it out again. ‘The only time he ever said anything was when he gave me that little book as a graduation present, almost fifty years ago now. He said Mayne had been badly wounded, at Cassino. I think the wounds were more than physical. Afterwards he went into a special unit involved in the reparation of works of art, antiquities stolen by the Nazis. Funnily enough, it was Costas who jolted my memory, a few weeks ago when I was at the IMU campus, when you were arranging for the return of that painting from the Howard Gallery to Germany.’

‘We talked about my uncle,’ Costas said. ‘The US army Monuments Man.’

Dillen nodded. He looked at his pipe, then cleared his throat. ‘There is something else. Something that’s been especially on my mind here, at Troy. I’ve always kept it to myself, but this is the right time and place to tell it.’

‘Please do,’ Jack said.

Dillen tapped his pipe on the arm of his chair, then put it down and spoke. ‘Something Hugh said to us at school, in a Greek lesson. It was my first year there, when I was twelve. He told us the story of Heinrich Schliemann and the discovery of Troy. I remember it as if it were yesterday. He was sitting on the edge of his desk, passionate. Gesticulating. We were utterly entranced. The fifties was a pretty grim decade, with post-war deprivation and the threat of nuclear annihilation, and the distant past seemed a far more interesting place than the future. Hugh said he believed in the Trojan War, absolutely believed in it. And he said he knew something top secret. During the war, he’d heard about the most incredible treasure, something Schliemann had found and hidden away and then the Nazis stole. He didn’t say anything more. He swore us all to secrecy. It became a kind of myth. There were half a dozen of us, but I was the only one who carried on with Greek. I never knew for sure whether he was telling a real story, or just trying to inspire us with a dream. I didn’t want to burst that bubble, to discover it was only fiction. That’s why I never brought it up with him again. I still want to believe in it. He was an inspirational teacher.’

‘Not the only one,’ Jack murmured.

Rebecca carefully closed the book, and held it in both hands. ‘I’d love to meet him.’

‘He was always very fond of your dad,’ Dillen said, picking up his pipe again. ‘I first took Jack to see Hugh when he wasn’t very much older than you are now.’

‘Well, then,’ Rebecca said, suddenly businesslike, looking at Jack. ‘Professor Dillen and I both have to fly back to London tomorrow, right? He’s got a conference at the end of the week, and I’ve got my school trip to France. We’ve both got tomorrow afternoon free. Why don’t we take a trip to Bristol? I’ve been there, to the university open day. I might even study there, actually. You don’t know that yet. Now you do. It’s only an hour and a half on the train from London.’

Dillen sucked thoughtfully on his pipe, smiled to himself, looked at Jack and raised an eyebrow. Jack glanced at Rebecca, then nodded. ‘It seems that when my daughter sets her mind on something, she does it.’

Dillen pointed his pipe. ‘What was it you just said about Hugh? “Not the only one”?’

Jack smiled, looking serious. ‘If there’s a chance this story’s true, then it’s part of the archaeology of this place. We should try to chase it up. But only if Hugh wants us to.’

‘I think he will. And we don’t need to pussyfoot around him. For all the trauma, chaps like Hugh are also tough as nails. Remember what they’ve seen and done and had to live with. He’ll tell us exactly what he wants to tell us.’

‘Mission Creep, yet again,’ Costas sighed. ‘We need to keep focused. On the archaeology. On the diving.’

‘We need to keep all possible avenues open,’ Jack said.

‘I just want to talk to him,’ Rebecca said quietly. ‘Maybe about Peter, if he wants.’

‘I’ll have a word with Ben, who’s personally taken charge of security for this project,’ Jack said. ‘He and Macalister have just liaised with the Turkish navy to get a demolitions team in tomorrow morning to clear that mine from the wreck. Once they’re done, we’re good to go with another dive, Costas. I want to shore up the minelayer wreck and begin doing airlift excavation on the ancient hull straight away. If you can get the Aquapods up to scratch, we’ll be in the water tomorrow afternoon. With the Turkish navy around, I don’t think we’ve got anything to worry about with the security of Seaquest II. I think we can spare Ben or one of his guys to accompany you, Rebecca.’