John Preston - The Dig

I glanced up.

There was an aeroplane high in the sky, sunlight glinting off its wings. Phillips continued to talk. His lips were moving anyway, although nothing seemed to be emerging. “Please speak up,” people shouted from the back. Then, more plaintively, “We can’t hear anything!”

Still Phillips carried on, just as inaudibly as before. The buzzing sound grew steadily louder. Then all at once it turned from an annoying distraction into a high-pitched mechanical scream.

I looked up again.

Now the aeroplane was pointing vertically at the ground, wrapped in this stream of air. I could see the blades of its propeller spinning round. Also the lines of rivets along its fuselage. All around me I was aware of people diving for cover. But I stayed where I was. I couldn’t look away. The hood of the cockpit was pulled back. There was a man’s head inside. Shiny and brown, like an enormous nut.

Air beat against my cheeks, pulling my hair back. The screaming seemed to fill every part of my body, shaking everything up. Thrilling and appalling me at the same time. I felt a blow against my side. My feet were swept from under me. Twisting round as I fell, I saw the aeroplane skimming across the tops of the mounds, pulling up just in time to clear the trees. When it had gone, two plumes of black exhaust remained hanging in the air.

No one moved for a few moments. Then a voice said, “Are you all right?”

I looked over to where Rory Lomax was lying. Dimly and resentfully, I realized he must have pushed me over.

“Are you all right?” he repeated.

“What happened?”

“Some damn fool showing off, I expect. Either that, or he was trying to hear Phillips’s speech.”

I stood up and brushed myself down.

“Look,” he said. “You’ve grazed your knee.”

“It’s perfectly all right.”

“But it’s bleeding.”

I looked down and saw a small smear of blood just below my right knee.

“Hardly.”

“Here, let me.” Rory Lomax had already started unwinding a cream silk scarf from around his neck.

“Please,” I said. “It’s not necessary. Besides, I have a hanky.”

I wiped the blood away — there really was very little. Rory Lomax stayed where he was, still holding his silk scarf in both hands. Everyone else was standing up now. Some were still brushing themselves down, others talking excitedly to one another.

The band cleaned off their instruments and prepared to start playing again. It was at this point that I saw Mr. Jacobs running towards me. He ran straight past, continuing through the crowd until he reached Charles Phillips. Once there, he stopped and began talking to him. He hadn’t been doing so for long when Phillips raised his head.

I followed his gaze. Four people were making their way up the side of the leveled spoil heap. Reid Moir was in front, with Sir Joseph and Lady Veevers behind him. Maynard brought up the rear. As soon as he saw them, Phillips strode over to the foot of the spoil heap. “Will you come down?” he bellowed.

Reid Moir ignored him. He kept going until he had reached the platform. Once there, he stood defiantly, holding on to the guardrail with both hands. As we watched, the other three joined him, looking rather less defiant.

“You must come down,” Phillips shouted.

“This is the Lord Lieutenant of Suffolk,” Reid Moir retorted. “And Lady Veevers.”

“I couldn’t care less who they are,” Phillips shouted back. “Do you understand? I want everyone back down here this instant!”

From the bottom of the spoil heap people looked on in surprise. Plainly wishing to avoid a confrontation, Sir Joseph and Lady Veevers immediately started to come back down. They were soon followed by Maynard. But Reid Moir stayed where he was, presumably until he felt he had made his point. Then he too came back down. On reaching ground level, he marched up to Phillips. “You have ordered me off Suffolk soil,” he said. This, it seemed, was the worst insult of all.

“I made it perfectly clear that no one was to go up there,” Phillips told him. “Yet you chose to disregard my words. Leaving me with no choice but to ask you to come down.”

“Ask?” repeated Reid Moir incredulously. “Ask?”

He stalked off, with Maynard following. Left on their own, Sir Joseph and Lady Veevers stood about looking embarrassed and then did their best to melt back into the crowd.

“Just as well this is England, isn’t it?” said Rory Lomax.

“What do you mean?”

“Give this lot machine guns and they’d be as bad as Chicago gangsters.”

We began to walk through the guests. I felt like one of the apostles from a medieval wall painting whose feet hang in the air, limp and white, to show how they’re being blown about by divine winds.

“Good afternoon, madam,” said a voice.

A man was standing in front of me. He was wearing a somewhat ancient but sturdily fashioned suit, a tie dotted with small green crests and a trilby hat. In the corner of his mouth there was a pipe clamped between his teeth.

It took me a few moments to realize who he was. “Mr. Brown… Forgive me, I didn’t recognize you.”

Mr. Brown didn’t seem in the least put out. He grinned and said, “That’s because I’ve put my makeup on.”

Beside him was a woman dressed in a black coat and hat. Stiff coils of hair jutted out from under her hat. Her high, almost inflamed color added to her rather wild appearance. This, said Mr. Brown, was his wife, May.

She extended a hand. For a few minutes we talked about the excavation and I took the opportunity to tell Mrs. Brown what an invaluable help her husband had been.

“You see, Basil?” she said. “At least someone realizes.”

“May, now that’s enough.”

Mrs. Brown took no notice. “My Basil may be self-taught and not have the right letters after his name,” she went on. “Even so, that’s no reason to treat him like he’s all sappy in the head. The trouble is, he’s too trusting, you see. He takes people at their word. I’ve told him he shouldn’t, but it makes no difference, none at all. Does it, Basil?”

Just as I was wondering if Mrs. Brown might have had a little too much sherry to drink, Mr. Reid Moir came towards us. He still looked shaken after his encounter with Phillips. There was hardly any trace of his former emollience. However, any hopes he might have had of having his equanimity restored were soon dashed.

Mrs. Brown waited until he was standing beside her before announcing triumphantly, “And here’s the man responsible!”

“May!” said Mr. Brown again.

“No, Basil, no. I will be heard. I’m not saying Mr. Reid Moir’s any worse than the others. All I’m saying is that everyone is out to hog the glory for themselves, when the man who found this ship in the first place and who made a proper excavation every bit as good as anyone else could have done is my Basil.”

Reid Moir’s only reaction to this was to brush the lapel of his jacket, very deliberately, with the index finger of his right hand. In the silence that followed, Mr. Brown took hold of his wife’s elbow, presumably intending to lead her away. But their exit was effectively blocked by the arrival of Mrs. Pretty and Robert. As far as I was aware, Mrs. Pretty had not heard Mrs. Brown’s outburst, yet she seemed to read the situation immediately and to realize just what was required.

“You must be Mr. Brown’s wife, May,” she said. “I have heard so much about you.”

“You have?” said Mrs. Brown, clearly taken aback by this.

“Indeed. And I know how much Mr. Brown has been missing you while he has been here.”

“He has?” said Mrs. Brown, even more taken aback now.

Mrs. Pretty’s gaze passed over each of us in turn, pausing briefly on her nephew and myself. “I do hope you have all enjoyed yourselves this afternoon.”