copper's cruise 10

 

Chapter 10 Six foot by three in Carthage part 1

 

The next stop was Tunis, with a day trip to the ruins of Carthage.

“I never thought, when we left foggy England, that there was such a thing as too hot,” said Ida.

“Be thankful we are not here in summer,” said Alexander.

Ida shuddered.

“I’m not sure I’m cut out to be an Egyptologist,” she said.

“Nonsense m’dear,” said Leonard Cobham, the antiquarian. “It’s a question of copying the way the locals dress as far as you can without looking as if you’ve gone native. A scarf over the head actually does wonders.  A solar topee, a pith helmet, is always a good buy to keep your head cool; and dress in loose clothing.”

Without being at all anything but British, he was wearing a loose linen jacket over a light muslin shirt, and cotton duck trousers cut generously like Oxford bags. The air of slightly rumpled Englishman abroad managed to be faintly endearing.

“I found the harem pants I escaped in quite comfortable,” said Alexander. “I had a telegram from Maigret; he’s kicked the whole business upstairs for someone of rank to deal with it.”

“Good,” said Ida. “Nasty business.”

“You’ll always have the odd corrupt official, but it leaves a nasty taste,” said Cobham. “I’ve had a few in Egypt, little kaisers, having gone from being nobody in Wandsworth to having the power to say ‘no,’ to people. The French are not as bad as the Italians, but rare as they are, it takes a corrupt German to be a real piece of grit in the wheel.”

Alexander shuddered.

“I can imagine,” he said. “Germans are law-abiding people on the whole.”

“Yes, and it’s the ones who invent regulations which need fines who are a pain,” said Cobham.

“Who owns Tunisia?” asked Ida.

“The French; but only as a colony. Unlike Algeria which is technically part of Metropolitan France,” Alexander replied.

“How is that possible?” asked Ida.

“I haven’t a clue,” said Alexander. “A decision by the French government. I don’t think the Algerians are too happy, there are always plots and protests. But Tunisa is more of a hotbed of intrigue, Tunis is a very cosmopolitan city and you may meet anyone there.”

“Yes, it seethes with Bolsheviks,” said Cobham.

“Lovely! Nobody likes the Bolsheviks,” said Alexander. “France has enough problems without them stirring up trouble.”

“Mussolini was elected in Italy on what is essentially an anti-Bolshevik platform; he seems quite able, though, which has to be a first since Gariboldi,” said Cobham. “Tripoli, which is the next country to the east, is Italian controlled, though it’s in two administrative districts.”

“Are we stopping there?” asked Ida.

“Yes, we are stopping at Tobruk,” said Cobham. “There are Roman ruins of Sabratha, and a few colleagues of mine excavating.” He beamed. “I have more colleagues excavating Carthage; I wired ahead to ask if they could arrange some entertainment here. Tony Mainwaring is a very party-minded young man, and you may not be up to dancing again yet, Armitage, but I thought a bit of music and relaxation would be just the ticket. And my nephew will enjoy it. Lady Burleigh is unbending about Geoffrey getting to know Vera.”

“So long as he is aware that Vera is still hurting from being jilted and is patient,” said Ida, tartly.

“Tony Mainwaring, any relation to Archie Mainwaring?” asked Alexander.

“Yes, that’s his father, he lives in Tobruk. Some attachment to our embassy, I believe. You know him?”

“Oh, not well. He’s a friend of my father’s,” said Alexander. He did not add that they had been colleagues in British Intelligence during the war, and that he had once reported to a Major-General Mainwaring with the camera he and his crew had managed to purloin from a downed German spy plane. Intelligence agents never retired.

“Oh, well, that’s a bit of luck; we’ll all be staying in his house,” said Cobham. “Starchy old martinet, but good for chasing up permits to dig.”

“I wager,” said Alexander. “Well, we know we’ll be safe with him; he’s the sort of man who checks all his doors are locked, chained, and bolted at nights and has alarms on the windows each on a separate circuit, sleeps lightly, and takes a shotgun to bed with him.”

Cobham laughed, and broke off abruptly.

“You aren’t joking,” he said.

“Hell, no,” said Alexander. “Major-General Mainwaring takes caution past the point of paranoia. I’m not displeased, I am still concerned about the French authorities being used to silence me on behalf of that crooked Préfet de Police.”

 

A couple of cars awaited those invited by the Mainwarings, which was Alma, Ida, Alexander, with Gladys and Campbell, Leonard Cobham and Geoffrey Paul, with an individual named Porkins, who also undertook photography, Lady Burleigh and Lady Vera, and their maids, and Mr. and Mrs. David Amberside. David and Paula had David’s man along with them and the giggling Edna, her vapid air offset by the soberness of Redvers Smith, David’s man.

“Hullo!” said one of the drivers. “I’m Tony. Manvers, my chap,” he indicated the other driver, who was driving an army truck. “Servants and luggage with Manvers, ladies with me, and I’ll be back for the gents, cocktails are sitting out waiting, and finger food to keep us all going until dinner, then I’ve a few people coming in for a bit of a bash, wot.”

“How’s the dig coming?” asked Cobham.

“Slow but steady,” said Tony. “Big debate over whether the Carthaginians did practice infant sacrifice or whether the huge number of infant bones together merely indicates a cemetery devoted to children. Stands to reason, in any early population, no more than forty to at best sixty percent of children survive to adulthood, which is to say, around fifteen.  No big efficient city is going to kill off the healthy ones in sacrifice; disturbs the balance of the population.”

“I’ll be interested to discuss that with you,” said Ida. “The idea of an economic argument against sacrifice is a very practical one. I’ll be going up to Oxford for my archaeology degree in September.”

“Oh, a colleague, jolly good,” said Tony, eyeing Ida with interest. “You get in the front with me. Of course, the Frogs are in charge of the dig, and they’re a bit touchy, and they like their melodramatic interpretation of the Tophet of Baal as a sacrificial site. Of course, the Greco-Roman writers go on about it – Plutarch says, ‘... with full knowledge and understanding they themselves offered up their own children, and those who had no children would buy little ones from poor people and cut their throats as if they were so many lambs or young birds; meanwhile the mother stood by without a tear or moan; but should she utter a single moan or let fall a single tear, she had to forfeit the money, and her child was sacrificed nevertheless; and the whole area before the statue was filled with a loud noise of flutes and drums so that the cries of wailing should not reach the ears of the people.’  But then, the Carthaginians were the enemy, and we all know what nonsense was made up about the Hun during the war, most of which was exaggerated at best.”

“I’m inclined to the concept that it would be detrimental to the economic health of the society,” said Ida, getting into the car and shutting the door as she withdrew her elegant, silk-sheathed legs inside. Alexander swallowed hard. Tony Mainwaring seemed a personable youth. Was he to lose Ida to another archaeologist, who was closer to her in age, and mentally undamaged, being too young for the war? Well, he had said she must wait, and make her own choice. And he had been there for her when she had needed him, solving the murder of her brother Basil, and helping her to deal with the horrific events surrounding that.

Geoffrey Paul poked him.

“Loosen up, old fellow; one likes to talk to the like-minded. I like Tony, too, and I’ll be joining that debate, but it don’t mean I want to marry him. Your Ida adores you.”

Alexander managed a lopsided smile.

“Am I so transparent?”

“Where your lady is concerned? Yes. But she’ll be happier to return to your side when Tony has bored her with Plutarch and Virgil.”

Alexander laughed.

“They are weighty fellows to have as chaperones,” he agreed.

 

 

The Mainwarings lived in a building of decidedly French-colonial architecture with much influence of the Art Nouveau. It was a four-storeyed building with ornate wrought-iron balconies, and decorative stonework over windows inspired by the sinuous botanical forms so typical of the style. French windows opened onto a terrace at ground level, or rather, at the entry level, since one went up a grand set of steps. Close to, it was possible to see an area, with yet another underground level. Alexander could see why the major-general was happy to put up house guests; there was plenty of room.

He struggled up the steps with his cane, and an obliging footman ran to lend the support of his arm, and tenderly installed Alexander into a comfortable chair in the vestibule, where Mainwaring père was greeting his guests.

“Demme! It is the same Alexander Armitage!” he bellowed. “My dear fellow! Hors de combat? That happened since I last saw you, trying to cut a wheedle over why you should keep that Hun camera!  What happened?”

“Police work,” said Alexander. “I should have a wheelchair, but the Préfet de Police in Algiers stole it.”

“What-what-what? What’s this?” Mainwaring drew his brows together, taking Alexander’s flippant way of putting things seriously.

“To be fair, he was trying to murder me in a way that would look like natural death, because I’d discovered he was involved in smuggling opium,” said Alexander.

“Leave it to me; I’ll have your chair back,” said Mainwaring.

Alexander believed him.

He was happy to go through into the ballroom, where there was, as Tony had said, finger food, cocktails, beer, wine, and perry.

“What can I get you, sir?” asked the footman.

“I think I’ll fill my own plate, if I can ask you to bring it to a chair, and perhaps procure me some perry?” said Alexander.

“Certainly, sir,” said the footman.

Alexander limped over and regarded the tiers of tiny thin sandwiches, all without crusts. Someone had thoughtfully labelled them; cucumber, salmon and cucumber, crab paste, beef and horseradish, chicken and lettuce, egg and lettuce, and cheese with grated carrot and onion. He took two of each, a handful of little sausages, some salad, and some tiny sausage rolls, and vol-au-vents filled with egg mayonnaise, prawn cocktail, and salmon with tartar sauce. Ida waved, turned to Tony to speak, and ushered him over.

“Alex, Tony; Tony, my fiancé” said Ida.

“I say! Already snaffled, wot?” said Tony. “Hurt your leg?”

“A wound taken in the line of duty,” said Alexander.

“Oh! Military man?”

“Police,” said Alexander.

Tony had drawn slightly back.

“Oh, now don’t you start with that ‘policeman and gentleman are mutually exclusive’ nonsense,” said Ida.  “Alex believes in doing his duty, and so he went into Scotland Yard.”

“Er, yes, very commendable,” Tony said. “I didn’t know that police work was so dangerous, wot.”

“Well, to be honest, I never expected to be hurt worse in the west end of London than ever I was in no-man’s land,” said Alexander. “But I don’t intend on being boring about it!  I’d rather tell you about the time when a Hun sniper shot at me while I was out of the tank unjamming the suspension, which had become intimately involved with a spruce tree, and I found myself knocked off balance, hearing the shot as I fell off the tank and terrified because I felt no pain, and they always say those are the worst. But the blighter had shot my boot heel clean off and upended me in the mud without a scratch to my person.”

Tony roared with laughter, and the awkward moment was past.

When he had eaten, Alexander wandered over to the grand piano in the corner and began strumming modern airs and some Gilbert and Sullivan on it.

“Oh, good show, Armitage! Someone who can play wot!” said Tony. “Have you met Betty?  Oh, and here’s Bug-eyes, Peter Ponsonby, you know.”

Alexander kept smiling as he was introduced to a stream of people known variously as Ethel, Mabel, Vilma, Daphne, Edna, and Aphrodite, on the female side, and Ambrose, Edgar, Billy, Blumfontein, Stanley, Percy, and Alexei on the male side.

“Alexei?” queried Alexander, who had turned not a hair at being introduced to a Greek goddess with bottle-blonde hair and a startling number of necklaces.

“Alexei Fedorovich Smirnov, at your service,” said the man, introduced. “I am a man like any other, yes?”

“Da, ni pravtili?” agreed Alexander.

“You speak my beautiful language!” Alexei embraced him.

“Indifferently, I fear,” said Alexander, who spoke a variant of it rather better than he was prepared to admit. “So, are you an exile from the Bolshevist revolution?”

“Oh! Yes, indeed!” said Alexei.

“Alexei is a good royalist, or the pater would not give him house-room,” said Tony.

“Bad show, all that,” said Alexander. “I know a few Russian airs.” He played ‘Kalinka’ and a couple of Cossack songs he knew, mindful that his own relatives had fled the Bolshevist yoke.

“Ah, I weep for my exile from my homeland,” said Alexei.

An exotic looking woman had just arrived.

“Oh, jolly good show!” said Tony, happily. “Here’s Madame Zeleika, she’s a fortune teller and mystic.”

The woman was dressed in silk, with bare feet and ankle rings, bracelets, and swathes of coloured scarves.

“My mother does that for the village fete,” said Alexander.

“Oh, hush! Do not say so in front of Madame Zeleika- she’s the real thing, not dressing up for a fete!” said Tony, hastily, sounding scandalised.

“Well, how interesting,” said Alexander. “Don’t worry; I won’t be nicking her. It’s not my jurisdiction.”

“You are not a believer!” said Tony.

“Too right, I’m not,” said Alexander. “Her kind are a penny a pitch in London. They wear army surplus boots there, though, because of the climate. But I’m sure she’s amusing.”

Ida made her way over to Alexander with another drink for him.

“I thought you might be ready for another,” she said.

“Fortunately, it’s not as strong as scrumpy,” said Alexander. “I think that Tony wants his charlatan to see what she knows about me.”

“They use psychology in how people answer their questions, don’t they?” said Ida.

“Yes,” said Alexander. “And be careful, she might be selling any information. Oh look, she’s coming our way.”