Elizabeth sends a postcard from Luxor. Will we find out Jon's fate?
Additional music:
Albert Farrington - It's a Long Long Way to Tipperary (1915)
If you like THWDY, tell people about us! It will help us grow!
Elizabeth sends a postcard from Luxor. Will we find out Jon's fate?
Additional music:
Albert Farrington - It's a Long Long Way to Tipperary (1915)
If you like THWDY, tell people about us! It will help us grow!
THIS HOUSE WILL DEVOUR YOU: THE HUNGRY TOMB Season Two
A Podcast concerning love, madness, mystery, murder and dead gods in 1920's Ireland, England and Egypt.
THWDY Episode 2.06
'The Dead'
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POSTCARD
Karnak, Luxor, Egypt
15th February 1926
Dear Celia,
Luxor is magnificent! If only you could be prised from your London circle of cliques, clubs and salons, you might be able to come and take in the winter sun and the drama and atmosphere of this astounding place. So glad to hear George is recovered, it seems that essence worked after all! Cannot return home yet – am key member of ground-breaking expedition, by train and camel, into the desert. No sign of Jon yet. I hope you got your deluge of Valentines.
Love E. x
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[knock on other side of hotel door]
[muffled woman]
House keeping! Please sir we need to clean your room..
[Footsteps, Jon by door]
Go away! I told you before to leave me alone.
{quieter] I have something, dear god, I must do.
[Footsteps]
Sorry about that lads. I’ll join you in a minute ok?
[sitting at table, writing paper etc]
Move over Padhraig, you’re making everything wet again. Right where was I? ‘Dear Elizabeth, I am sorry to say…’ No, no, that won’t stand.
[paper crumpling, thrown in bin]
Let’s start again, eh lads?
Shepards Hotel
Cairo
February 13th
Wait, is it the 13th or the 14th? Nevermind, it doesn’t really matter does it?
Shepards Hotel
Cairo
February 13th
1926
My dear darling Elizabeth,
It is one or perhaps two days since I have been visited by Anubis, and I am not yet dead. I have held my old Webley revolver in my hand often, spinning its cylinder that contains a single bullet. Every time I break the frame open, there it is, ready for the hammer to come down on it, never in an offset chamber. This weapon is impatient for the time I raise it to my temple, hungry for my death.
Dear god, no, Captain Ross, that is not how you write to the woman you love. Go again.
[crumpling paper etc]
Shepards Hotel
Cairo
February 13th
1926
My darling Elizabeth,
It is one or perhaps two days since I have been visited by Anubis, and I am not yet dead. I am well sorted for company though. I am writing at the table where I searched my wallet and found the piece of paper that I believe brought down the curse of the dog headed man on me.
This is how Fatima’s damned Brotherhood of the Veil is killing those associated with Sir Malcom’s expedition. I will be next even if I know not why. I cannot but wonder if I have been set up somehow by Clarke, to draw them out. Maybe he is outside, futilely waiting for them to make their move against me, not knowing it has already happened…
The shutters and windows are closed as they have been for the last day, or maybe, days. God knows what acrid stink of sweat permeates this heavy hot air. I have chased the hotel staff away with a roar when they have tried to prepare the room.
The table lamp is the only source of illumination, it’s light pooling around me and barely reaching Padhraig who sits to my right, half in light, half in shadow. He is saying something to me now but all that comes out of his mouth is watery mud. A beetle has just squeezed out from behind his grey clouded eyeball and scurried up into his wet plastered hair. I have had to move my writing paper to the other side of the desk as he keeps dripping water and mud on it.
His look is accusatory though, and I know what he is trying to say as he garbles slick mud that spills down his shirt front: Why did you leave me behind underneath the mound, Captain Ross? I was not really a bad man, I didn’t know what Lord Clonlaw was attempting. You ran and left me to the mud and the dead god.
I know what Padhraig wants. He leans forward with an eager smile each time I pick up the pistol, his grey mud-soaked skin dull in the light, and then retreats into shadow with a scowl when I fail to join him.
Yeah, that’s what you want Padhraig my boy, isn’t it? That’s what you’re greedy for. Me to join you in your dark grave in that terrible mound in Waterford.
[chair pushed back, footsteps]
How’s the game joining lads? My turn to draw eh? The ace of spades. Again. Huh. How many of them are there in that deck of cards?
[back to desk]
It would seem, Elizabeth, that my luck with cards is equally bad today. I am not entirely sure what game we are playing but I know the wager is my life. At the foot of the bed, five of my old regimental comrades sit at a circular card table that was not there before. They are lit by the strange faint unlight of the western front at night.
There’s Sergeant Hendrick, the lads were more scared of him than of going over the top, but he was a fair man all the same. He’d been a keen member of his village cricket team and by god, could he bowl a grenade. Privates Lawless and Kelly, two of the finest practitioners of trench warfare: when they dropped silently into a trench, clubs and knuckledusters at the ready, bloody violent mayhem followed swiftly on their heels. Private Fallon, he rarely missed with his rifle and was haunted by every shot. And cheery Corporal Halligan, who loved his cuppa char, and saved me from the death that came for them when he gave me the wrong message from HQ, that I was wanted for a briefing when I wasn’t.
The enemy hit our position first with mustard gas, and then with mask breaker gases, those that get in beneath the seals and drive you into a frenzy to get your mask off. Then into that yellow billowing hell of screaming blistering men, they lobbed phosgene shells. At first you think you are okay, just a bit of a cough and shortness of breath but give it a few days and your lungs will fill with fluid.
The men at the table have bandages wrapped around their eyes and the skin that can be seen is covered in weeping blisters. Still they play on silently in that eldritch unlight, an empty seat at the table for me who should have been there with his men, drowning and blinded in a hospital cot, not sitting by their side making worthless platitudes. A few more months, and the war would have been over.
That was when I first met you Elizabeth. Home on leave, not willing to risk Ireland and unable to face the heaving mass of London, I decided on a few days walking in Wiltshire, no more reason than that was where the next train was headed. You found me sheltering from a sudden rain shower, I remember…
[birds, rain (ending) countryside, horse etc]
E: Hallo there sir. Mind if I join you under your tree? I’m not quite dressed for this weather.
J: What? Oh sorry. Yes. Certainly! It would appear I am hogging the only shelter for miles around. My apologies! It was a lovely morning when I set out and then this rain just blew up out of nowhere.
E: It will do that around here. My father is always telling me to take a rain jacket when I go out riding, not that I listen. Elizabeth Sanderson by the way, of Clatbury, whose chimneys you can see smoking in the valley beyond. And this lovely girl trying to push in and get all the shelter for herself is Dimples.
J: Hello Dimples. If you’d arrived half an hour ago you might have gotten some of my apple. I’m Jon. Captain Jon Ross, if I am to be exact, I suppose. I had thought I might get some fresh air into my lungs while on leave, do a few days walking, that sort of thing, but I hadn’t reckoned on the Wiltshire weather.
E: On leave but not home to Ireland, Captain Ross?
J: You’ve an ear for accents Miss Sanderson. No, with everything that’s going on back home, I thought it would be simpler to stay in England.
E: You look soaked through. You should come with me to the house, before you catch a death of cold. My father will be well disposed to you, both for being Irish and an officer. [fading] Do you ride, Captain Jon Ross?
My turn again already lads?
[chair scraping]
Give me the deck and I’ll deal.
Do you remember Morval, sarge? That was a corker of a grenade throw. Bowled that machine-gun for six.
Ok, let’s see what you’ve all got. As usual I have the ace of -
Well now, that’s new. The Joker. Where did you come from? I’ll be back men, I’ve a letter to finish first.
[Chair scraping, footsteps, chair]
Right Padhraig, one last go at this damned letter and then let’s do it. Oh yes that’s brought a smile to your face hasn’t it.
Well, I can’t send this letter. Let’s start again.
Shepards Hotel
Cairo
February 13th or maybe 14th
1926
Dear Elizabeth,
It is one or perhaps two days since I have been visited by Anubis. This gun waits beside me, gleaming with malicious intent. I have lost track of the days. I know I tried to sleep once but as I lay there restlessly, I felt something move at the bottom of the bed, like that annoying cat of my parents that always liked to curl up by my feet, waking me in the process. Then strong hands grabbed my ankles and I was being pulled down through the bed, through dirt and mud to where a dead god waited for me. I kicked and screamed and fell out of the bed, relieved to feel the warm wood of the hotel floor under me. No sign of Clonlaw anywhere. That was when I realised my dead men had come visiting, Sergeant Hendrick holding out a chair that I might sit at the table with them.
We wrote each other, didn’t we Elizabeth and then after I was demobbed in 1919, I came to visit Clatbury. Like many villages around the country, it held a big peace party that July. The faces missing from the war and more lately the Spanish flu made them a strange mix of sadness, remembrance and joy to be alive. I remember it was like a village fete, with stalls and a marching band, and trestle tables laden with food and drink,
It was the first time I danced with you…
[waltz music, try and pan voices as if turning]
E You dance surprisingly well, Captain Ross!
J Well thank you Elizabeth, I think. You dance very well yourself.
E [laughs] My poor feet were all bruises from Charlie Whitehead’s two left feet the last time I danced. Mother was very keen to set me up with him though.
J Oh is that what this is? I’m being set up by Mrs Sanderson?
E No Jon, don’t be silly. You’re being set up by me.
J Ah well, in that case I insist on the next dance also. Though I do have one question.
E Oh yes? Ask away!
J Would this Charlie Whitehead be that rather imposing young man over there who’s been staring daggers at me all evening? [fading]
Good times Padhraig, good times. This gun I hold in my hand will sound a full stop to all of that.
[Scraping of chair as turns around]
And men! This joker I hold in my other hand! See it? Well Elizabeth was the wild card that came into my life at just the right time. She gave me a reason to see beyond all the horror I carried with me back from France. I love her. Why wouldn’t I want more of that?
Damn this curse. I’ll have no part of it. You’ll all have to wait for me, I’m afraid.
[footsteps, shutters opening, window also, sounds of street outside ]
[dialing telephone]
Hello, reception? This is Mr Ross in room 203. I’d like send a telegram. Thank you. It’s for Elizabeth Sanderson, care either of the paddle steamer Hathor at Luxor or else the Winter Palace hotel there. Messages begins: Dear Elizabeth Stop Have been unwell Stop Better now Stop Will stay Cairo extra few days Stop People have information I need Stop You are in danger Stop Please return to Cairo now Stop
- actually scratch that last bit, no point asking her to retreat, she doesn’t know how -
Ok so, You are in danger Stop Will travel Luxor soonest Stop Do not accept anything from a stranger Stop Love Jon
That’s great thanks. What’s today’s date by the way, I’ve rather lost track.
Is it?
Oh and you can let housekeeping know they can turn my room over in half an hour?
Is breakfast still being served? Excellent!