Jon heads into the desert in search of the Whitton Expedition and Elizabeth, but is he ahead or behind the Brotherhood of the Veil and the British Army who are also looking for it?
If you like THWDY, tell people about us! It will help us grow!
Jon heads into the desert in search of the Whitton Expedition and Elizabeth, but is he ahead or behind the Brotherhood of the Veil and the British Army who are also looking for it?
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 2.10
'To the Great Sea'
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El Kharga,
Western Desert, Egypt
February 25th, 1926
My dear Trudie,
I hope you and all the folks at home are doing good. We are having an amazing adventure in this remote part of Egypt although indeed I am beginning to wish myself back home wit h you in Nantucket, as we are now far from running water and showers, though at least there is coffee.
We joined an expedition led by an English gentleman, Sir Malcolm Whitton, a very charismatic guy, though the same can’t be said of his wife, a quiet, scurrying, mousy gel you would certainly not see in the line-up of the Missouri Rockets. I’m not entirely sure why it seemed like such a swell idea to me at the time, but Clarence was keen and here we are, sand, grit and dust and all.
I have a bit of time for Sir Malcolm, but not as much as Clarence who is all over him and the wife. So because of his kowtowing, we are honoured guests in their desert camp, sleeping in tents, would ya believe, while there is a perfectly adequate hotel back in the nearby town. It’s so difficult to perform the ablutions in this state and to be well turned out, but to be frank, I have very few good clothes left. My beautiful chiffon frock I bought that day we went to Macy’s last fall has been damaged beyond repair by a very annoying English girl on our trip, who fancies herself as a Classical scholar. She is always quoting Shakespeare and so forth, as if the seventeenth century was as real as 1926 is. Anyway, she got a room in the hotel, along with this weird doctor guy who she seems to have a shine for, though I think he’s more after some Polish lady without a dime to her name who fancies herself as an artiste. Hmm I think I know what sort of ‘art’ she trades in.
Be that as it may. Last night we were to dine in the grand tent in the camp, and I have to say I was looking forward to some kickass steaks slow roasted over a wood fire, but one of the nearby tents did actually catch fire and, in the kerfuffle of dousing the flames, all the food got ruined and we were reduced to trail biscuits and some canned tomato soup, I ask you. No-one really knows how it started, and I don’t think there was too much damage, but I tell you, that lady of Sir Malcolm’s – she is one unhappy camper, that’s for sure. It’s not as though she had any fine chiffon gowns worth saving so I don’t know what’s got her gander up. But she is spitting venom all over the shop this morning and - ye gods - we have several more days of this heading even further into the desert.
Funny thing is, after that spartan meal of biscuits and soup, I feel so much better than I had done up til then, as I’d had some kinda migraine for days beforehand. It suggests that a fasting diet may actually be healthful. Clarence however is under the weather, complaining of stomach pains and general biliousness. Even so, he is insisting we continue with the expedition. I’ve given him some Lydia Pinkham’s pills and I hope it shuts him up.
I gotta admit, Trudie, when my head cleared, what I fancied was a good Old Fashioned, nice and cold, in a swanky Manhattan bar. I’ve no idea what I was thinking coming out here. In fact, I am wondering if I was a bit too hasty in marrying the guy? When I get back, I may ask you for the name of that divorce attorney you used. In the meantime, wish us godspeed as we head off into the desert!
Adios hon,
Hayley
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Somewhere between Dakhla and El Kharga Oases
Western Desert
March 4th
1926
My darling Elizabeth,
I am writing this letter, perched on crates of dates in the back of a lorry, without knowing where to send it, for you will surely have left El Kharga by now. Writing to you comforts me though, even if I am unsure you will ever read it. However I also have nothing else to do as this motor caravan I am riding with makes its meandering way there. We have just departed Dakhla oasis in a roar of choking exhaust fumes and dust, after taking on the crates and even more bags of grain, so I expect to be in El Kharga tomorrow.
I had been stuck in that damned oasis at Bahariya for over a week, the days slipping by, one by one, as I wore myself out with worry about you, so when my host Jabari secured me a place on this motor caravan, the first since I have been here, I jumped at the chance. Bahariya Oasis is almost cut off from the modern world, its only connections ancient caravan routes to El Kharga and Cairo, and even the shorter of those, to where you are, takes well over a week by camel and three days by lorry, if you are a merchant convoy, anyway. If I had known Youssef would not be back, I would have tried to hire camels and guides immediately.
That man Youssef Urfy, my rescuer in Cairo from Clarke and the Brotherhood, flew back to the city soon after dropping me off. He said he would return the day after and take me on to El Kharga. Youssef was of the view that he could brazen out his night time flight from Cairo, and simply deny any knowledge of me, and that it would look more suspicious if he stayed away. I got the distinct impression that he felt he had connections that whould protect him.
He did not return though and I was in a complete stew over whether I have been out-manouvered by Fatima and safely abandoned out of the way, or whether Youssef was a man of his word, but had been detained by that bloody fool Clarke. I pity Youssef if so. When I worked in Whitehall briefly after the war, I heard whispers of how far Cairo Special Section would go to extract confessions.
Jabari and his wife Dina were very good to me. I am unclear if Jabari works with Youssef in some capacity or was merely doing an old friend a favour, but to outward appearances he is a moderately successful local business man with one of the better houses in Bahariya. Given they only expected to put me up for a night, they were very patient. For myself I was going mad skulking inside all day, every afternoon desperately listening for the sounds of an approaching aircraft, with only careful walks amongst the date palms and white washed buildings to stretch my legs once darkness had long fallen. Youssef had been clear though that the secrecy was necessary not just to protect me but also Dina and Jabari.
What I would have given for a glass of cold beer, or a tumbler of whiskey, but my hosts were devout muslims. It was probably just as well, I was morose enough as it was. However, it is good I listened to Youssef and was not tempted by the bar at the oasis hostel. I avoided it mainly as it is frequented by administration officials as well as the occasional group of English tourists here to see the Black and White Deserts. The sound of their revels would carry clear across the oasis at night when they had a big party in.
Four days ago, to my delight I heard an aeroplane fly over the settlement before landing in the dirt just beyond the trees. But by then I had seen the RAF insignia on its wings and sure enough, Jabari soon rushed back to the house and told me in his halting English that a policeman from Cairo was here asking questions about me. Nobody though told the man from Cairo a thing, no matter how much he poked around, and they left the next morning. I am sure the locals knew I was holed up in Jabari’s home, but preferred to ignore me and whatever trouble I represented.
If I could fly a plane I would have stolen theirs, Elizabeth, RAF or not! But then, having left it so long to depart, I was relying on Dina’s assurances that Youssef is a man of honour and would return. On my walks I would stop at the edge of the oasis where irrigated fields turn abruptly to sand and grubby rock, and stare out at that vast expanse of barrens that trapped me here as surely as if I was in gaol.
But at least this was a natural prison and not tainted with any occultist nonsense, until, , the night before I finally left, as I was returning from my evening constitutional, everything, all the hidden insects suddenly went silent. Then I heard a strange snuffling noise at the side of my hosts’ house. I slowed down and approached cautiously, stopping by the trunk of a date tree. The moon was a sliver off being full and the houses glowed pale in its bright light. At the foot of the wall a large hunched figure moved like a black shadow against the building. It was somewhat baboon-like in form and even I knew there were none of those here in the oasis.
This sinister figure advanced slowly around to the front of the house and to my horror I realised, as it bent or perhaps flowed across the corner, that it was an actual shadow! A shadow without a physical body! It moved along sniffing and occasionally snarling, this horrific thing. I dread to think what would have happened to us all if I had been asleep in the house, for it must surely be one of the Brotherhood of the Veil’s shadow puppets. When it reached the far corner, it sort of stretched out from the wall into a three dimensional form I recognised, loped over to the next house and became a moon shadow again on its wall.
I was terrified of leading that thing in on innocent Dina and Jabari so I crouched down by the date tree and waited as still and silent as a statue. I was starting at every little sound so I was astonished to suddenly jerk awake, the tree trunk to my back. How I managed to fall asleep I do not know, but it had been for a while as the moon had moved a fair distance across the sky. Well that had been foolish, but not having been attacked while defenceless and the insects having started up again, suggested to me that it might be safe to return.
It would seem that being trapped at Bahariya actually served in my favour as both the Residency and the Brotherhood only spared limited resources to search that far out for me. I wonder if Clarke’s second expedition, the one with the armoured cars of all things, has set off yet? Would it be better if it caught up with you or are you safer with Rookfield? And what of that first secret expedition, that Fatima said Clarke had mounted while you were still in Cairo, whatever happened to that?
So when Dina mentioned the merchant convoy of lorries filling up with produce to take on the caravan route to El Kharga, I pushed Jabari to get me a place on it. He was rebuffed initially as they saw me as trouble but I took Jabari away from Dina and asked if he knew of the Brotherhood of the Veil. He nodded, eyes going wide at their mention. I told them that a creature of theirs had been searching the oasis the previous night and that was enough. Whatever he did, it got me an uncomfortable spot in the back of the rear lorry. My skin is dry and itchy and my throat hoarse from the constant dust thrown up by the lead vehicles but at least I am on my way finally.
I will hopefully soon be with you again.
All my love, my darling.
Jon
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Great Sand Sea
Western Desert
Egypt
March 6th
1926
Dear Elizabeth,
Another missive from an indeterminate place! We are on the edge of the great sand sea; desert plain behind us and, in front of us for tomorrow, gigantic sand ridges that stretch from horizon to horizon, north to south. Sand dune is too paltry a word for these monstrous edifices. I have seen seas of water and seas of mud, but never something so solid but mutable at the same time. And somewhere out there in that scorched vastness is you.
I am writing by our little fuel stove, a hissing pressure lamp providing light. Youssef is busy fussing over the Bristol Fighter, looking for damage after today’s fracas. Yes you read that right, I am in the air again.
The motor caravan arrived in El Kharga yesterday and I jumped down from the tail gate as we entered the settlement and slipped away. The oasis was a bigger dustier version of Bahariya and calm, with no obvious sign of the military or of the brotherhood. In the end I went to the hotel and simply asked at reception if you were staying. To my disappointment you had checked out several days ago but the clerk handed me the letter you had left behind, which I read greedily, like a man given water after days in the desert.
I have to say I feel I am trailing behind you, lacking information and unable to help. I think I must have missed out on one of your letters but even so, your decision to continue with the expedition, while characteristic, does seem reckless to me. If Mabel is actually some sort of revenant of the ancient ‘priestess who would be pharaoh’, going with her to where she clearly wants everyone to go seems, well, not a sensible plan, if I may venture the opinion. I can see her wanting the Quftis if there is more excavation to be done on her tomb, but I can think of no reason that bodes well, that she would want to drag the rest of you out there.
I find it hard to believe that all this horror started out as a love story about the Whittons. But the arrogance of powerful men, and the destruction they cause in pursuit of their desires, never seems to end.
I checked into the hotel for want of anywhere else to stay or do, and finally had that cold beer in the lobby as I pondered my next move. I was too far behind you I realised. Neither car nor camel would get me to you in time. I had also learned that Clarke’s army expedition had arrived by train the night before and set off into the desert this morning. I was so despondent that I ignored the sound of an aircraft circling overhead. I was on my second beer when a hand clapped me on the shoulder and then Youssef sprawled into the chair opposite me with a heavy sigh, looking tired and dusty in his flying leathers.
He waved at the waiter for a drink and said to me with narrowed eyes, “You are a hard man to keep track of, Captain.”
It turned out that he had indeed been a guest of Special Section. He was vague about why he was released but I got the idea that he was something to somebody important back in Blighty and pressure was eventually brought to bear. In different circumstances, his story would be a fascinating one I suspect.
I was all for setting out at once but Youssef was firm that we needed to wait till the morning. We needed to be able to spot the tracks of the two expeditions to be able to follow them and he felt he had already pushed his airplane enough for one day.
“Desert flying is rough on the planes, Captain,” he said, “a frayed fuel line or sand in the wrong place, and ‘puff!” - he threw his hands in the air dramatically at this point - “your search for your lady is over and now you need rescuing as well. And most importantly, your pilot is very tired, very hungry and thirsty to boot. Where is that waiter?”
Despite not sleeping I still didn’t beat Yourself to the aeroplane in the first light of dawn. His words of the night before proved prescient and a frustrating morning passed while he tinkered with the Bristol Fighter’s engine. In the end we set off at the worst time of day, the noon sun beating down on us. At first we followed a caravan track that snaked westwards, paralleling the cliff edge of a plateau to the north. I realised this was actually the route into El Kharga that I had taken. But as that track turned northwards to the other oases, a set of vehicle tracks veered off westwards into the desert. The game was afoot!
It turned out to be not as easy as I might have thought. The desert here was a mix of sand, gravel and hard pan, with a constant southerly wind to boot. Youssef would take the plane up high to look for evidence of tracks, I acting as spotter with a pair of binoculars, and then if we found them we would fly low so as to not lose them. Sometimes there was more than one track and while they all tended roughly westwards, they had to wind around low hills and gullies and we were afraid we might easily go wrong. We pushed on though and it became easier as the first out riggers of the sand sea appeared, huge long dunes that still kept the fading scars of the vehicles that had passed.
It was well after five o’clock, the sun in front of us already low, when we saw the thin plume of black smoke rising into the sky before the wind snatched it away. Youssef immediately turned towards the smoke and accelerated. We came in low over the crest of a dune and we saw, well, mayhem.
We had found Clarke’s army expedition. It was spread in a thin line from the hard desert floor up the side of the facing dune. Front and rear were each taken up by an armoured car, with five cars and troop transports in-between. The vanguard armoured car was aflame and even as we came onto the scene, some of its ammunition must have cooked off, as it erupted with deadly fireworks of exploding shells and bullets. British soldiers were hunkered down by their vehicles firing up at the top of the far dune with rifles and mounted Vickers guns. It was the first time I’d ever seen military action from the air and there was something strangely god-like about seeing the little figures scurrying back and forth and what looked like a sergeant organising the rear vehicles into what I guessed would be an attempt at a flanking manoeuvre. Maybe it was something similar that had made it so easy for the generals in Europe looking at their maps, to order tens of thousands of men to their death in a single assault.
And then we saw what was attacking them. Coming loping down the dune, midnight black against the yellow sand, were the shadow creatures of the Brotherhood. I thought Youssef was minded to take advantage of this ambush and keep going but I leaned forward and shouted at him over the roar of the engine,
“Those are men down there. We can’t leave them to be torn apart by monsters.”
Yourself didn’t look happy but he repeated something until I realised he was telling me to look at my feet. I reached down and hurriedly scrabbled through the various packages in the footwell that left little room for my feet. I pulled out a machete of all things, then an odd looking gun and realised it was a Mauser pistol with attached shoulder stock, what we used to call a Broomhandle. I’d always thought those things looked faintly ridiculous but also knew it was no joke to be on the receiving end of a burst of automatic fire from one of them.
Even as I hitched it to my shoulder, Youssef was banking and diving. The creatures had reached the soldiers who were trying to hold them off with bayonets. They didn’t seem to like cold steel and reared and feinted to get past it to the soldier beyond. As we swept past I emptied the clip into one of the monsters. There were so many of them! It had no discernible effect but I as likely just missed. It was going to be impossible to hit any damn thing from this shaking aircraft. It was shame that Youssef had not been able to keep the original Lewis guns. It looked like the machine guns were the only thing down there strong enough to kill one.
Then Youssef made a mistake. He flew through the drifting plume rising off the armoured car and immediately two of the monsters raced up the smoke, visible as flickering shadows where the setting sun caught the column. One of them expanded out from the lower of the left wings and roared defiantly at me, its enormous canines terrifying, its claws ripping the wing fabric. How was I supposed to stop this horror? The other emerged right on top of the propeller and was torn to shreds as soon as it tried to solidify into a physical being. Stinking black pieces of heavy oily paper were whipped past me by the wind.
I shot at the one on the wing to gain its attention and it sank back into the wing fabric as a shadow that then rushed along the fuselage towards me. I dropped the gun at my feet and grabbed the machete, praying I was correct in my guess. I’d be dead soon enough if I was wrong. The top of the fuselage in front of me reared upwards as the shadow monster began to emerge with a deafening snarl and clack of long teeth. I slashed wildly at it with the machette, and much like the other one it proved to be vulnerable when it was between states. The knife tore through it like it was paper and the wind caught it and ripped it apart.
I leaned forward to get Youssef’s attention with my hand and then pointed to the other side of the dune. Where there were puppets, there must surely be puppet masters. We crested the dune and I desperately scanned either side of us with the binoculars and eventually spotted the brotherhood and their camels further to the south, off to our left, safely out of range of the army. Youssef saw them too and banked sharply towards them. We came in low and fast, me taking erratic potshots as we went, they frantically returning fire with rifles before diving out of the way of the wheels and prop. I didn’t hit anyone but we’d achieved something more useful. We’d broken their concentration and scattered their camels. As we climbed steeply out of their range, I could see no shadow monsters attacking the soldiers and the rear armoured car finally beginning to move to flank the ambush.
We flew over the convoy and Youssef waggled the wings before we turned westward and kept going. The fight though had cost us dearly in time. The sun was setting and it was increasingly difficult to see the tracks. In the end, Youssef put us down between two of the giant sand ridges before it got too dark. If I hadn’t insisted we help the army, who in this instance are no friends of ours, then maybe we might have found you this evening Elizabeth. You must be so close, maybe even over the next sand ridge. I think I made the right choice, though it does not feel like it. Neither did it feel good to have held a gun again and shot at men.
I doubt I will sleep tonight and at first light I will come find you.
All my love
Jon
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[paper rustling, writing, strong wind]
How bad are things with you Elizabeth and where are you? I am sat at the foot of the cliff in which the maw of the Hungry Tomb gapes. We arrived here soon after dawn. It was almost anticlimactic how quickly we found this long wide wadi with a cliff on its western side and a sand ridge looming over that. From the air we could see extensive evidence of Sir Malcom’s original dig and a neat tent encampment at its southern edge. No one came out to wave or to wonder at us, though the camels tied up by some vehicles did slowly stand up. We walked warily into the camp, guns in hand but it was silent, empty. Evidence of interrupted camp life abounded but the whole place was as abandoned as the Marie Celeste.
One of the tents has burned to the ground. A blackened skull peers out from amongst the debris. What happened there?
And then we saw the horror, and this is why I am writing this post script now before we enter the tomb itself.
Near the camels is a dead man, one of the Qufti’s from his attire, I would guess. But while his clothes are fresh and clean, his body is a shrivelled leathery thing that looks like it was exposed to the sun a thousand years ago, the skin stretched back against the teeth, the eyes missing. He looks like he died a painful death, the bones twisted and broken. The glint of a bullet casing nearby caught my eye. At least one shot was fired but there is no sign of blood.
The ground is a confusion of footprints but it is clear that some lead up to the tomb. There are broken ladders at the base of the cliff here and a rope and pulley system still in place. Someone has dropped a rope ladder down from the entrance. Is that where you all are, devoured by the Hungry Tomb? The silence here is frightening. Nothing moves except for us. There are not even insects.
Atop the cliff sits one of those sand ridges, a couple of hundred feet high if anything, oversteepened, a monstrous frozen wave waiting to crash down on us here. There is a constant hiss of fine sand drizzling over the side and an occasional thump as a small avalanche of sand sloughs off. How long before this thing buries the tomb once more?
Youssef has just returned from his own search and handed me a letter with my name on it. It is in your handwriting, Elizabeth. He says he found it in one of the tents. Before I dare open it, before I at last enter the Hungry Tomb and find you or face the horror within, let me write this:
I love you Elizabeth, and damn it, if we get out of this mess, let’s just pick a date and get married. I’ll keep this letter close to my heart that you may find it, if I fail to find you.
I love you, Elizabeth my darling,
Captain Jon Ross