The Rings of Poseidon (2 page)

"What do you mean 'seems to be early Bronze
Age'?"

"The same walling techniques were still in
use on the surface in Ireland into the seventh or eighth centuries
AD so, without anything to go on, all you can say is that this bit
of wall must have been built between 2500 BC and 850 AD - that's
over 3000 years. Let's say that it's unlikely to be another Skara
Brae type village. Unlikely, but not entirely impossible."

"And this", said Professor Harrington, "is
Manjit Charanduwa. A classical period graduate who wants to move
into post graduate archaeology."

"I answer to Manjy." said the slender Indian
girl, making it sound like 'Mandy'. She was, in point of fact, no
more Indian than Alicia was West Indian, for both were born and
educated in England. Manjy was a real Asian beauty, though when you
looked closely it seemed to be physically more a matter of grace
than beauty. She was slim almost to slightness with waist length,
dark brown hair framing an oval face with graceful eyes and a nose
just a shade too long.

While Alicia was towelling herself dry, Manjy
pored over a difficult letter, chewing the end of her pen as she
had habitually done in every exam she could remember sitting.

'Dear Father,' she had written, 'I know that
you are much displeased with me because I am working away instead
of coming home to meet the young man you wish me to marry. This
work is connected with the further degree I wish to take and is
valuable experience.'

She stopped. She was thinking in English but
writing in Punjabi and it was a difficult letter to start with. It
wasn't so much that she objected to her parents arranging a
marriage for her, although she did not really like the idea. It was
much more that she felt that she would never fit in to a
traditional Indian marriage. She hadn't actually said that outright
because she didn't want to alienate her parents completely if she
could avoid it. She probably couldn't.

"Cocoa," said Gill, interrupting her thoughts
by depositing the mug on the table beside her with rather more of
'thump' than she intended.

"Thanks, Gill." She closed the notepad,
looked up and grinned more cheerfully than she felt.

"This gentleman is Steve Benderman. He is a
qualified mechanic. He'll look after the vehicles and equipment for
you as well as doing the cooking and general odd jobs. Mr.
Benderman will go with the vehicles and caravans when you go up to
the Orkneys. He'll drive the Landrover towing one of the caravans.
The other caravan and all the equipment will be taken up by a
contractor. The rest of the team can go more comfortably by
train."

"He's the one," thought Alicia, shaking hands
with him, "I've seen his file. Twelve months for drunkenness,
disorderly behaviour, possession of a dangerous weapon and assault
at a football match. I expected someone younger."

Steve Benderman was in his mid to late
twenties and, though he was well built and fit, he didn't look like
a football hooligan. At least, he didn't look to Alicia what she
expected one to look like. Perhaps the file was wrong.

"I don't think Benderman would mind me
telling you", Professor Harrington had explained to Alicia later,
"the term of imprisonment sobered him up considerably and his
probation officer wanted him to get away from his former
environment as completely as possible."

"Well, the Orkney Islands are well away from
Birmingham, I suppose," Alicia had observed, adding rather sourly,
"In fact they're well away from practically everything."

"Benderman will take the vehicle ferry to
Lowness with the equipment while the rest of you follow to Hoy
using the passenger only ferry from Stromness to Linksness."
explained the Professor, carefully ignoring Alicia's remark.

There was a knock and the caravan door
opened. Steve Benderman entered, accompanied by a chilly gust of
wind-driven drizzle.

"'Scuse me ladies," he said, "I'd like to
turn the hired car around. Bonnet's facing the wind and this
drizzle gets everywhere. If the electrics get damp we could have
trouble starting in the morning."

Last thing I want is trouble with the
vehicles," said Alicia. "I'll get you the keys." She slipped into
one of the roomy caravan's three bedrooms.

"Cocoa, Steve?" asked Gill. "I've just been
making some for us."

"Not something I usually drink, but this damp
is getting everywhere, so I think I will please."

"We don't want damp getting into your
electrics so you have trouble starting, do we?" giggled Manjy.

Alicia emerged from her bedroom with the
keys. "What about the generator?" she asked. "Isn't that getting
soaked?"

"I stuck it under the cabin for now, all snug
and dry, but I'll rig up a cover tomorrow. You don't want that
chugging away under your feet all day."

"I'll say not," said Gill. "I thought we were
to have mains electricity."

"You'll have it eventually for the computer
and one or two other things. I'm rigging up an extension from the
farm yonder." He indicated vaguely with a thumb.

"Presumably Professor Harrington arranged
that?" said Alicia, making it sound like a question.

"Yes. He just told me to contact the farm. He
said they would be expecting me to call and run an extension cord
from there," said Steve. "You'll still need a generator for some
things, though."

"Not that we'll be in much if the weather
clears," remarked Alicia, "And we'll have to make a start of some
sort even if it doesn't."

"That cocoa hit the spot. Just what I needed
tonight."

"I think," said Alicia, "that the generator
can go off in about half an hour. We can manage on the gas lights
overnight."

Steve nodded. "Well, it would be running for
nothing all night." he agreed. "I'll start it up again first thing
in the morning."

"And I'll go in search of the local labour
that Professor Harrington said he'd arranged," said Alicia. "He
told me everything was organised provided I let them know when to
start.."

"The other two members of your team," said
the Professor, "are Mr Alan Wainwright - you know him from the
undergraduate class you've been teaching - and Mr Frank Baxter who
will coming on an exchange from the University of Texas at Houston.
These two will join you in the Orkneys. They should be there within
a day or two of your own arrival."

The Professor closed his file with a snap.
"I'll leave you to fill them in on the details. I hope you have a
successful dig. If local reports are correct, it looks
promising."

After Alicia had gone the professor glanced
again at the photographs in his copy of the file before he put it
away in the cabinet. "Promising. But it's been promising before,"
he thought.

The electric light flickered out. Alicia
reached up, turned off the gas light and settled into her sleeping
bag. "It looks more promising than I expected," she admitted to
herself, as she drifted off to sleep.

Steve left the generator safely tucked up and
returned to the second caravan, shutting the night out behind him;
Manjy sat up in bed, still struggling with her letter; Gill took
two sleeping tablets and the ten pm from King's Cross to Inverness
rumbled northwards through the darkness of a wet May night,
carrying Messrs. Wainwright and Baxter, who had not yet met.

Chapter 2

The sky over Inverness was a overcast but the
rain had stopped and it was brighter. It was a still chilly
six-fifty in the morning when Frank Baxter dumped his rucksack and
a canvas hold-all by the station buffet.

'Opens early,' he muttered. Of course there
were quite a few early arrivals from the overnight train and Frank
had a shrewd suspicion that there wouldn't be much else open at
that time. No doubt most of those hanging around the station would
be going on to Thurso as well.

Knowing that another member of the team was
travelling up on the same train he looked around, trying to guess
which of those still on the station was most likely to be Alan
Wainwright. However, with most of their heavier baggage gone with
the caravans and equipment, there was nothing to distinguish either
of them from any other tourist. He shrugged and turned to
order.

* * *

"....while in Northern Scotland and the
Northern Isles the ridge of high pressure will edge in as the day
wears on. The rain is already clearing and the wind should drop
gradually, leaving a pleasant day..."

Alicia turned off, not the radio but her
attention, as soon as the weather forecast was over, and turned
over the day's schedule in her mind as she made coffee. Gill and
Manjy were stirring and obviously Steve was up and about because
through the open window she could hear the sound of the generator
chugging away.

Her instructions from Professor Harrington
were to contact the village shop in Linksness and leave a message
with them when she was ready for local workers. So, first to the
village to see what local labour the University had organised for
her, and to pick up a few supplies. Then down to work. Steve and
the girls could measure up the hillock, rope it off and take a few
preliminary photographs while she was gone. The other two would be
too late for today's ferry, but they'd have to be met tomorrow.

"Coffee's ready, ladies," she called. "Time
to be up and doing."

* * *

The man with the binoculars watched Steve
drive another iron stake into the sandy ground, knot the rope round
it and uncoil more rope to reach the next stake. The watcher put
away the binoculars and strolled towards the workers.

"You know," remarked Gill, "if Alicia's right
about this being all part of the site it is fairly extensive."

"Not much left above the ground though,"
answered Steve.

"There may never have been much above
ground," Gill told him.

"Why's that?"

"The pre-Celtic people of Northern Scotland
built houses that were virtually underground."

"How odd," said Steve, picking up another
stake and the sledgehammer. "I would think it would be damp, chilly
and miserable. Smoky too, I should think."

"At least it would be windproof," said Gill.
"Anyway, they were damp, chilly and miserable times, the Late Stone
Age and Early Bronze Age. The people were smallish, few in number
and kept out of the way of the Celts when they moved in. That's
probably how the legends of fairies started - little people who
live in hills and all that."

"I can see how stories like that could get
around," Steve agreed, knotting the rope to the last stake. "Hello,
a visitor," he added, jerking his head towards the approaching
newcomer.

The binoculars were in a case slung over his
shoulder. He wore a heavy tweed jacket, a felt hat pulled well down
and grey trousers tucked into Wellington boots. He was a tallish
man of early middle age, with nothing particularly memorable about
him.

"There's usually visitors - well, spectators
- at an archeological excavation," said Gill, "but I wouldn't have
expected any on Hoy," she added.

"Perhaps he's come to offer his services. Not
really dressed for digging though."

The visitor stood for a little while watching
Steve as he fiddled with the camera. He said nothing as the latter
took the preliminary photographs Alicia wanted, coming somewhat
diffidently forward as he finished.

"You'll not be using any motorised
equipment?" he asked.

"Absolutely not," answered Gill. "This is an
archaeological dig."

The visitor appeared relieved. "There's a
nest just over the hillock there I wouldn't want to see disturbed,"
he said.

"You needn't worry about us. We're a quiet
and careful lot and we'll be wrapped up in our own business." Gill
was surprised at her own confidence.

"In that case I'll be getting along," said
the birdwatcher and walked off.

"Nest?" said Steve.

"Bird's nest, I suppose," answered Gill.

"Bird watcher's paradise, Hoy," said Manjy,
who had been listening silently.

"Well, time for a coffee break anyway," said
Gill, feeling steadily more confident, "and apart from that we
can't really do anything until Ali tells us where she wants us to
start."

"Ali's back now." Manjy pointed to the hired
car turning into the field by the caravans.

"Right then," said Gill, "Coffee and the
boss's orders," and led the others back across the field.

"It's just possible that the houses are
intact, so we'll start at the landward side and see if there's any
sign of an entrance", Ali told them. "There are three local men
coming up this afternoon, so we'll make a start on the real digging
when they get here.

"We'll go down about two feet starting from
this edge of the hill," she said, pointing to the landward side of
an aerial photograph. "We'll move the trench inwards until we
strike walls then move sideways along them. If this is a village
we'll find an entrance somewhere; if not here then somewhere
else."

Steve was looking at the photos carefully,
turning them in his hand. "Surprising how much the outlines of old
foundations show," he remarked.

"Oh yes. You can even see sometimes where
wooden posts were stuck into the ground thousands of years ago,"
said Alicia.

"Fascinating," said Steve, as if he meant
it.

* * *

Frank Baxter strolled along the platform at
Thurso with his rucksack over one shoulder and his holdall in his
hand. He had intended taking the bus to Scrabster for the ferry to
Stromness in Orkney, but he was looking at a coach parked outside
the station. A large board leaning against it read 'Free bus to
John O'Groats for the Short Crossing Orkney Ferry'.