Alan arrived on-site early. It was a lovely, sunny Monday morning, the last day of February, and the main car park dig had been underway for six weeks. At this stage it had not been an excavation, so much as a scrape, with the whole area being carefully trowelled over at least twice. Davey and his digger had been gone for four weeks. The geophysics team, too, had finished a week ago. They’d revealed lots and lots of small features, but nothing very substantial – which was what Candice and John wanted if the new Fursey visitor centre and shop/restaurant project was not to be held up. But in his heart of hearts, Alan was a tiny bit disappointed. He’d have liked a bloody great fort ditch and gateway; something to have got his teeth into.
At the end of the previous week, Clare Hughes the county mounty from the local county council’s development control department had visited the site, unannounced, as she didn’t particularly want a load of developers breathing over their shoulders. She and Alan trusted each other and got on well together. They had looked at digital plans of the finds, which they placed over the newly arrived geophys plot, and it didn’t take long before they’d isolated several areas of potential interest. Some time ago, Clare had phoned Alan and they had agreed that they couldn’t simply abandon the site to the new car park completely unexamined. True, in theory it would be protected and preserved below the thick layer of tarmac, but you can’t protect something if you don’t know what it is. Maybe a heavy covering would be inappropriate; maybe water should be permitted to soak through? They just didn’t know. So somehow they had to characterise the nature and extent of the more deeply buried remains together, of course, with their preservation. This would require a number of hand-excavated trial trenches. The Fursey management company had been co-operative and reasonable, so they didn’t want these trenches to delay completion of the car park beyond the Easter deadline – and to Alan’s huge relief, Easter was late that year (24 April). Alan had explained to Candice that if the worst came to the worst, there might be a delay, but if that did happen, the extra local TV coverage and added visitors would more than make up for the disruption.
After about an hour poring over plans, Alan and Clare had decided on two initial trial trenches to characterise contrasting areas. Both would be aligned east-west. Trench 1 would be placed over a seemingly blank area, where there were few finds or geophysical anomalies. But as Alan knew only too well, archaeological ‘blanks’ were often full of surprises. Trench 2 was intended to examine what looked like part of a large rectangular building.
While they had been deciding on the trial trench locations, they couldn’t help noticing the activity outside. They both knew what was happening, in theory, at least. But the reality was very impressive. While they’d both been shut away in Alan’s Portakabin discussing trial trenches, Jake and the digging team had been on-site with road spikes and hazard tape, marking out no-go areas as Frank and Weinstein had strongly advised them to mark clearly where people shouldn’t walk. And they knew what they were talking about, Alan thought, as he watched four huge articulated trucks pull up in the park. Behind them were two mini buses full of men and women, some of them wearing new black overalls bearing the discreet dark-blue logo of New Ideas Productions. As Alan was aware, the black and the dark blue was to avoid unwanted reflection when the many lights, which were just starting to be unloaded from the trucks, were eventually turned on.
As they stepped out of the Portakabin, Alan handed a plan of the site with the two trial trenches to Jake Williamson, Hen Clancy and Jon and Kaylee, the two diggers from White Delphs, who had been at Fursey for six weeks. They were all very grateful for the money and the work, but there is a limit to how many finds one can trowel from an area of 50 by 120 metres, without going mad, and everyone, Alan included, was getting sick of the sight of tiny Grey Ware sherds. As Jake memorably announced in a tired voice one rainy afternoon tea break, ‘Even bloody Samian seems a bit samey.’ No, they were all itching to do some ‘real’ excavation. They’d had more than enough of trowelling. And if it had to be live on television, then so much the better. Because that was what Frank and Weinstein had decided – with, of course, Alan’s agreement – but in reality, as they all knew, he had no option.
At first Alan had been very sceptical at the suggestion, which an over-excited Frank had proposed at the end of the first week of conventional filming. Alan didn’t think that Weinstein or T2 would buy the idea. It was far too risky: what if they found nothing? What if the big building on the geophys plot turned out to be rabbit holes? What if the blank area did indeed prove to be empty? Did they really want to make idiots of themselves in front of 3 million people? ‘I hope 5 million’, was Weinstein’s unexpected response. Oh well, Alan thought, on your own head be it. And he was still far from convinced, despite Weinstein explaining that modern television was all about calculated risks and taking the individual members of their audience out of their comfort zones. After all, Big Brother had done it with massive success – so why not them? Again, Alan had a terse reply in mind, but he decided not to use it.
Clare was impressed at the way Jake and the team were standing guard over the archaeological areas. Nobody would be taking any shortcuts with them around. Alan escorted her back to her car and when she had left, he returned to the roped-off dig, to find Jake and Hen measuring out for Trench 1.
Alan checked the plan against the site grid – just to be completely certain the trench was in the right place – and then told the team to move on to Trench 2. The actual work of laying out the trenches was being done by Jake and the two diggers he’d brought with him from White Delphs. Meanwhile Hen Clancy and two additional diggers, who Alan had taken on that morning to help with the trial trenches, were setting up the finds processing area. So although the site crew of a director, two supervisors and four diggers was quite small, Alan was satisfied. He liked to do things that way as he felt more in control and it also meant that he got to do some digging himself. Directors of large urban excavations, with dozens of staff and several layers of supervision usually contrived a daily site visit, but the rest of their time was spent in the office ‘doing management’, as Alan called it with ill-concealed contempt. He might have to take on an extra three or four diggers if they opened more trenches, but he was not keen to see the team rise much above a dozen, at most a dozen-and-a-half.
Lew Weinstein and the bosses at T2 had been very impressed by the viewing figures and audience share of the two introductory half-hour documentaries, which had gone out a week previously. John, Candice and the Fursey Abbey team had almost been overwhelmed by the upsurge in visitor numbers and had erected a small viewing stand alongside the newly-exposed area. The stand would hold around 200 people, and on some Sundays it was almost full.
It was one thing to have two good sets of viewing figures, but quite another to build on them. Audience loyalty was what the top brass at T2 were desperate to achieve.
After much discussion, T2 and Weinstein came up with a change to their original schedule. Shortly after the two introductory docs had been screened, they’d see how audiences reacted to five short live broadcasts, each one lasting thirty minutes, starting on Monday at 8.30pm – peak viewing. These would be followed by a final, one-hour episode on Saturday, Day 6. It was hoped the five run-up episodes would boost their Saturday evening audience, which had been slipping badly of late, due to strong sports output from satellite stations, both at home and, more importantly, on large screens in city-centre pubs. It was a very risky strategy indeed for T2 and would probably cost both the commissioning editor and the boss of the history and factual department their jobs if it failed.
The first live show would be a behind-the-scenes introduction to the dig. The presenter, Craig Larsson, would generally be on-site. From there he could interview Alan in the trenches and Tricia in the finds hut with Hen; he’d also be introducing clips from the earlier two shows, plus some new aerial shots they’d filmed a fortnight ago.
* * *
A few days later, shortly after midday, Alan returned from a quick visit to a hearing-aid shop in Ely, where he had been fitted with a small earpiece, after a visit the previous week when his outer earhole had been moulded in wax. The nice lady in the shop had advised him to wear it as often as he could over the next few days. ‘Before you know it, you won’t know you’re wearing it’, was what she had said. ‘But right now,’ Alan thought, ‘It feels like somebody has shoved a concrete tank trap into the side of my head.’
After a hot lunch from the Test Pit Challenge’s excellent caterers, Alan and Tricia walked over to the two trial trenches, which were both being trowelled-down. Originally Weinstein and Charles Carnwath, the commissioning editor at T2, had insisted that the trowelling had to start live on-screen, but Alan had pointed out the stupidity of that idea: archaeology isn’t a race; and besides, all you’d see would be dry soil. It would be much better if they started a few hours earlier, then at least they could point at any areas that were starting to look exciting.
They arrived at Trench 2 first. Both trenches had been covered with clear plastic rain shelters which acted a bit like greenhouses during the day, so the flaps at each end were folded back. Late February sunshine can be surprisingly hot. During the morning, various black-overalled technicians had been working away on the lighting, but now everyone was still away at lunch. Alan had advised the diggers to make the most of it: free meals are rare in archaeology, let alone ones with starters, a choice of three hot main courses, a pudding and cheese – not to mention limitless tea and coffee. Belching slightly, Alan pulled a trowel from his back pocket and stepped into the trench. It was still very shallow – barely two inches deep, but already colours were beginning to show up.
For a couple of minutes Alan trowelled, concentrating closely. Then Tricia broke the silence. ‘It looks darker towards this end, Alan.’
Alan nodded, still deep in thought.
‘Is that something important, or is it where they were trowelling last?’ When there was no answer, she tried again. ‘I mean is it fresher, damper here?’
That wasn’t much better either, but Alan knew what she was trying to say.
‘It’s hard to say. A trowelled surface is best when it’s fresh. What you’re looking at has been messed around. It’s been walked on and there are scuff marks left by toes and kneelers and finds trays by the edge of the trench there. But on the other hand, you may be right. I’ve been having a look at it and I think the colour change may well be real, but we’re still very much in the OLS—’
He broke off. She was looking puzzled. He hadn’t yet grasped the extent of her lack of field experience. She’d come to archaeology via an Art History BA, and was very much an artefacts person. For a moment his mind flicked back to Harriet, his co-director on his last dig. She too had been a specialist – in human bones – but she could also dig like an angel. The way she dug those tiny and so fragile baby bones … He sighed. Still, there’s no going back. What’s passed is gone. End of.
‘Sorry, that’s the Old Land Surface, or buried topsoil – so I wouldn’t expect to see much at this level.’ She was looking disappointed. ‘But you’re right,’ he continued more brightly. ‘It is darker and a fraction softer, too – and that may well prove significant.’
‘Do you think we’ll find out tonight?’
For a moment it was Alan’s turn to be lost. Then he realised what she was getting at. ‘Oh, you mean for the “live”?’
‘Yes.’
She was looking genuinely concerned. Unlike Alan, she plainly cared about the broadcast’s impact on viewers. He was more worried about what the trench had to reveal – and about not looking a complete idiot in front of millions of people.
‘I doubt if we’ll be able to define precisely what’s there, but I think we should be able to say if it’s man-made, or natural.’
They walked over to Trench 1. By now one or two people were beginning to drift over from the catering tent.
Again, Alan pulled out his trowel and started to scrape. He’d been at it for a minute or so when Jake Williamson joined him.
‘Thought I’d find you here, Alan.’
He hadn’t noticed Tricia who had been standing by some heavy-duty lighting stands. He knelt down beside Alan and also started trowelling.
After a bit, Alan leant back. ‘Very different texture to Trench 2, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, very. More stones and much more sandy.’
‘And I don’t think we’re much higher here?’
‘No,’ Jake replied. ‘That was my first reaction. I checked the OD levels over lunch: Trench 1 is 1.57 and we’re at 1.65. So no difference at all. Certainly not enough to cause that.’
Tricia had been paying close attention. But she didn’t understand the technical speak.
‘Sorry, Alan, I don’t get the significance of all that.’
She’d stepped out of the shadows and Jake looked astonished at what met his eyes. Alan wondered briefly what it must be like to have such an effect on men. He shot Jake a look as if to say ‘pull yourself together, man’, which Jake did. Alan then introduced them. Instead of shaking hands, she smiled broadly, to which Jake responded with a hint of embarrassed flush. Alan decided it was time to resume her crash course in field archaeology:
‘We noted a textural change in the two trenches. This one is more stony and sandy. Normally that particular change happens when the ground level rises, especially as here, where one is on the edge of an ancient island. But as Jake pointed out, the levels are virtually identical, so we don’t think that very likely.’
‘So what do you think it is?’ She was leaning over the trench, listening intently.
‘Well,’ Alan shot Jake another rapid look, this time it said: please keep your mouth shut. ‘I think we both have our suspicions, but again, we’re still high in the OLS, so we’d better not speculate—’
‘Not even for me, Alan?’
The broad smile she gave him was indeed winning. There could be no doubt about that. But Alan remained obdurate.
‘Sorry, Tricia, but no,’ he replied in a mock schoolmaster voice. ‘It’ll all come out in the wash. You’ve just got to be patient.’ He turned briefly to Jake, smiling, and said, ‘And if you say anything, Williamson, you’re on a fizzer. Get it?’
Jake snapped a salute with his trowel. ‘Yassir!’
* * *
The afternoon was frantic. The Call Sheet, essentially a detailed timetable that was prepared before every shoot, itemised what was supposed to happen. It was issued to everyone.
15.30–16.00: Tea break (crews and contributors)
16.00–18.00: Rehearsal and run-through (contributors and camera crews)
18.00–19.00: Lighting, set preparation and sound check (camera and lighting crews)
19.00–19.30: Film ‘as live’ sequences (contributors and camera, lighting crews)
19.30–20.00: Break (sandwiches, on set)
20.00–20.30: Final run-through (contributors and crews)
20.30–21.00: Live TX
21.00: WRAP (contributors and camera crews)
21.00–21.30: De-rig (lighting crews)
During the previous week the production people at New Ideas had tried to persuade Alan to leave the lighting equipment in place during the six days of the live run, but he pointed out that if they did that, then it would be impossible to extend or open new trial trenches and it would also massively slow down daytime digging, which would be essential if the excavation was to be seen to be advancing. Eventually, and after much discussion, they had reluctantly agreed – and that final half-hour for the lighting crews was the result. Over lunch he muttered something apologetic to one of the riggers who looked at him as if he was mad. ‘Blimey, mate, I saw that and rubbed my hands. We’ll be well into overtime by then. And that’ll be a nice little earner. We owe you a pint.’ Alan smiled at his own naivety; and as for the beer, he knew that would never happen.
Alan had found Call Sheets, like most modern paperwork, of limited use. They gave details of hotels, train times and that sort of thing – they even gave information on local real ale pubs, which some fortunate production assistant had had to prospect for on one of the recce days, but they also had pages of health and safety crap and the usual management disclaimers that nobody with even a slightly active mind could bring themselves to read. Alan found them useful for the names of crew members and the mobile numbers of visiting experts and suchlike, but mostly his Call Sheets remained, unread, in his house or hotel bedroom. But not now. He’d never done a ‘live’ before and the Call Sheet was proving very useful.
Things went more or less to the Call Sheet timetable, which had mostly been drawn up by Lew Weinstein himself. Like many people in television, Weinstein loved doing live shows, largely, Alan suspected, because of the massive injections of adrenalin, which he soon discovered were a feature of all such work.
Weinstein’s job was in the T2 studios in London, where he mixed the various site sequences, together with contributions from a panel of three experts, including Peter Flower, and chaired by guest celebrity and retired gameshow host, Michael Smiley – who was also in the London studio. To cover the transition between the various live feeds, Weinstein had a small library of recorded clips, plus the ‘as live’ sequences, filmed earlier that evening. These were background shots of the dig and the diggers, intended to convey ‘atmos’ rather than anything specific.
The direction on-site was being done by Frank Jones, who Alan reckoned hadn’t done that much live work. He was more a film director, but Alan could also see he was going to give it his best shot. He didn’t think he’d ever seen anyone quite so wired. Tricia had noticed it too.
‘I think Frank’s going to explode. If he keeps this up he’ll be a wet sponge by nine o’clock. Just listen to him!’
They both had their radio mikes turned off, but their earpieces, which Alan had now grown entirely used to, were positively crackling with Frank’s voice. He was discussing Camera 4’s move while Craig was doing his opening PTC (piece to camera). Alan couldn’t follow everything he was saying, but he seemed to imply that if the camera didn’t do precisely what he suggested the entire show would fall apart. They could tell that Weinstein was getting near the end of his tether:
‘OK, Frank, that’s great. Great. Yeah, I’ve got that … Yeah …’A pause, while Frank’s voice doubled in speed. Then came Weinstein’s final response: ‘Great, yeah. We’ll keep it in reserve.’
Then the line went dead.
Tricia and Alan were standing open-mouthed, each with a hand cupped over their left ear. Then simultaneously, when the jabbering was cut off, they fell about laughing.
* * *
The final rehearsal and run-through went as smoothly as could be expected, and Alan could see that the presenter, Craig Larsson’s, stage fright was building. He was standing still, but fidgeting with his script, his earpiece, his radio mike – whatever came to hand. He was also growing quite pale. Then a studio voice came through on Alan’s earpiece and through radio speakers that Grump Edwards had set up alongside Trenches 1 and 2 and in the dining tent (which had been converted into a temporary viewing theatre for the duration of the broadcast). The flap into the dig shelter was lifted to allow a cameraman to enter, dragging a long cable from the camera he carried on his shoulder.
Alan looked through the gap, across the stripped surface towards the wide entrance into the dining tent, where he could see quite a big group of people watching the large flat screen. At the back he could clearly see John and Candice Cripps standing together, their heads almost touching as they looked at the screen through a narrow gap in the crowd. Then John moved and Alan realised he’d been wrong: it was Sebastian. But their body language fooled me, Alan thought. As if to confirm his error he then spotted John running towards the tent, glancing anxiously from time to time at his wristwatch. He wasn’t going to miss the start of the show. Then the flap on the trench shelter fell back in place.
That voice in Alan’s earpiece was still making routine announcements – the usual sort of stuff: health and safety, insurance and the need for quiet on set – and then it said, ‘Start positions everyone. And now it’s over to London.’
Briefly the radio speakers crackled into life. It was Weinstein’s voice. ‘OK, folks, we’re about to start countdown into the opening sequence …’
Alan looked across to the corner of the shelter where Craig was to start the walk into his opening PTC and to his horror he was vomiting into a plastic bag, which was hastily taken away by a long-suffering runner. Craig wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
‘I’ll start the countdown on a five.’ There was a brief pause. Then the speakers went off and Alan’s earpiece suddenly crackled into life.
This time it was a different voice: ‘Five … four … three … two … one.
Simultaneously on ‘four’ Weinstein’s voice, now very calm and controlled, said, ‘Cue Camera 1’ and on ‘one’ the familiar, ‘And Action!’
Craig took two steps out of the shadows and began his opening PTC. He was calm and smiling.
‘Welcome to Fursey Abbey and Test Pit Challenge’s first live broadcast. We’re all incredibly excited here because we just don’t know what’s waiting to be revealed. This is going to be a real-life voyage of discovery for everyone. We’ve got two trenches open this evening. The first one is being supervised by an old friend of Test Pit Challenge, Alan Cadbury—’
In his earpiece, Alan could hear another studio voice call out ‘Run Astons’. Astons are the name-tags that are shown on the bottom of the screen when a new face appears. So he knew the camera was close-up on him. He tried to look serious and responsible as he trowelled, and in the process neatly sliced a small sherd of pottery in half.
‘Evening, Alan!’
As rehearsed, Alan glanced into the lens of the camera beside the trench and gave a big smile – with just a hint of his trademark frown.
‘Nice to have you back,’ Craig’s voice continued. ‘And in Trench 2 it’s a new friend to this programme, Dr Tricia Neave, who is also our resident expert on Roman finds.’
Alan could imagine Tricia’s smile to the camera and the reaction of all men, old and young, everywhere. But Alan found he was starting to like her. True, she seemed to know nothing about excavation, but she was aware of it. And she did understand artefacts. He’d expected that she’d somehow dumb-down for television, which was something he detested, but to his surprise she didn’t. No, he thought, she was OK.
‘To discuss,’ Craig was still speaking, ‘the team’s discoveries, if there are any …’
This was a transparent attempt to build tension, which Alan didn’t think worked in rehearsal. And he was right. There was a miniscule pause, but no laughter from the audience in the studio. Craig rapidly carried on. ‘The studio panel is chaired by a very familiar face who has come out of retirement to watch the village where he was born and brought up make its first live appearance on television. He needs no introduction …’ By now the audience was applauding warmly. ‘ … Mr Michael Smiley!’
As the applause began to fade, and with the perfect timing born of experience, Michael delivered his familiar catchphrase. ‘Take cover folks, it’s Michael!’
But this time he said it with just the tiniest hint of irony, as if he was laughing ruefully at his past self; it was entirely appropriate to a man out of retirement. Alan was amazed at his professionalism and his powerful on-screen presence. Michael was a Smiley of the mill family and his presence had given a big boost to the show’s ratings. Alan wondered whether his appearance on-screen out of retirement had been entirely voluntary. Maybe the Cripps family had called in a few favours? It was just a thought, which Alan filed away.
The studio panel was a device dreamed up by Lew Weinstein, partly on the advice of their commissioning editor, who wanted to make sure that the show had academic credibility – to fulfil the channel’s public broadcaster remit. Alan had his doubts: it would adversely affect the programme’s flow and besides, didn’t they have a perfectly good artefacts person in Tricia?
He glanced up at the monitor being carried by an AP who was standing behind the fixed camera above the trench. She could see he was looking, and angled the set slightly downwards to give him a better view in the trench.
In his earpiece Michael Smiley was introducing Peter Flower and the two other members of the studio panel. Then Weinstein’s voice cut in. ‘Cue Camera 1. We’re coming back to you, Alan.’
This was Alan’s cue to resume trowelling. While he had been listening to his earpiece and musing about the past, Kaylee, who was trowelling alongside him and had started the broadcast level with him, was now a full metre further down the trench. This was embarrassing. He looked at where she was scraping and noticed that her trowel was just starting to cut into a deposit of blue-grey alluvial flood-clay. He frowned. That was unexpected.
He was still frowning, still trying to work out what the clay might mean, when Craig strode enthusiastically up to the edge of the trench. By now he should have been standing, ready to give the presenter, and viewers at home, a quick résumé of everything that had happened on-site: how they had removed a large area of flood-clay and found an intact Iron Age and Roman occupation surface, etc. etc. Then in the next scene, Tricia would say a few words on the metal finds and pottery. But Alan hadn’t heard Craig’s question. He was still frowning. What on earth did Kaylee’s alluvium mean?
‘Alan, are you there? We’re live on television, you know!’ It was Craig.
Alan was brought to his senses by the sound of studio laughter which Weinstein had cleverly mixed into the broadcast feed. He sprung to his feet.
‘I’m sorry, Craig, but I think we might be about to find something important. But I should first tell you something about what we’ve been doing here so far,’ Alan continued; he knew he had to make amends.
Alan could see that Weinstein was instructing Craig, while he was appearing to listen to Alan. Before Alan could resume, Craig cut in, ‘No, Alan, that can wait. We’re far more interested in what you just found.’
Alan pointed down to where Kaylee was trowelling. Suddenly he realised that the explanation wasn’t going to be simple. He wished they had let him do a brief introduction. Sod it. But he pressed on, frowning intensely. ‘That bluish clay that Kaylee is revealing’ – a second camera appeared on the other side of the trench and focused down on Kaylee’s hands and her bright-purple nail varnish with glitter flashed across millions of British screens – ‘was laid down by a succession of seasonal freshwater floods which began in the later third century AD—’
‘So that’s well into Roman times?’ Craig added to help the viewer, but only succeeded in breaking Alan’s tenuous flow.
‘Er, yes. The mid-Roman period. It was probably due to the introduction of winter wheat …’ Oh, bloody hell, Alan thought as he listened to his own words coming back through the earpiece, I mustn’t be diverted. ‘Which meant that fields stood bare over winter, so topsoil got washed into the rivers—’
‘And ended up here in the fens?’ Again Craig was trying to be helpful, but Alan now had the bit between his teeth.
‘That’s right, as flood-clay. Alluvium we call it in the trade.’
‘So that’s Roman flood-clay is it?’ Craig’s question couldn’t conceal the fact that he was underwhelmed.
‘Probably not. If you look at the trench section here …’ He waited a moment while the camera moved up from Kaylee’s hands to the wall of the trench beside her. ‘You can see that Kaylee’s alluvium is slightly paler than the stuff around it and appears to be cutting down through it.’
‘And what does that mean?’
‘I don’t know. But I’d guess it was early post-Roman. Maybe Dark Age or Saxon.’
Craig couldn’t understand why Alan was getting so excited and was about to say something along the lines of ‘So what?’ when Weinstein’s voice cut in. ‘That’s enough. Just give us the history of the site, Alan.’
It was as close as the ever-diplomatic Lew Weinstein ever got to a put-down.
* * *
Alan pulled the earpiece out and stuffed it in his shirt pocket. He was only too aware that his first live broadcast had not started well. That interview had been farcical. But all his instincts told him that Kaylee’s sticky clay alluvium, which she was still doggedly exposing was important. There was something about the way it dipped down in section and had such a clean, sharp edge in both plan and section. That edge looked for all the world like a clear cut-line. He pulled out his trowel and began to scrape vigorously; he had to catch up with Kaylee.
Happily for the programme, Tricia’s piece in Trench 2 about the Roman finds had gone very well and Weinstein had allowed it to run on for an extra three minutes.
‘Put your earpiece back, Alan. Lew wants a word with you.’
Alan knew that Weinstein had seen people, even very experienced broadcasters, go to pieces on live television, so he was aware that he wasn’t going to reprimand him. At least not now: encouragement would work better.
‘That was great, Alan.’
‘No it wasn’t, Lew. It was crap. And you know it. But I think you’ll find out why shortly. And this time, I promise I won’t screw up.’
Viewers caught a glimpse of Craig hurrying through the now quite heavy rain into the shelter over Trench 1.
‘So that patch of sticky clay has turned out to be something, Alan?’
‘Yes, Craig.’ A short pause. ‘And just as I suspected.’
Most people would have been smiling, but not Alan. This was too serious. Next, and quite unconsciously, he heightened the tension further by wiping sweat from his face with the back of his right hand which he had just grazed on some gravel pebbles during his session of rapid trowelling. He’d done it so many times before, he hadn’t noticed; grazed knuckles are part of a field archaeologist’s life. But the swathe of yellow clay and dark bloodstains right across one side of his face could not have been bettered by Hollywood. ‘Indiana Jones, eat your heart out’ an admiring Weinstein couldn’t help muttering through Alan’s earpiece. Alan had no idea what he was on about.
Craig Larsson stepped closer to the edge of the trench and looked down. ‘Alan. We’re all on the edge of our seats.’
Alan couldn’t help smiling. Craig was a master of the inappropriate metaphor and besides, neither of them had even the slightest desire to sit down.
‘So, come on, tell us: what have you found, Alan?’ This was said with breathless enthusiasm.
Alan paused. This reply would need to be succinct, but the explanation wasn’t particularly straightforward. He frowned, while thumbing some clay from off his trowel blade. Of course, this built tension, but Alan was also giving two cameramen time to crawl along the trench side to get close-ups. And he knew his story would need good pictures.
As they got closer Alan resumed trowelling. ‘Can you hear the sound of the gravel I’m scraping?’
Ever the professional, Grump lowered the long microphone boom. And it worked. People at home could clearly hear the distinctive scrapes, pings and clipping sounds against the now rather persistent background noise of rain.
‘Yes, Alan, I can.’
Craig’s reply wasn’t very clear to Alan on his knees in the trench. But he pressed on. ‘We’re beginning to think that these gravel pebbles are the weathered upper part of a Roman track or roadway of some sort.’
‘Wow, that is exciting!’
But Craig had missed the point. This was just the lead-up. Alan ignored him. He rose to his feet and took a couple of steps towards Kaylee who was now over half way along the trench and still trowelling.
‘Craig, do you remember the clay that Kaylee had just revealed when you were here before?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Well, look at it now!’
The camera tilted down and pulled back to reveal Kaylee and Alan, who had just dropped down beside her. It also caught a glimpse of the two close-up cameramen who didn’t have time to get out of the way. But it didn’t matter. If anything, it was more real. Less managed.
Alan looked directly into the green bottle-glass of the camera lens. Before filming had begun, Frank had told him he could do certain very important replies straight to camera for added effect. Normally on Test Pit Challenge this would have been an absolute no-no. But not now. Not on a live show.
‘See the sharp edges of the clay against the gravelly soil of the possible Roman road?’
The lead close-up camera followed Alan’s trowel as he pointed this out. The third camera had pulled back, to give a more general view.
Craig was obviously admiring the way Alan was handling this. ‘Yes, Alan, that’s very clear.’ This was said quieter, less breathless. More supportive.
‘When you were here last I thought this might turn out to be a man-made pit, and I’m fairly sure it is.’
‘Yes, Alan, I think you’re right. It’s far too straight-sided and regular to be anything natural.’
At that point Weinstein’s voice came through their earpieces. ‘Thirty seconds till we roll the credits.’
‘Look at the width,’ Alan continued, now gathering pace. ‘Just over half a metre wide. We don’t know how long it is yet, but Kaylee’s already almost two metres from here—’
Alan’s words were interrupted by an excited shout from Kaylee.
‘I’ve just got to the end, Alan!’ She was trowelling and pulling the loose earth back with her bare hands.
The third camera did a superb crash close-up. An experienced eye could see the exposed clay edge, but most viewers were happy to accept Kaylee’s excited explanation.
Weinstein’s voice was now starting the end credits countdown in Alan’s earpiece. ‘Ten … nine …’
‘So what’s over half a metre wide, two metres long, with straight sides and sharp, neat corners?’ Alan’s question was rhetorical.
He paused.
Craig was frozen. Tension was building.
Meanwhile the quiet voice in their earpieces continued. ‘Three … two …’
Alan’s final words were to guarantee massive audiences for the next five episodes.
‘It’s a grave!’