Alan began Day 4 with a couple of phone calls to do with the dig, but he wasn’t in the mood for any more admin. It could wait. He wanted to get outdoors. He glanced down at his phone: 9.17. Time to get going.
Clear, bright springtime mornings in the Fens were one of Alan’s favourite times: shadows are banished; light is everywhere and by early March the birdsong is starting to build. As he closed the back door behind him, Alan was greeted by an angry wren with machine-gun-like alarm calls, while high in a lime tree overhead, a blackbird sang joyously. Alan had always liked birdsong and what the various sounds really meant; that blackbird, he smiled, wasn’t proclaiming the joys of spring, but was telling all other blackbirds to get lost: this is my territory, so keep your distance. Even so, it was an uplifting sound, and as he headed down the path along the gable end of his cottage, he could hear the fierce call of the wren behind him easing off. Then another started close by the front door. Alan reckoned there were at least seven wren territories in his small garden.
It was far too nice a day to drive to the site and Alan was looking forward to the twenty-minute walk. A tractor thundered past, towing a trailer of round bales down to the cattle farm on the Littleport Road. It had been wet lately and they’d be needing the straw, Alan thought, ever the farmer’s son. Behind the tractor was a mud-spattered Land Rover. Alan waited for it to pass, before he crossed the road. But instead it pulled up alongside him, and the front window slid back.
‘D’you want a lift down to the dig, Alan?’
It was Sebastian Cripps. Alan hesitated: he could have used the village shop as an excuse. But he decided not to. He was starting to like Sebastian – and he needed to take his mind off work.
As he climbed aboard, Alan nodded towards the trailer of bales, now fast heading around the corner. ‘They going to the cattle farm on the Littleport Road?’
‘Yes,’ Sebastian replied as they pulled away. ‘It’s wheat straw from our big barn down by the Delph there.’
‘Oh, I know the one – just outside the village, on the Ely Road?’
‘That’s right. Ellis’s have always taken their straw from us. And it’s a good trade right now, what with all the rain. We’re selling quite a lot to farms in the West Country who are crying out for it.’
‘Yes, poor devils,’ Alan replied. Everyone had heard about the recent floods. ‘I’m glad I’m not in their shoes.’
‘It’s difficult. None of us want to profit from their misfortune, but the prices are rising fast. And of course the dealers are loving it.’
‘I’ve heard some farmers hereabouts are actually giving straw away?’
‘Yes,’ Sebastian replied. ‘I’ve agreed to give twenty per cent of our wheat straw to the NFU’s hardship scheme. The first bales have already gone. I only wish we could do more.’
Alan was about to say something, then he stopped. Too much probing made people suspicious and he felt Sebastian was going to talk anyhow.
‘The trouble is,’ Sebastian continued, ‘the estate isn’t as large as it was after the war.’
‘What, death duties and that sort of thing?’
‘Yes, they were crippling after grandfather’s death. He was very hands-on and didn’t want to lose control of anything.’
‘Which was natural, in a way, wasn’t it?’ Alan suggested.
‘Oh yes, but it meant we couldn’t claim anything under the seven-year rule. So we got hit for the full amount. And there were also some big bank debts that had to be repaid. So poor Barty had to sell off two small farms and Smiley’s Mill. That just left him Fursey, which he renamed Abbey Farm, and us at Woolpit Farm.’
He had heard this before, but Alan was happy that Sebastian was now talking so freely.
‘But there’s a limit to what you can do with 400 hundred acres.’
‘Yes, I can imagine,’ Alan slowly replied. ‘My brother Grahame also farms 400 hundred acres, mostly rented or leased, and he finds it hard, especially last year, when wheat prices were down – although not as low as this year.’
‘It’s certainly getting harder to make a medium-sized farm profitable, especially with the house and park to maintain – which is why I do the council work. Between you and me, I don’t like it at all. I’d much, much rather be a farmer full-time. John and Candice love their diversification, which is what Barty called the Abbey Farm Shop when he set it up. And that’s fine’ – he slowed the Land Rover down to pass some early visitors – ‘for them. They both like that sort of thing. But it’s not for me. You know they say that farming’s in your blood, and in my case I think they might be right.’ He drew breath, then carried on, more reflectively. ‘Of all the land the family has sold off since the war, the one I regret most is Isle Farm, over there towards the pumping station.’ Sebastian nodded towards the middle distance to the right of the road.
Alan knew it: an attractive mid-19th-century house, still just Georgian without the later Victorian heaviness.
‘Why’s that? Is it the land?’
Sebastian sighed heavily. ‘Yes, it’s the best land for miles. It’ll grow anything: spuds, salads, even caulis and sprouts. And up towards the yard there’s good, dry pasture. So I could even run a proper, no-messing, mixed farm. And that’s what I call real farming.’
‘So you’re not too keen on all this modern specialisation, then?’
‘Absolutely not. It’s food production, not farming. Some of those blokes never leave the farm office. They’re always staring at their bloody screens. No, I’m never happier than when I’m out on the land. You become part of it, out there in the fen. That’s why I like shooting, although to be quite honest, I don’t enjoy the social side. That’s more Sarah’s country. I won’t say she likes them much, but she can get on with those rich Londoners and they do seem to have bottomless pockets.’ He shook his head. ‘I mean, would you pay nearly a thousand quid for a day’s shooting?’
‘Not when I can go out and shoot pigeons for free.’
‘Oh, I agree, Alan. I’d much rather shoot pigeons than French partridges and those Michigan Bluebacks that Joe was breeding for us last season. More like shooting poultry than pheasants. Still, the Londoners seem to like them.’
Alan was tempted to ask directly if there was any news about Joe Thorey, but he didn’t want to arouse Sebastian’s suspicions. Instead he spotted an opportunity to see how Sebastian would react to something that was also much on his mind. ‘I would imagine Joe Thorey’s down-to-earth attitude isn’t much to their liking, is it?’
It was as if Alan had jabbed him with a pin.
‘That man …’ He gave Alan an intense glance, before looking back at the road. ‘Sarah thinks he can do no wrong. She says the “clients” – as she insists on calling the guns on the shoot – love Thorey. They think he’s such a character.’
‘And do you?’
‘To be quite frank, Alan, I can’t stand the man. Still, we need him because the shoot’s what’s keeping the estate afloat right now. And Sarah’s doing an amazing job. So I bite my tongue.’
He’d said what Alan needed to know. Time to end it. ‘As a matter of interest, do the guns take many birds back with them to London?’
‘They wouldn’t do that, Alan. I doubt if they’d know which end to start plucking.’
‘You’re right: they’re not pheasant pluckers!’
An ancient joke and hardly hilarious, but it made them both smile.
They were approaching the dig. There were people everywhere. Alan glanced across at Sebastian: he was looking at the visitors much in the way he’d be checking the ear-tags of his cattle as they filed into the yard. Alan paused for a moment before he got out. He’d phone Lane just as soon as he could.
* * *
Alan and Frank had another minor row during the day. Frank wanted him to do a scene with Tricia where she dressed him in replica Roman armour: ‘It would lighten the mood.’ Alan refused, point-blank. He detested re-enacting and hated coming across people dressed as monks in old monasteries, or as kitchen maids in country house kitchens. They always looked like what they were: 21st century office workers looking for something to liven up a boring weekend. He also knew his attitude was unfair and unreasonable – which of course made him even worse.
The Roman armour spat took the best part of an hour to resolve, and by that time Weinstein in London had been involved. And all the while, Alan was desperate to get back to the trenches. That alluvium in the three graves was just starting to dry out, and if they left it for very much longer, it would set like bricks.
Then at eleven, Clare Hughes arrived to discuss extending Trench 1 to reveal the three graves in their entirety. Normally this would have been a routine matter, and dealt with over the phone, but Clare, like everyone else, had been caught up by the ‘live’ and wanted to see things at Fursey for herself. And Alan was certainly not going to upset her, of all people. So that took another hour.
As soon as Clare had given the OK, Jake had gone across from Trench 2 to help Kaylee and Jon dig the extensions by hand. Shifting a thick layer of alluvium was very heavy work, but they couldn’t use a mini-digger because of all the cables, the lighting stands and the rain shelter. By noon, when a rather weary Alan stepped into Trench 1, they’d already made good progress, so he and Kaylee began the smaller extension over Grave 2.
At lunchtime, a mud-spattered Land Rover, its front doors discreetly marked with the university arms and the label: Sub-Department of Quaternary Geology, arrived in the site car park. Hell, Alan thought, bang goes lunch. He’d almost forgotten, but first thing that morning he’d arranged for Dr Alan Scott to take micromorph samples from the deposits directly over Grave 2. Alan himself was a great fan of soil micromorphology. Essentially it’s a technique that examines soils in very thin sections through high-power microscopes. A good soil micromorphologist – and Alan Scott was probably the best – could reveal all sorts of information in a soil’s developmental history: when trees covering it had been cut down, when grassland became established, and, of course, when ploughing began. Alan reckoned a few carefully positioned in situ samples might throw light on when the grave had been dug, relative, that is, to the start of the later Roman alluvial episodes. In other words, he wasn’t expecting the equivalent of a radiocarbon date, but it could provide them with other essential information.
Dr Scott was a busy man, and he had agreed to fit Alan’s samples in between those of a much larger project he was doing for the ministry. An hour later, as people were returning from their lunch break, the two Alans were standing by the Cambridge Land Rover. Scott held a canvas bag with two full sample tins. He climbed into the driving seat and leant out of the window.
‘I’ll get straight down to these, Alan. Get them consolidated and ground down over the weekend. I might even be able to get back to you with some preliminary thoughts on Monday. But I’m not promising …’
Alan couldn’t believe his ears. That was so fast.
‘And make sure we get a mention!’
The power of television.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll see you’re given a knighthood!’
And with that, Alan roared away.
* * *
Kaylee had seen that Alan had missed his lunch, and had ordered two extra rounds of sandwiches for him. Alan thanked her profusely and fell on them as they walked across the car park back to the trench shelter. By two o’clock Jake and Jon had exposed all of Grave 1 and had started clearing Grave 3. After a further 15 minutes Alan and Kaylee had finished Grave 2 and then they all worked together on Grave 3, taking it in turns to do the heavy mattock-swinging. By three o’clock they had finished the job and were drinking mugs of tea. They’d shifted a lot of earth, and even though it was only early March they were all sweating, but their spirits were up: the graves looked very impressive indeed. A rather subdued Frank was standing behind, supposedly directing Speed, who was filming the graves from above. These clips would be used as cut-aways during the evening’s ‘live’.
When they’d finished their tea, Jake returned to Trench 2, leaving Alan, Jon and Kaylee to start removing the much thinner, capping layer of alluvium from each of the graves. They soon found that the stiff clay came away quite cleanly from the grave filling below, largely, Alan realised, because it hadn’t stuck to the gritty, gravelly material they had been cut into and filled with.
About five minutes before they began the final run-throughs, the sound recordist Grump Edwards came into the shelter carrying a monitor screen, which he put on one of the lights’ carrying cases, which sat just back from the trench edge. He showed Alan how to work it, then hurried off. Shortly before the dressing-up incident, earlier in the day, Alan had asked Frank for monitors to be set up in both trenches, because on Days 2 and 3 he’d found it very difficult to follow what had been going on in Trench 2 and the studio panel.
* * *
Craig began his opening PTC kneeling at the edge of Trench 1. ‘Welcome to Day 4 of Test Pit Challenge live at Fursey. Today Alan Cadbury and the team enlarged Trench 1 to reveal the full extent of the graves. Here they are earlier in the day. You can see the outline of the graves quite clearly because of the paler flood-clay that fills them.’
Speed’s footage was screened and the outline of the graves was highlighted by graphics, for the benefit, Alan thought, of the near-blind and partially-sighted.
As he waited for Craig to join him, Alan was air-trowelling a bit of the grave he had cleared of alluvium three hours previously.
‘So how’s it been going today, Alan?’
‘It’s been hard work, Craig,’ Alan replied, wiping his brow. ‘But well worth the effort.’
He then took viewers on a rapid tour of the trench. Thanks to the new monitor, he knew they’d already screened Speed’s earlier footage. He finished with, ‘So we removed the flood-clay an hour or so ago – it was only three inches deep – and we’re all now trowelling down through the upper filling of each grave.’
Craig’s next question was only to be expected. ‘So do you expect to find bodies?’
This was a bit blatant. Why does TV always have to be so explicit and unsubtle? Surely sometimes some things are best left to the imagination, unsaid? Alan could barely contain his exasperation: why did Craig always have to be so ridiculously sensationalist? What else do you expect to find in a bloody grave? Woodpeckers? Mince pies? Tea cups?
He took a deep breath before replying. ‘Bones, d’you mean?’
‘Yes, all right, bones.’
Craig gave him a secret look off-camera, which said: fuck off, please don’t come the smart-arse with me; I’m only doing my job. Alan felt bad and tried to make amends.
‘That depends on their depth. If the graves are deep, the lower filling may well prove to be waterlogged, in which case you may be right: some of the soft parts, even pieces of clothing, may be preserved.’
Craig smiled. Alan knew he had redeemed himself.
* * *
Before Alan rejoined the team in Trench 1 to resume trowelling down through the filling of Grave 3, he turned the monitor’s sound up. For five minutes they all worked busily and Alan even had the time to fill and empty a bucket into the black barrow, which he’d moved back to the edge of the trench when the film crew had left. Nearer the centre of the trench, John wheeled their full barrow out of the shelter towards the spoil heap, where Reg and the other local metal detectorists would give it a good going-over. Then the monitor switched from the studio panel to Jake in Trench 2.
Alan looked up and smiled. On Day 1 Craig had conducted most of the interview with Tricia, as the trench supervisor, Jake, seemed far too nervous. But not now. He was still quiet, even reserved, but he was far more confident. Earlier in the day, the Trench 2 team had recovered several fragments of bronze from the old land surface around what was clearly now an emerging timber-built wall. They’d left a baulk untrowelled at right-angles to the wall, to preserve the succession of soil layers that were beginning to emerge. Normally such baulks are quite narrow – say a foot, or so, but some instinct made Alan decide on a wider one, which he knew they would need in order to maintain stability should the wall prove to have deep footings.
Jake explained to Tricia (who knew perfectly well already) where they’d found the various fragments of bronze. Then he made an excuse and resumed digging. This worked well and added to the sense of urgency.
Tricia acted as if she’d never seen the finds before and was very excited. Almost too excited, Alan thought. Alan could see from the look on Craig’s face when the camera cut-away to him for listening – so-called ‘noddy’ – shots, that he was feeling the same. But somehow her enthusiasm about the finds won through. And they were most remarkable: more examples of lorica segmentata, Roman leather armour fittings, and for the first time some rather undistinguished-looking loops and strap-ends, which Tricia confidently identified as coming from military horse harnesses.
At this point Tricia produced one of the very new iPad tablets, which had only just been released in Britain. She’d been given it by her brother in the States and she was very pleased with it. Her fingers flashed across the face of the screen, rather like a magician at a children’s party, Alan thought as he watched her, fascinated. Then she showed the screen to the camera to reveal a clear drawing of a Roman cavalry soldier on his horse. She spread her fingers on the screen, which miraculously enlarged the horse’s head, to show slightly pixelated close-ups of the various harness fittings they’d found.
Meanwhile Jake had been cleaning back to the sharp edge of the baulk. He was working quite rapidly as he was keen to start going down to the next level. Suddenly he stopped. His trowel had just exposed a spread of green-coloured silty soil. He leant forward and started to probe very, very gently.
Jake hadn’t said anything, but the sudden change in the way he was working caught Craig’s attention. He broke in to Tricia’s explanation of three-linked horse bits.
‘Hold it, Tricia, I think Jake might have found something.’
The camera zoomed-in to see Jake’s hands and the green silt. By now he had produced the small plastic ice cream spatula that he always kept in the change pocket of his jeans. He was carefully scraping.
‘Yes, Craig,’ he said, his voice had a strange booming quality as his words resounded off the ground just below him. ‘It’s definitely copper alloy and I’d guess it’s about three or four millimetres thick. In remarkably good condition …’ His voice trailed-off. He was concentrating.
By now Harry, the lighting engineer, or gaffer, had produced a small floodlight which he pointed down at Jake.
‘Alan?’ It was Weinstein’s voice in Alan’s earpiece. ‘We may have to stay here. Could you drop everything and come through to Trench 2?’
When Alan arrived, he could see Jake had revealed a slightly curved oval or triangular piece of bronze about 5 or 6 inches long. He’d seen something like it before. He frowned, trying to remember. In a museum case somewhere. But locally or in London? He couldn’t recall where. Then Tricia looked up at him. She mimed something with both hands on either side of her face. For a moment Alan was perplexed. Then suddenly he got it. He looked back at her, open-mouthed. She smiled. Gently he shook his head in amazement and looked down into the trench again, more closely this time. And yes, she was right.
* * *
Alan joined Jake in the trench. By now Jake had cleared all round it. The piece of metal was in remarkably good condition, largely, Alan suspected, because it had lain sealed beneath the clay, which had maintained it within a uniform environment – not too wet and not too dry – and without too much oxygen, either. Most of the surface was remarkably uncorroded, probably, Alan thought, because of a thin coating of a paler metal, possibly tin, but where the bronze had been exposed it had acquired a greenish tinge.
‘Alan,’ Craig’s voice broke in to his thoughts. ‘Can you tell us what Jake has discovered down there?’
This was not what Alan wanted or needed. He didn’t have time for explanations right now.
His reply was not what Craig or the viewers at home expected, either. He pulled out his comms. ‘Alan for Hen Clancy, finds supervisor. Come in, please.’
Her voice crackled back through the handset. ‘Hi, Alan, Hen here.’
‘We’ve got a piece of bronze about twenty centimetres long which may need rapid lifting. We’ll need your emergency kit, ASAP, if that’s OK’
‘Will do, Alan. See you shortly.’
Next Alan turned to Jake. ‘What about the surface oxidation? D’you think it’s getting worse?’
Jake straightened his back to get a more distant view of the object. Then slowly he nodded. ‘Hard to say for sure, but I’d be nervous about re-wetting it and it’s certainly starting to dry. Some of that greenish colour around the sides might be getting worse, too …’ He trailed off, leaning forward to resume clearing soil away from the last part of the edge.
Alan was also now leaning forward. Very gently he scraped a small patch of silt from near the apex of the most rounded side. As he suspected, the bronze sheet here had been reinforced with a stout iron rib beneath.
‘There’s iron beneath it,’ Alan said quietly to Jake, but Grump had raised the mike levels and his words came across clearly to millions of viewers at home, now glued to their screens. This beat any of the orchestrated ‘spontaneity’ of the rubbish reality shows.
‘Oh shit!’ Jake muttered, he’d completely forgotten they were live on national television. ‘Bi-metallic corrosion. That’s all we bloody need.’
As if on rails, Hen slipped silently into the shelter carrying a substantial box, which she carefully placed on the edge of the trench.
Making no apology for not answering his first question, Alan looked over to Craig, who was now kneeling on the trenchside. Two cameras followed his movements.
‘Sorry to keep everyone in suspense, Craig, but I think we’ve found a helmet cheek-piece.’
‘What Roman?’
‘Oh yes, Roman all right. It’s made of sheet bronze, probably given a thin coating of tin. But what’s important is that it has an iron reinforcing rod on the inside.’
‘Yes?’
Alan didn’t want to give away too much, too quickly. ‘Well that means it was almost certainly intended to be used.’
‘You mean in combat?’
Alan nodded. ‘That’s right. But Tricia will know more. I just dig these things up.’
Thanks to her tipping Alan off, Tricia had given herself time to go online and research Roman military helmets. Now she was standing by Craig’s side.
‘Alan’s dead right. It’s the left cheek-piece of a Roman cavalryman’s combat helmet. But what’s extraordinary is that there’s one that’s almost identical in the British Museum. It’s got large bosses, just like this one—’
Alan broke in. ‘And where did that come from?’
As she was speaking it had come to him. He could have answered his own question, but it was time to repay Trish for her tip-off earlier.
‘That’s the extraordinary bit …’ She paused and was about to continue speaking, then rapidly changed her mind.
Alan thought he heard Weinstein in London whisper, ‘Oh, this is bliss!’ under his breath.
She pulled out her iPad, which she showed to Craig, but being a professional she actually angled it towards the camera alongside him. Very gently she spread her fingers. The image grew larger. Craig was leaning forward to see the screen.
‘Cavalry combat helmet,’ he slowly read aloud. ‘First century AD, from Witcham Gravel, Ely, Cambridgeshire.’
There was a long pause, while the camera homed-in on the screen. Tricia winced at the effort of holding the iPad dead still for the close-up. Alan sympathised. Across the back of the camera their eyes met. He smiled encouragement. She was doing a fabulous job; they made a great team.
For the last minute and a half, Hen had carefully covered the helmet with cling film, then gently started to apply the plaster of Paris bandages, which would provide the rigid framework they would need when they attempted to lift it the next day.
It was all too much for Jake, still kneeling in the trench. He was looking on, wide-eyed. ‘That’s fucking amazing …’ he muttered under his breath.
But the highly sensitive mike had caught every breathy syllable.
As the end-credits rolled, a delighted Weinstein told Alan through his earpiece that Jake’s naughty words had echoed what viewers were thinking everywhere. Alan was delighted, too. It was a great find, but now he would have to rethink the entire site, which had suddenly become hugely complex. The earlier settlement had somehow morphed into a major military installation, complete with helmet-wearing cavalrymen. For a moment, Alan imagined John and Sebastian Cripps charging at each other like jousting medieval knights. No, nothing was ever what it seemed, when you really started to dig.