Nasty, hot Sahara,
Egypt (or thereabouts).
Dearest Evy,
If I were you I should be very grateful you aren’t here. It is dreadfully warm, hotter than I’ve ever remembered it being at this time of the year. It is quite unbearable at times, Father’s in a most awful temper because of the heat; he’s been unusually snappy. The only things enjoying themselves are the camels. Ruddy animals! Have I ever told you, my dear, how much I hate camels? Surely I have. I swear mine was laughing at me this morning, I was trying to get the damn thing to move and I tell you he was laughing or grinning at the very least. I promise you, if we run out of food, he’s the first in the pot.
Thankfully we only have a day after this; it’s night-time now so it’s much, much cooler. I hope you are alright, don’t study too hard. I think this is the first trip that I’ve really missed home, not Cairo but dear old England. I think it’s because neither Mother nor you are here, it just isn’t the same.
Father is eager to get to the site and begin excavating; somehow I can’t see him retiring, even partly, despite what he said on the journey across. He’s still far too enthusiastic about what he does to give it up. I’m almost sure it’s because Mother isn’t here, as I said in a previous letter it’s the first time he’s been on an expedition alone since I was born, it must be strange for him. I’m positive that once Mother is well again we will hear no more about retirement.
This will have to be a very short letter, more of a note. Should I draw pretty pictures on it and pretend it’s a postcard?
More soon,
Jonathan x.
March 1920 Expedition
Civilisation (or some hotel in Cairo),
Egypt.
Dear Evy,
Another expedition is now at an end and a most successful one. Sorry I didn’t write during the actual excavating, it was rather hectic and very tiring, there just wasn’t time. Father is very pleased with this expedition. We have some very nice finds, I think you will find them very interesting. The fascinating finds aside the expedition wasn’t the most comfortable of ones. As I said in my other letter it was very hot with was most unpleasant, especially when one is halfway down a very sandy hole. We were also sweating (sorry, perspiring, we are, after all, gentlemen, or profess to be at least) because of the heat so the sand was sticking to us. I think if we were to meet some strangers after several hours in a sandy pit they would think that an odd breed of sand monster populated the Sahara.
And of course being in the desert meant that once it was night-time it became very cold so it was like being in an oven in the day and a igloo at night. A most unpleasant time I think and I was heartily fed up at the end of it. You don’t suppose that at 23 I am becoming – gasp – too old for such journeys. Surely I have years left. I don’t know about Father retiring but if we’re have any more digs like this I certainly will. I’ll go live on an island somewhere with lots of lovely girls.
We had some laughs though, or rather the others had the laughs as yours truly just provided them. I seem to have developed a knack for physical comedy, quite unintentionally, and I spent most of the time making an absolute twit of myself. I don’t think there was anything left on the site that I hadn’t fallen over, off or down. There are parts of my body that are still aching. I managed to fall down a hole, although it wasn’t my fault – some silly arse covered a hole that was no longer in use but never put any sort of warning. So of course I walked over the cover and naturally down the hole I went, much to the amusement of the people who saw it, Father was rather concerned, that was after he’d finished howling with laughter. I won’t repeat what I said though Father was quite shocked by the extent of my knowledge of coarse slang. He wanted to know where I’d learnt to swear like a navvy, he obviously never heard his own dear father when he got going. I’m proud to say that I taught him some new words that day, which I’m certainly not going to tell you as you are a lady, though using physical violence on your own dear brother is very unladylike.
I saw someone when we arrived back in Cairo that I haven’t seen for a long time, though you have never met him and neither have Mother and Father. We had been back at the hotel for a few hours when this man approached us. He was about ten years older than me and obviously recognised one of us. He seemed vaguely familiar so I thought it was someone who had worked with Father but no he came over to me. He knew my name and introduced himself as Alfred Evans and the name did ring a bell though I couldn’t place it. Well! You could have knocked me over with a feather when he told me we had been in the army together! After all it would have been 1915 and I was only in the trenches for a few months before that bullet ended my rather brief military career so I was surprised that he remembered me. Once we got talking I did remember him, he was a Private (which with me being a Lieutenant would explain why I didn’t really remember him, if I remember correctly there was a split between the officers and common soldiery). My memories of him are rather pain-filled though, unfortunately, he was the one I was stood next to when that beastly German shot me in the chest. I vaguely remember dragging him to the ground with when I fell. No wonder he remembers me, apparently I did a lot of whimpering and threatened anyone who came within prodding distance of the wound (well, wouldn’t you? The bloody thing hurt enough without them poking at it.) Most of this, by the way, I don’t remember, there is very little I do remember of that day. Alfred filled me in though, he said they kept getting conflicting reports from the hospital, according to him they couldn’t decide whether I was dead or alive for the first several days. It was then nothing until one of them plucked up the courage to ask the commanding officer (who was a nasty little man) how I was and they were told that I’d been sent home to England. I told Alfred that this was wrong, as I was nearly four months in a French hospital before I was even remotely strong enough to go home. Anyway we sat and chatted for a while, he said he was invalided out a few months before the end of the war. He was told not long after the war had ended that his old regiment (and therefore mine) were all killed when they went ‘over the top’, just five days before Armistice. Such sad news. He told me he was a sergeant by the time he left the army.
We shall be home by the 23rd, we are coming straight home rather than stopping in Spain like we were going to do. See you then,
Jonathan x.