I was standing fairly high at this point and had a good view over the whole dune area. It was all of it red in colour, but two shades of red, as though formed by two different types of sand, and the dune formation was uneven-steeply humped in the ravines, but thin on the slopes with the underlying rock exposed in places. And then, as I turned to view the whole area, ^vhich looked as though it covered about four, possibly six square miles, I saw that there was another spill of stones several hundred yards away, and I thought I could see yet another beyond that. These spills were not so pronounced, the "well-heads" standing less proud of the surrounding sand, but what struck me immediately was that they were more or less in a straight line running in a south-westerly direction.
I understood what they were then. These were the remains of vertic al shafts connecting Avith the line of the aqueduct tunnel deep in the hill below me. They were either ventilation shafts, or else the Romans had used them for hauling out the rock cut from the tunnel, and where the rock ceased and they were into the red sand, they had had to line the shafts as well-diggers have to line a well in soft ground. A geologist could probably have gauged from the amount of stone debris exposed just how much erosion had occurred in the two thousand years since those shafts had been built. My guess was that it was 20 feet, and if the rate of erosion had been constant for the whole twenty thousand years since the last Ice Age, then that would give an original depth of 200 feet for the sand overlay. This more or less confirmed the depths Sonia had given me, since obviously the rate of erosion over such a long period would not have been constant.
I have gone into this in some detail, because the sense of being in a world lost to everything but geological time was very strong, and it affected my mood. It is true that I had seen goat, possibly sheep droppings in the dune bottoms, but this evidence that animals crossed the area in search of the next grazing land did not detract in any way from the feeling that this was a world apart; rather the reverse, in fact, for it made me conscious of the struggle life must have been when all of Greece had looked like this red throwback to a long dead age. And there were the flakes of chert. At least, I presumed they were chert-between brown and ochre in colour, quite small and sharply edged, so that I was certain they had been chipped from larger stones. I had seen them everywhere, lying on the surface as Sonia had said. One, which I had put in my pocket, looked like an arrow-head.
I think I must have stood there for quite a time, my mind lost in the past, my eyes searching and searching the whole hot expanse of shimmering sand. There was a small wind blowing from the north and it gradually chilled the sweat on my body. Search as I might, I could see no sign of life. There were no birds, no cicadas even, the whole area so utterly still and lifeless it mig^ht indeed have been the moon. And when I called out in the hope of an answer, my shouts seemed deadened by the dunes, the sand acting like a damper.
It was almost two and I stopped to eat on the top of a dune where the breeze touched my damp skin. Below me the sands pulsed with the heat, and on a ridge away to my left the third of those strange shafts spilled stones into a hollow. It had the shape of an old worn-down molar, and near the crown of it a shadow cast by the sun showed black like an unstopped cavity. It was a possibility-about the only one left in this desolate stretch of country. But by then I had opened up the rucksack. Sonia had made up a package for me of bread and cheese and tinned ham. I put on my sweater and began to eat. I was facing south-west at the time, my back to the breeze and the way I had come. I don't know what made me turn-some instinct, some sixth sense. The second of those stone shafts stood like a cairn, sharp against the blue sky, and beyond it, a long way
away, the purpling shape of a distant range stood humped on the horizon. And then my gaze fell to the red sand valley below and I saw something move, a shambling figure wandering with head bent intent upon the ground.
The sight of him so shocked me that for a moment I did not move. I just sat there unable to believe what my eyes recorded, for he looked so frail, so insubstantial. Partly it was the khaki shirt and trousers. They seemed to have taken on the colour of the dunes so that they merged into the sand. But the long white hair, the way he walked, head bent, searching the ground. . those nights in Amsterdam so long ago came back to me and the certainty that it was him was overwhelming.
I got to my feet, tried to call out to him, but though I opened my mouth no sound came and I was trembling. He was moving slowly nearer all the time, coming up the floor of the valley, and he looked small, a ghost of a figure in the red immensity of that dune landscape, walking with slow uncertain steps, searching, but not stopping, not picking anything up.
I started down the dune slope then, loose sand under my feet, and even when I reached the hard-packed sand of the valley floor, he still did not hear me. It wasn't until I was within a few yards of him that he stopped suddenly, his head lifted, his body quite still, alerted to the fact that he was not alone. I had stopped, too, waiting for him to turn. And when he did so, slowly, there was no recognition in his eyes, only a secret, hunted look.
"Who are you?" he asked, the words coming falteringly as though speech were strange to him. "What do you want?"
I didn't answer. I couldn't-I was too appalled. I had expected him to look older, of course, and those two photographs should have warned me, the observations Gilmore had made. But I was not prepared for such fragility. He seemed smaller, a shadow of his former self, withered and stooped, and so thin he looked half starved, the khaki trousers hanging loose, the rib cage staring through the torn shirt. But it was his
face that really shocked me, the hunted, burning look in his eyes.
It had always been a remarkable face, the leathery features like a piece of deep-chiselled, fine-carved wood. Now there was the grey stubble of a beard, and beneath the stubble the lines had deepened. The flesh seemed to have fallen away, exposing the bone formation of the skull, accentuating the jut of the jaw and the beetling brows. It was a haggard, tortured face, and the eyes, which had always been deep-sunk, seemed to have retreated deeper into their sockets.
They were staring at me now, seeing me only as a stranger who had invaded his secret world. I said my name, and for a moment it didn't seem to register. And then suddenly there was recognition and his eyes blazed. "Who sent you?" There was hostility, no sign of affection-I might have been an enemy out to destroy him. "What are you doing here?" The words came in a whisper and he was trembling. "I was worried about you," I said.
A rasping sound came from his throat, a jeering laugh of disbelief. "After eight years?" And then, leaning forward, he repeated his first question-"Who sent you?"
"Nobody sent me. I came of my own accord."
"But you knew where to look."
"Sonia thought I might find you here."
"Sonia Winters?" His face softened, the eyes becoming less hostile.
"She's at Despotiko," I said.
"And you came-to look for me?"
I nodded, wondering how to break through to the man I had once known.
He was silent for a long time. Finally he seemed to gather himself together. "That was good of you." He said it slowly as though making an effort, and then suddenly there were tears in his eyes and I stood there, staring at him stupidly, uncertain what to do or what to say. He'd been here-how long? A fortnight, nearly three weeks. The red dunes all around