Lankar of Callisto

It was impossible not to like Sir Malcolm Jerrolds from the first moment you met him. He was a small, spry wisp of a man, leathery-tanned, with peering, keen eyes and a nervous manner that made him jiggle and fidget around in the most amusing manner. For all his jittery manner and irresistible flow of conversation, he was what I would call a perfect host. By this I mean that, within a few moments, he was treating you as if he had known you for years and felt free to relax and be comfortable with you, and he made you feel the same way about him. He was adorable, and Noel simply loved him from the start. She had always been enthusiastic about ancient history and archaeology, and her alert, sincere interest and intelligent, pointed questions touched a chord within the little capering Britisher. He beamed upon her fondly, for her enthusiasm matched his own lifelong passion to learn the secrets of our ancient ancestors. He danced attendance upon my wife and ransacked his files for curious and interesting objects and fragments, which he displayed tenderly, with touching confidence, as a shy child will show you her beloved dolls.

The work of the expedition was not so much to excavate Arangkor, he told us, as to clear away the rubbish. That is, the ancient Khymer metropolis was not buried under fathoms of earth as Babylon or Pompeii had been, but simply overgrown with jungle. Vines netted the towers carven with leering stone masks, bushes choked doorways or blocked passages, centuries of rotting leaves hid the streets under a carpet of squelching mold. Since arriving here, Sir Malcolm and his native boys had been, in a very real sense, performing the work of street cleaners. He showed us the mountain of leaf mulch piled outside the half-toppled city wall; all of that his boys had removed in wicker baskets.

By this time, however, most of the underbrush and fallen leaves and branches had been cleared away. The work, from this point on in, was that of photographing and measuring and taking notes, making rubbings of temple carvings, and things like that.

“Much―much easier, dear lady, I assure you!than the digging-up of Amgash under a broilin’ Mesopotamy sun―or scratchin’ up tons of dried clay from the rubble of Timnash back in ‘58, with the bloody Arabs and the bloody Israelis bangin’ away at each other right over our bloody heads!” he said perkily.

Noel nodded and said something interestedly, smothering a slight yawn with one hand. Her eyes were sleepy, I noticed, and was about to interrupt Sir Malcolm and suggest we discuss it tomorrow, when the old fellow noticed my wife’s sleepiness himself and curtly bade one of his toothily grinning boys to get our tent ready.

“Talk here all night if I don’t pop th’ two o’ you into your cots show you around tomorrow, dear lady: some sights to be seen here that will astonish Europe when I send my first batch of pictures to the Journal of Asian Antiquity! And when I publish my Preliminary Report, well, dash it, I’ve data there will topple the prevailing theories of Khymer dating into the dungheaps, I assure you! Yes, my dear sir, theories will fall to every side like tree-trunks in monsoon weather! Must ask you to glance over my manuscript in first draft―advice of a genuine professional, very valuable―write too damned fast, that’s my trouble! Ideas all there in good enough order, quite, quite; but gettin’ it down in readable fashion―always been my problem. But, here, the both of you are yawning―off to bed now; up with first dawn, you know. Lots to be seen! We’ll talk more tomorrow … .”

And off he went, bawling out a scurry of native boys, leaving us to our friend with the colorful smile, Charlie Phuong, who would show us where we could wash up, and would then escort us to our beds.

The beds proved to be stiff, narrow cots set side by side in a tiny tent pitched on a side street off the plaza, with a wooden packing crate stood on its end between the cots to serve, obviously, as a night table. I put thereon my change, cigarettes, keys and sunglasses, arranging these in a half-circle around a spluttering oil lamp, by whose wavering, smoky light we undressed sleepily. So much had happened that day we were exhausted, and the voluble Sir Malcolm’s rapid-fire conversation had worn out our vocal cords. We said goodnight and crawled into the sleeping bags.

That night, as might have been expected, I just couldn’t get to sleep. Although I was worn out after the excitement of the day, the clammy chill of the jungle night, combined with the hard cot and the discomforts of a sleeping bag, militated against my attaining that cozy serenity requisite to slipping off to slumberland. Also, I must confess, I was accustomed to the warm, breathing weight of one or another of our dogs sleeping at my feet.

Noel fell asleep without trouble―I could hear her breathing in the chilly darkness of the tent. But I tossed and turned, unable to get comfortable, unable to turn off my mind. After about an hour of this I decided to hell with it; I got up, slipped into my khakis, breeches, and boots and unzipped the tent, thinking to walk around a bit and view the marvels of Arangkor by moonlight while smoking a cigarette or two.