The novel Small Finds by Philip Colbourn, 2022
Chapter Four
Sunday afternoon was the pre-dig presentation for the local community. They all gathered in the Village Hall and after a welcome from the vicar, Broderick Arnot kicked off proceedings with some slides of last year’s dig,
Last year, it had been a small affair. They had done two weeks with a handful of students from the local college and if the pictures on the screen were anything to go by, it had been an idyllic English summer, sunshine, blue skies: golden days.
“People lived here,” Broderick said showing another photograph of the site. “It’s a field now but we’re looking for traces those people left behind.”
The dig was all about education and training. He hoped they would make new discoveries but it was also about having fun.
Broderick sat down and Sue Feenan stood up.
“Ambrose, Augustine and Jerome. I hope you have heard of them,” she said.
Ambrose was a bishop. He had faced down the emperor and, once the emperor Theodosius had done penance in the cathedral in Milan in AD 391, the church held sway over the state for a thousand years. Augustine was Ambrose’s protégé and the mediaeval world was largely the world according to Augustine. Jerome had translated the Bible into decent Latin.
All around the Mediterranean, the Late Antique was in full swing. But here in Britain, Sue said, we dump ourselves into the Dark Ages, consigning ourselves to life beyond the fringe.
“Will we never learn?” said Sue Feenan, ancient historian.
Alan Clearwater followed. He showed pictures of the things they found in 2009 and talked about dates. He suggested that AD 408 was the latest date they could infer with any confidence. By AD 430, in all probability, people had gone from the villa in Water Lane leaving the site abandoned.
After the presentations, the archaeologists took questions.
“Do you think the current influx of migrants from Eastern Europe represents the start of a new Dark Age?” the Rector of Ancester asked.
“Evening, Dr Arnot,” Click White said.
Click and Nobby work for the local newspaper, the Ancester Echo, and they hunt as a team. They worked the room. They didn’t miss much.
Broderick Arnot wasn’t a doctor he was plain mister but he let it go. He was tired of correcting people. Click White was the photographer and Nobby Wright was the hack. Nobby Wright came and stood next to Broderick’s chair.
“You will let us know what you find, I hope?” Nobby asked, pencil poised.
Robin’s wife, Elsie Gadnall, arrived carrying a tray of mugs.
“Coffee, anyone?”
Rescued.
On Wednesday morning the team clustered round the table in the larger of the two rooms in HQ on the old chairs with metal runners which screeched horribly against the floor when they moved. The canvas seats were beginning to fray. The chairs, veterans of many digs, had been delivered to Water Lane, along with all the other kit, by Eggie Robson the previous week.
While Broderick Arnot was here at the dig, Eggie Robson was pushing ahead with their research. They were attempting to improve the thermo-luminescence technique of dating ceramics. The principle of the technique was simple.
Ceramics gather energy from the environment over time. Initially, firing the ceramic in a kiln sets the energy to zero. When you reheat the ceramic to the right temperature, all the energy accumulated since the pottery was fired is released and the energy released is proportional to the length of time since the pot was fired. It was simple, in principle.
The problem was that it was not a precise method. The uncertainty could be as much as plus or minus a hundred years. It was a tough one.
Sue Feenan was talking about the daily schedules. She had lists for all the jobs that kept the camp running. All the students took a turn. When Sue was done, Alan wanted to talk about geophysics and he spread his printout across the table for everyone to see.
The outlines of buildings showed up as dark lines where walls and foundations lay hidden in the soil. The printout was a good match for Alan’s set of aerial photographs where drought marks and shadows showed similar traces.
The main structure in the trench – the so-called ‘House A’ - seemed to be divided into four rooms and one of the teams of students had been given the job of scraping down to floor level in one of the ‘rooms’ to establish a sequence.
Another team had a line of dots and patches to investigate along the northern edge of the trench. They were probably postholes; perhaps an outbuilding.
Rachel’s team had the well.
Wells could be a rich source of artefacts. When a well fell out of use, it was often filled with domestic rubbish. This well contained some spectacular rubbish if what they had seen last year was in anything to go by.
Even Sue Feenan had been impressed and she was an historian.
Broderick looked round the table at his team: Sue Feenan, Alan Clearwater, Rachel Feist and Robin Gadnall. He could not do without any one of them. Sue kept him in order. Alan led the archaeology. Rachel was Rachel. Robin lived in the village and knew everyone.
Both Rachel and Alan had been his postgraduate students at Durham.
There was a knock at the door and Alan stopped mid-sentence.
Broderick yelled: “Come in!”
The door opened to reveal one of the students. It was Joshua Williams.
“Yes, Joshua.”
“Mariam says: Can you come. Please.”
That was not like Mariam. She knew they were in a meeting.
“Tell her I’ll be with her right away,” Broderick said. “We’re nearly done.”
Outside, Broderick took a moment to look around. It was a glorious day. The world seemed to be on hold: the blue sky went on forever and a soft breeze was blowing across the field as if from Arcadia. A blackbird, singing at some distance, haunted the stillness with its liquid song.
The students had gone for coffee and the trench was empty apart from a handful of archaeologists speckled across the expanses of bare earth. Joshua Williams was there with Mariam. Joe Fitchitt came up from another part of the trench.
“What is it?” Joe asked.
“A coin,” Mariam said.
Broderick first checked with Mariam that she had recorded the location and she showed him the sketch she’d made and pointed to a rim of metal protruding from the ground. As they were talking, Joe Fitchitt pushed Mariam roughly to one side and jabbed down into the soil with his trowel and the coin flashed bright in the sun as it arced up into the air.
Joe caught it deftly in his free hand and started jumping up and down on the wooden duck-boards, yelling and singing.
“I’ve got it! I’ve got it! It’s mine. It’s mine!”
Mariam was furious.
“Joe! You pig! Give it back!”
Joe gave the coin to Mariam with a low bow.
“Sorry!” he said. But he was smiling.
Mariam, still furious, gave the coin to Broderick.
It was the size of one of those chocolate coins you hang on the tree at Christmas but heavier and cold to the touch.
“You’d better take it to Finds,” Mariam said.
“I will,” Broderick said and, turning to Joe, he said: “You'd better do the levels. Joshua can help you.”
He would have words with Mr Fitchitt later.
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Chapter 5
The marquee was crowded and the hubbub was sudden and intense. Sue Feenan had to raise her voice to cut through the noise.
“You have two minutes and then get back to work!”
Broderick poured himself a mug of coffee, picked up the last biscuit from the debris of crumbs on a plate and went to find Alan and Rachel. He found them outside, sitting at one of the picnic tables in the sun.
There was something wrong with Mariam’s coin. If it was what he thought it was, it was about a hundred years out of sequence because it dated from the end of the third century and they were excavating a villa from the end of the fourth, as far as he understood it. Part of the problem was that it was not a coin at all.
They went back to HQ to examine it.
Alan agreed with him. It was a campaign medallion minted at Trier in AD 296.
Broderick put it in the safe, shut the safe, locked it and sat back in one of the chairs, closed his eyes and tried to think. When he opened his eyes, he found them both looking at him.
Alan opened his mouth as if to say something; thought better of it. Rachel shifted uneasily in her chair and said: “It could be residual, I guess.”
“One hell of a stretch.”
“But not impossible.”
No. Not impossible.
Constantius Chlorus was the father of Constantine the Great. He was a junior emperor under Diocletian. There were four emperors at the time: two junior emperors, the Caesars, and two senior emperors who took the title Augustus. They divided the Empire east and west and then again so each of them had a quarter to look after.
In AD 295, Constantius had been sent to Britain to put down a rebellion.
Carausius had rebelled ten years earlier but his co-conspirator Allectus had assassinated him and it was time for the Empire to strike back.
The Constantius campaign medallion went under various names. It was sometimes called the Arras medallion because one had been found at Arras soon after the First World War. That one was, as far as Broderick knew, in Paris and it was the only one in existence. Until now.
“We don’t know the whole story,” Rachel said.
“We don’t know anything,” said Alan.
There was a terrible racket outside and it took Broderick a moment to realise that it was someone banging on a pot to indicate that it was time for lunch.
Perhaps food would help.
On Thursday morning, Broderick Arnot crawled out of his tent and pushed himself to his feet. Thursday 8th July 2010 had dawned bright and breezy. As he stretched, the door of one of the toilets near the car park banged shut with a noise like a shot from a gun.
He turned to watch a girl walk to the standpipe at the edge of the field. She bent to wash her hands under a cascade of water and then turned off the tap and stood, pushing dark hair behind her ears. She saw him and gave him a short wave and he raised a hand in response.
It was Daniella Forrester.
Breakfast was a noisy affair, the gabble of the students not unlike that of geese. Although the day was cooler, the walls of the marquee were open and canvas slapped and slacked in the breeze. The tent was full. Most of the students had finished breakfast and were anticipating the day ahead in a buzz of conversation.
Broderick banged on the table and waited for quiet.
He waved the document in the air.
“How many of you have read this?”
No one moved but, two tables back, he saw Joshua stir. He acknowledged him with a nod. Joshua had been there and he had helped to write the report.
"OK. This is what we’ll do.”
The report was an A4 document with white spiral binding and a pink cover. It was last year’s excavation report. He would put it in HQ and nail it to the table and he expected to see at least one of them in there every time he looked or there would be trouble. He would cancel leave and they could spend Friday catching up.
How did they expect to carry out an excavation if they did not bother to inform themselves of what had been done before?
The students muttered and shuffled.
"OK. You know what to do."
He loved them with their muttered protests and half-formed attitudes. They would learn. It was going to be a good day. He could feel it in his bones.
Midway through the morning, he sent one of the first-year students, Lisa, to see if anyone was in HQ and she returned to say that there was a queue.
He went back after coffee with Lisa and Daniella Forrester and another first year, Geordie Rachel (not the other Rachel), and they arrived just as a group of second year students were leaving. The cabin was free and when three more first year students turned up, Jem, Tom and Bill, Daniella got them organised.
After a moment, Lisa looked up and saw him standing in the doorway watching. She looked alarmed.
"We're all doing it together," she said.
"That's OK. Carry on."
Outside, he was just smiling quietly to himself when Sue Feenan came up.
"What are you looking so pleased about?" Sue asked.
He indicated the hut and she went to look for herself. She came back grinning.
“Fucking Christ. You have put the fear of God into them.”
Hopefully he had, although he wouldn’t have put it quite like that.
Later, in the afternoon, at tea break, he found Rachel Feist (the other Rachel) and Alan sitting again where he had found them the previous day. He put his mug on the table and sat down. The tea was too hot to drink.
“You two still here?” Broderick said.
“Some of us have been working,” Rachel said.
Broderick took a tentative sip of the scalding liquid.
“Did you tell her?” Rachel asked, meaning the campaign medallion on the one hand and a certain professor at Durham on the other.
“No.”
“Good.”
He was a man of divided loyalties.
He was a director of Anteum Rescue, the archaeology unit based at Ancester College, but he was, for the time being at least, also a senior lecturer in archaeology at a university in Durham.
He took another sip of his tea and looked up to see Joe Fitchitt walking across the grass towards them. Here was a case in point.
Broderick employed Joe at Anteum Rescue and Joe was an all-round good guy and a good archaeologist but his behaviour yesterday morning when they were in the trench had been appalling. It was a bad example to give the students.
Broderick was just about to say something to Joe, when a small red car drove into the field and parked up in front of the toilet block. Three girls got out: Daniella Forrester, Lisa and Geordie Rachel – all last seen in HQ reading last year’s excavation report.
Where had they been?
They had bags and towels and wet hair. They must have found a secret place to take a shower. They came across, chatting and laughing.
“It’s our Finds seminar next,” Daniella said as they arrived.
“That’ll be me then,” said Rachel Feist.
“Do we meet in the Finds hut?” Lisa asked.
“Yes. Five minutes.”
‘Finds’ was the heart of the operation. Rachel Feist had it running like clockwork. All the students took a turn helping to sort and record what was found during the excavation, every object and artefact. The success of the dig, in the long term, dependent on this being done well. Rachel’s Finds seminars prepared the students for what they had to do when it was their turn to work in the Finds hut.
Pottery, metal, glass, bone: everything found during the excavation was recorded on a Finds Form there and then, in the trench, when it was discovered, and the technical details, of where it was found and the co-ordinates and surveyed levels, were noted on a Context Sheet. Later, in the Finds hut, this information was put into the computer so that next term, back at the university, the dig could be reassembled, layer-by-layer, grid point by grid point, to create a virtual site.
The three girls moved on, still chattering away, rubbing their wet hair with their towels. They had been to Joshua’s cottage for a shower. Apparently.
Looking round, he realised that Joe Fitchitt had gone.
He would have to catch up with him later.
Rachel was watching him across the table, her skin glowing richly dark in the sun, reflecting the red and orange colours in her shirt. He took a sip of tea.
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Chapter 6
Rachel Feist had come from New York. Her antecedents included Hispanics, Blacks, Native Americans and Germans. He could still remember the first time she came into his office at the university, a new postgrad, confused by all the peculiarities of a foreign country.
Her silver crucifix hung from a chain around her neck, entwined with her gold St Christopher medallion on a gold chain. He noticed all this without realising he was looking. Then he looked up and caught her eye.
Which reminded him, he needed to contact the Finds Co-ordinator at County Hall to report the discovery of the medallion. To do that, he needed a phone number and the phone directory was in HQ. He’d better go. He finished up his tea.
When he got to HQ, Broderick found Joe Fitchitt was there before him. Joe was alone, which presented Broderick with the opportunity he’d been looking for.
“That exhibition of yours yesterday was unprofessional,” Broderick began. “I will not tolerate that kind of behaviour on this dig. Is that quite clear?” He was winding himself up for an important statement of policy. “We need good evidence and we need accurate evidence and we don’t need …”
The door opened behind him and he turned to find Mariam Bandarachaka standing there, just inside the door. Broderick heard Joe say “Sorry, Boss,” as Mariam pushed past, so close he could smell the sweat on her skin.
It was a very small room.
Mariam poked Joe in the ribs and he folded up in mock agony.
Broderick repeated himself: “It is just not acceptable”.
Years ago, on his first dig as a young archaeologist, Broderick had worked with Lyall Turnbull. Lyall Turnbull would never have allowed such behaviour. You could not do that sort of thing. You did not dance around yelling ‘It’s mine! It’s mine!’ if you valued your job and your career, or your life for that matter.
“We’re digging for information not for treasure,” he said.
He was beginning to sound pompous, even to himself.
Joe left. Mariam stayed.
She knew the County Co-ordinator at County Hall: Patsy Ann Squires. Patsy Ann had grown up in the village, her parents still lived in the village; her family had always lived in the village; Colin Squires, the JCB driver, was her brother.
Patsy Ann worked for Gloucestershire Planning, Heritage and the Environment although there was precious little heritage or environment at County Hall, said Mariam. Mariam had worked there, before she became a librarian.
Mariam found the number and Broderick phoned Patsy Ann Squires to report the find of the campaign medallion. It was important. Someone ought to know.
They worked late that evening.
Broderick had gathered them up at the pub and taken them back to dig HQ so they could discuss the medallion. At HQ, they separated to follow up different lines of approach. Alan was in the outer office, examining the medallion itself and some of the other finds from the first few days, and Broderick was in the inner office with Rachel.
Rachel searched on the web, while he worked on the day’s report on his laptop.
After some time, Broderick closed his laptop and rocked back in his chair. The door between the two rooms, catching stray draughts of air, creaked as it moved. He picked up his phone and tried phoning home again and, this time, he was in luck. Alison answered. She had been out with the girls.
They spoke together for a few minutes and then their conversation petered out, as it tended to do these days. Broderick said goodbye, wished Alison and the girls a good night and closed the phone with a snap. Rachel looked up.
“Do you know any native French speakers?” she said.
She had found a document from around the time of the discovery of the Arras medallion but it was in French and she was finding it difficult to unlock with her schoolgirl French. The problem was, she didn’t have any schoolgirl French. She had plenty of Spanish but no French.
“Can’t you find someone at the college?”
She could, she supposed. She’d have to ask around.
The door between the two rooms swung shut with a bang.
There was someone banging things about in the outer office and it did not sound like Alan. Rachel pushed her chair back to go and investigate. The door between the two rooms burst open and an intruder, dressed all in black, filled the doorway.
Broderick leapt to his feet, slammed the door shut and pushed his desk against it, in the process, dropping his phone, which clunked to the floor and skittered away into the corner. Rachel ducked under the desk to retrieve it.
She re-emerged with the phone and gave it to him.
“What about Alan?” she said.
In the next room, there was a loud crash and the floor of the cabin shook. Rachel pushed past him and wrestled the desk away from the door.
“Get back!” Broderick grabbed her arm and pulled her away. “Stay here!”
There were three intruders. One man was holding Alan with an arm round his throat. Another man was hitting Alan with some kind of club.
Broderick yelled at them.
The club-wielder turned and looked at him and, for a second, Broderick thought his days were numbered. A third man was shouting instructions at them.
“That’s enough! Let him go! Out! Out!”
The first man released Alan, who slumped to the floor. The second man took the edge of the desk and upended it, sending all their precious artefacts scattering in every direction. The three of them pushed out through the doorway into the night.
Broderick set off in pursuit.
He didn’t know what he was going to do but he knew he had to do it.
The intruders were running across the trench towards the gate, ignoring the walkways and trampling all over the prepared surfaces, kicking pegs out of the ground. Bloody Hell! He was not going to catch them. They vaulted the gate and disappeared. By the time he reached the gate they had gone.
He stopped to catch his breath and, in the quiet of the night, he heard a car start. The engine revved once, twice, tyres screeched and the vehicle drove away.
He walked back to HQ where he found Alan lying on the floor. Aland had blood all over his face and shirt. Rachel was doing what she could to help him but every time she tried to move him, Alan yelled.
“What’s the emergency number?” Rachel asks. “911?”
Broderick said, “999.”
Two uniformed officers arrived about twenty minutes later. The light on the roof of their car swinging a ghostly blue across the campsite.
“They won’t get far,” they said.
An ambulance arrived and paramedics strapped Alan onto a stretcher and lifted him into the vehicle and drove off.
The police took some details and said they’d be back in the morning. They switched off the rotating blue light and drove away.
Broderick Arnot took Rachel Feist in his arms. She was shaking.
A small crowd had gathered at a distance; students milling around their tents.
Sue Feenan arrived.
“What the fuck was that all about?” Sue said.
Sue took them to the mess tent and made them each a mug of tea. Broderick got his phone out and called Robin and then Joe and the three of them, Sue, Rachel and Broderick, sat in the mess tent drinking tea until Robin arrived in the minibus. Joe arrived a few minutes later, on his bike.
Robin took Broderick and Rachel to the hospital in Ancester where, once Alan had been cleaned up, he was allowed to go. Robin said he would take Alan back to Bottom End where he could have a proper bed for the night. Robin then took Broderick back to the dig.
At the dig, everything was quiet.
A half-moon hung over the hills and, high above, a white streak of stars across the dome of the sky showed how the whole of the galaxy was on edge.
Broderick Arnot went to his tent and tried to sleep.
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