Cora passes a 500 lire banknote to the bartender, wrapped in the cash used to pay for her drink. He smiles and nods, deftly putting the cash for her drink into the till while pocketing his cash.
"Signor Acuna was very happy to get the contract transporting the cultural ministry's spoils from Abyssinia; he told anyone and everyone within earshot about it. It was a couple weeks ago, though, and he checked out of the hotel.", the bartender says with a shrug.
"I did see him leaving Massaua with a large column of infantry men, now that you ask. You may be able to track down that unit if you need to find him."
Freddy will approach one of the military men in a cafe and strike up a conversation (cop talk) regarding his rifle. "Those old Mannlicher-Carcano rifles used to jam all of the time back in the war, glad to see you're getting some new hardware.." As the conversations goes on.. "Hey, we're looking around for a guy named Acuna. He's a bit of a lush, but we need some info from him. We think he might have been hired on by the cultural ministry. Any idea where we might find him?"
Freddy will approach one of the military men in a cafe and strike up a conversation (cop talk) regarding his rifle. "Those old Mannlicher-Carcano rifles used to jam all of the time back in the war, glad to see you're getting some new hardware.." As the conversations goes on.. "Hey, we're looking around for a guy named Acuna. He's a bit of a lush, but we need some info from him. We think he might have been hired on by the cultural ministry. Any idea where we might find him?"
The officer sets down his drink and pulls out a cigarette case, offering one to Freddy and his interpreter, Evelyn.
"Oh, him! Yeah, yeah, I think he went west with the 21st division to Adua. Time being, they're stuck there- some snag with the pencil pushers on the supply train, so they have to wait for it outside the city. There may be a convoy headed their way soon if you hurry."
Evelyn politely refuses the cigarette, but thanks the man on Freddy's behalf.
"Looks like we have a stop to make before catching that boat," she says once everyone has regrouped, hoping that Acuna has the information they need to find the dig site.
From the smoky cafe, you run out to where the Italians are staging a supply convoy. A few minutes of rapid-fire negotiations, aided by your travel papers, nets you spots in the back of a truck full of provisions and armaments. For the next several hours, you're jostled across the countryside toward Adua where Bartolo Acuna and his escorts are encamped.
In the late afternoon, the truck comes to a stop near dozens of rows of drab brown army tents. You hustle out of the truck as green recruits start unloading the cargo with which you had spent so long growing familiar. It takes a few minutes of asking around before you find an officer that can help you find Acuna's tent. After several more minutes of stumbling through the camp, looking for the "sour Spanish academic" as the Italians call him, you locate what you presume to be Acuna's tent. After calling out to him from outside, a middle-aged Spanish guy with unkempt hair plastered to his forehead with sweat peaks out from the flaps.
[Italian]"Yes? Are we moving finally? Ugh, you're not here to tell me we're finally getting out of here, I can tell. Do you at least have something to drink?"
[Spanish]"God above, I'd kill for something that's not f%@@ing grappa..."
[Spanish]No good news on that front, friend. But we wanted to talk with you! We heard you were involved in an expedition a few years ago and we'd love to talk to you about it!
[Spanish]No good news on that front, friend. But we wanted to talk with you! We heard you were involved in an expedition a few years ago and we'd love to talk to you about it!
[Spanish]No good news on that front, friend. But we wanted to talk with you! We heard you were involved in an expedition a few years ago and we'd love to talk to you about it!
His eyes light up seeing a bottle of wine in Cora's hand.
[Spanish]"Thank god! Another day stranded out here with nothing but military oafs while we wait for our damn supplies would have killed me! Here, open that bottle- an expedition? I've been moving from project to project here in Africa the past decade while Spain's gone mad."
Acuna's got an army tent to himself, stuffed with trunks of books. A small lantern perches on top of one such trunk. He rips the cork out of the wine bottle with his teeth.
"Which expedition did you mean?"
[Spanish]The '24 dig in Dallol. With some Professor named Ayers? I think? Cora says settling down into the tent.
Acuna takes a long swig of wine.
"Now that one- that's a long story. I had become interested in an ancient text that had been acquired by the Universidad Complutense, where I worked, the Revelations of Glaaki. It had been translated before, but I did new work on the fragments concerning an ancient deity concerned with orgiastic ritual. Those passages, properly interpreted, suggested an ancient focus of worship at what I believed was Dallol."
"Naturally, I was vindicated when we arrived and we unearthed the temple exactly where I expected we'd find it.", Acuna says with no small amount of pride, clearly pleased to have an audience.
"George Ayers sought me out after he heard of my plans while I was searching for funding for the dig. I assumed George learned about it that way, at least. In any case, he was instrumental in securing money. His friend Echavarria paid nearly the entire expedition's expenses."
"We arrived in country in June of that year, organized our supplies, hired guides and porters. We were on site at Dallol by... well, July or August. It only took us a few months to find the outer walls buried under the earth, but in the end, they were right where the Revelations said they'd be."
"The reliefs on the doors that sealed the inner complex were different from other works from the same period. They were protective, it seemed to me. Ayers arrived around that time, and he was very interested in them. He insisted that we had to send a fragment back to Echavarria in Los Angeles. We did, of course. I still have a picture of it."
"It was about that time- just at the cusp of our success- that everything slowed to a crawl. Our laborers began to have misgivings, the CMC suddenly became unreliable at relaying our supplies, bandits destroyed critical equipment. Each delay begat more. We would spend weeks, sometimes months, at a complete standstill."
You swear you barely saw him touch the bottle of wine, but now Acuna is drinking the last of it straight out of the bottle.
"Ah. That's better. It was 1926 by the time we finally managed to get inside the inner complex. From then, just a few short days to the sanctum at the center of it."
"There was... well, there was..."
"There was a mouth there. A statue of one. I mean, carved in detail like you've never seen, made of some rock we hadn't seen before, probably quarried in the brine fields before Christ, boiled off now, fallen beneath the crust."
"A giant, screaming mouth, all tongues and a dozen kinds of teeth and lips that were... well, obscene."
"I have some sketches in here somewhere... ", he mutters, digging through some papers.
"Our troubles seemed to redouble themselves. The company cut off our supplies. We were both loathe to do it, but there was no recourse other than for Ayers and I to travel back up the rail line to Mersa Fatma and talk to the pinheads ourselves."
"We heard of the eruption after having spent a completely pointless day negotiating with company men- the whole site destroyed, fallen to the bottom of a crater thirty yards across, awash in lava. Gone. Our associates dead, some of the laborers apparently blaming us for the whole fiasco, as though we could cause a volcano to erupt."
"I couldn't bring myself to even go back to the site."
So we're going to go back there to find a crater? Cora asks. And we'd have to dig through a ton of dirt to find that... thing again?
"A volcanic eruption? You are lucky to have gotten out of there when you did," Evelyn remarks, brows slightly raised. She eyes the empty bottle of wine before going on. "Perhaps it is for the best that it was all destroyed. It sounds positively... foul."
After a few seconds, she asks, "Do you know what became of Ayers?"
Acuna sighs.
"It would have been a major find, I tell you. But it was not to be..."
"Ayers told me he had to see the site for himself, so he went back up the railway. I never saw or heard from him again. No sense speculating what happened to him. A thousand things meant us all ill by that point. Take your pick of angry laborers, bad supplies, lava floes, the hottest place on the planet. Maybe it's a miracle we'd survived as long as we had."
"If you're trying to find him, the last people I know of to see him are the tribes who travel the area near and around Dallol village. They worked for the CMC back during the dig, hauling salt to the railhead on their camels. We usually traveled with them between the railhead and the dig, for safety and their knowledge of the desert. Some even worked for us at the site."
I think that's pretty much all we want to know. Anything else we should look out for when we're heading that way? Dangers? Any tips on making friends with the tribes?
"Dangers? The g~&*+*n heat for one! I'm sweating just thinking about the place!", Acuna says, though he's been sweating the whole time. "So long as you aren't in Italian military uniforms, the tribesmen will accept your money- getting a guide won't be a problem, they're all hard-up for cash. You will need a guide, believe me, if just to set the pace and make sure you don't all pass out in the heat. Traveling in a group is a good idea, bandits were active there ten years ago."
There's a loud crash from outside of the tent, accompanied by a great deal of shouting and cursing in Italian. Acuna rolls his eyes and grabs a bottle of clear liquor, choking some of it down.
"So, let's say we're interested in seeing this crater that used to be your dig site.", Freddy says. "Could you give us an idea where it is?"
"Well, if you wish to see it... it's not far from Dallol village, in the shadow of the mountain near the salt canyons. Here, I'll draw you a map."
Acuna produces a pen and draws a map on each side, indicating the route from Mersa Fatma to Dallol and the location of the dig.
"The CMC rail line takes you close, but I doubt it's still running. You may have to grease their palms a bit to get those idiots to give you a ride."
Thanks friend, appreciate it, don't suppose you'd want to come with us? Take a second shot at the place?
Cora asks the man, he seems experienced and could be of some use. Either way there wasn't anymore information they needed.
Evelyn glances at Cora warily, uncertain about the prospect of dragging yet another poor soul into their miserable fate.
Acuna shakes his head.
"I've got no desire to see that crater; it's a waste of time. 2 years of my time, to be exact, not to mention the workers that died in the blast. Even though the army doesn't work on my schedule, I've got important work here and I can't just up and leave it to walk down memory lane."
"Good luck finding Ayers- or his body."
Well I think we've got a plan then. Thanks for the story, if we get a chance we'll let you know how it all turns out.
Acuna raises his liquor bottle.
"I wish you luck on your journey- you've got to be mad to want to go all that way for a volcanic crater.", he says.
You beg and barter with the Italian military drivers until you finally get a ride back to Massaua from Adua. Fortunately this time the truck is empty so you can spread out a little more on the trip back. You collapse in your hotel rooms for the evening and get some rest. The night's silence is broken in the early morning by explosive concussions of gunfire- probably miles outside of the city. Memories of the Yucatán come back to you with the sound and it takes a moment to remember where you are. It's difficult to return to sleep after that.
In the morning, you have a breakfast of strong coffee, bread and fruit. No one acknowledges the fighting last night, as they're likely used to it by now.
Evelyn goes shopping, primarily looking for clothing, preservable food, potable water, and some extra medical supplies. She did not know what they'd find at the site of the crater, but after their past few excursions (the thought of them alone makes her shudder), being prepared for the trip could not hurt.
Cora, being a stranger to excursions in foreign places, follows Eveylyn's lead and stocks up on things that might be useful. Including another clip of ammo for her brand new Heavy Pistol. She pats the plastic explosives she keeps with her at all times. Might need this before the trip is over.
With packs full of food, medical supplies, water purification tablets and large water skins to refill your canteens you embark on the first dhow down the coast of the Red Sea to Mersa Fatma the next morning.
Mersa Fatma is a small town on the Red Sea coast, the docks bustling with traffic from throughout the Red Sea. You see very few Europeans here, as most of the workers and dock hands are native Africans of various tribes, though there are several Italian army troops keeping an eye on the town in their wool uniforms. It's quite hot, sweat running down the back of your neck and soaking your clothes already. From what you understand, where you're headed will be extremely dry and even hotter.
The town itself feels almost empty outside of the docks, where it seems most of the people still living here work. A series of warehouses and administrative offices with signs indicating they belong to the Compagnia Mineraria Coloniale dominate the town from their position at the docks and at the end of the rail line, towering over the rest of the buildings. The CMC complex seems to be relatively new compared to the rest of the town. A small Italian army garrison and a Catholic church are the only other buildings that stand out in particular.
The Italian army garrison is small for what it is and mostly deserted- the day shift is out on patrol and it seems the night shift is resting when you arrive. After inquiring with the sergeant on duty about the rail lines, he shakes his head with a bemused look on his face.
"The rail? That's not the army's- useless to us. Since we found potash in less horrible places, it's been shuttered for 5, 6 years. You want to use it? Go butter up Renzo Segni, he's the man the CMC put in charge of their mothballed warehouses- him and the Egyptian."
The officer smirks, looking between Evelyn and Cora.
"Be careful, girls- Segni might want a fourth or fifth wife!", he says, before turning to Evelyn. "You might not have to worry, you're probably too pale for his liking- he's practically gone native. Your friend, though..."
The other soldiers laugh.
At the small Catholic church, one of the missionaries invites you to have lunch. Local women (not nuns, just women living in Mersa Fatma) serve you Italian fare prepared as best they can with local ingredients.
"My brothers and I arrived here in '26 back when Mersa Fatma was much more populace. When the CMC mostly withdrew in '29, it became a ghost town. We've been spreading the gospel as we can to the Afar- it is only a matter of time before they accept Christ into their hearts."
"Strange things? Well! That Renzo Segni is a godless man- he has taken three wives, living with them and his whole gang of children in the CMC offices. And we're not the only ones that don't like it- the locals and the Afar aren't very happy with that arrangement either. It's disrespectful, certainly not making it any easier for us to spread the Good Word. But he's easily the wealthiest man in Mersa Fatma, so he can do as he likes.", the middle-aged priest says, shaking his head.
Seems like all roads point to this Segni character Cora sighs. Thank you for the help Padre. Can we ask for a blessing before we go?
As usual, Evelyn feels a little out of place in the church. Still, she appreciates the comfort that the people there have to offer, if not in the spiritual sense. She eyes Cora questioningly when she offers her donation, but has enough tact to not contradict her.
"It does not sound like he will be easy to deal with," she says, well aware of her understatement.