Friends in Dark Places
Jack Moffitt faced the firing squad standing straight, eyes forward. He refused the blindfold with a shake of his head, closing his eyes as the order to aim was given. His pounding heart counted off the final seconds of his life.
Hail to you O gods,
On this day of judgment,
Behold me, I have come to you,
Without sin, without evil, without guilt
Rescue me, protect me….
Jack spoke the words into the darkness. When he finished, silence settled around him, a silence unbroken for over three thousand years. He began again. The ancient prayer from the Book of the Dead seemed fitting. These were likely the last words uttered in this place as a Middle Kingdom nobleman was laid to rest.
With his departure for Eton looming, he had wanted one last look at the partially excavated tomb. When the lamp he had forgotten to check flared and died, he thought the entrance would be easy to find. But he had tripped on a loose stone and now sat with a badly swollen ankle, trying to keep ancient ghosts and primeval fears at bay. Rescue was inevitable, of course. His father would come looking for him.
Hours later, Jack's voice was hoarse and his throat so dry he could barely swallow. If he stopped speaking, the darkness took on a life of it's own. He laughed to think he had believed the tomb was silent; the scurrying of rats and whisperings of other things Jack didn't want to imagine surrounded him. The laugh became a sob, and rising panic threatened yet again. Jack fought it back, the effort leaving him in a cold sweat with the bile rising in his gut.
Death had always been a part of his life; archaeology by its nature dealt with the dead. Until now it had been an abstract concept, something that happened to others. Jack went cold as he realized for the first time that death was something more personal, and that it could, no, it would happen to him. He tried to imagine that final, inevitable fall into non-existence. Panic overwhelmed him and he pressed his face against the cool stone trying to establish some link with reality, to find some glimmer of light in his own personal darkness.
Finally, his innate logic began to assert itself and the panic receded. He was not going to die today. Yet the knowledge of his own mortality would remain with him, the knowledge that each day should count for something.
Jack pillowed his head on his hands and eventually drifted off to sleep. He woke a short while later to the sound of his father's voice shouting his name in the darkness.
Hail to you O gods,
On this day of judgment,
Behold me, I have come to you,
Without sin, without evil, without guilt
Rescue me, protect me…
"Americaner!" a guard screamed, as two jeeps roared into the German camp, machine guns blazing. Moffitt knew he would not die today - his friends had come for him, just as his father had all those years ago.
The ancient protectors of this land were but a memory, but he thanked them anyway as he headed for the jeeps. Friends that could be counted on when you were in dark places were truly a gift from the gods.