‘My Desert Liner,’ I told him, ‘will have its dining-saloon, recreation-room, look-out deck, state-rooms and other comforts. A fleet of them could easily be built. The prototype would be a hundred and thirty feet long. She would be forty-two feet high from the bottom of the wheels to the top of the upper deck, and twenty-six feet wide. In general arrangement she will closely resemble a passenger steamship, with the exception that she will run on wheels of colossal dimensions!’
‘Splendid!’ said Sir Ranalf. ‘Astonishing! Go on, brave sorcerer! Prithee, tell me the rest of thy tale!’
‘The wheels will measure thirty-nine feet in diameter,’ I explained. ‘As you can see here, by the employment of an ingenious (you’ll forgive my pride) compensating mechanism they hold closely to the sand and soil in every possible position. This means the hull of the ship is kept always at a comfortable level. Whatever the relative position of the wheels may be, the hull remains steady!’
Clearly surprised by my engineering vision, Sir Ranalf nodded his plump head. ‘But what would power such a monster, my boy? The engine would have to be huge! The weight! The weight!’
I was ready for this. ‘It will be driven by two Diesel motors of four hundred and fifty horse-power, of which the second is kept in reserve. Two dynamos furnish light and electromotive force. Steering is effected by means of this hydraulic apparatus.’ I folded back the plan to display it.
‘You should patent this, brilliant youth!’ Then some action of the cricket game caught my patron’s attention and he let out a mysterious gasp.
‘The machine is built to ascend grades of thirty degrees. Steep hills are very numerous, as you know, in the Sahara. Great speed has not been my aim because the friction of the sand on the wheels will generate tremendous heat, some of which, admittedly, I can convert for a variety of purposes. The ship will travel at about nineteen miles an hour.’
‘So slow!’
‘Faster than a camel, Sir Ranalf! It will carry a hundred and fifty people, including passengers and crew members, two hundred tons of merchandise, oil and water and a supply of fuel sufficient for a journey of ten to twelve thousand miles without replenishment. The vehicle will be more than able to cover the greatest desert surfaces in the world!’ There would be four decks, I explained. The upper deck held the control cabin, the wireless cabin, the cabins of the commander and three officers, two-berth passenger cabins plus four cabins de luxe. On this deck, as I showed on my plans, would be the washrooms, an office, a baggage-room, and a large promenade sheltered by a roof from the sun’s burning rays. The two intermediate decks would contain cabins, the dining-saloon, the kitchen, the reading-room, the smoking-room and more baggage-rooms. I showed him where I had sketched the two derricks, weighing 2,000 pounds each, which could be fitted on either side for the handling of baggage and cargo. I was particularly pleased with a novel and important feature. My land-ship would have a cooling-room always maintaining artificially low temperatures. Here passengers overcome by the desert heat could rest and recover. The extreme clearness of the desert air allowed the sun’s rays, as we had all grown painfully aware, extraordinarily powerful penetration. Exposure to them was, of course, dangerous, since they penetrated the brain and spinal cord (the practical reason why, I reminded him, Arabs had always worn heavy turbans over heads and necks).
The pretty sportsters screamed and giggled and began, inexpertly, to make runs. Sir Ranalf’s interest in the cricket became intense. I had never understood the British enthusiasm for this mysterious game. Whenever I could catch his attention I continued to explain how I had reserved the lower decks for merchandise, the helmsman’s cabin, the motor-room, the repair-room, the water and fuel reservoirs. ‘If you want to put this to your business partners, the discussion will naturally arise as to the merits in conquering sandy wastes of a small motor vehicle over this “land leviathan”. Well, Sir Ranalf, as we have all read in The Egyptian Gazette, recent proof is provided that specially constructed small cars, such as your own, can cross the Sahara! But you will also have read that they are subjected to enormous dangers, including wild desert tribes!’
‘The desert, it’s true, my dear chap, is crammed with hazards. Those heathen fellows were Tripoli Berbers mostly, I suspect. The British police are powerless of course. Well run, pretty demoiselle!’
‘You will appreciate, Sir Ranalf, the superiority of my Desert Liner over the desert motor-car. A freight Desert Liner of three hundred and fifty tons would cost about twenty-six thousand pounds. Forty motor-trucks would cost, say, five hundred pounds apiece. Armed with Bofors and Bannings my liner costs about six thousand pounds more than the trucks, yet the running expenses of forty motor-trucks on a dirt-track without tank stations would be considerably higher than that of my luxury cruiser of the dunes. Each truck would require at least two chauffeurs, for instance, making a minimum staff of eighty men. A crew of twenty is sufficient to run and man my liner! The population of wild desert tribes is reckoned at some three and a half million. Wild beasts are another common danger. Where trucks would have to make camp and guard against these threats, my liner ploughs on day and night without a halt. Thomas Cook should be especially interested.’
‘Howzat! Ha! Ha! Howzat! Cook?’ Sir Ranalf glared at me almost in alarm. ‘Oh, no! We’ll sort something out without involving them. My partner in Aswan is always interested in daring new notions. I am sure he would love to back you to the hilt. And there are others I know in Alexandria and Cairo. Perhaps even here in Luxor. See me later, famous bard, and I shall be delighted to help you find someone for your ship!’ His eyes wandered again to the willow and the leather. ‘A scheme, my handsome mechanic, worthy of the Suez Canal and all who built her! I am mightily impressed.’ And then he could resist the contest no longer and went rolling and panting through the dust to snatch the bat from Esmé’s hands and call an incoherent challenge to Professor Quelch who, thoughtfully rubbing his ball upon his bottom, began the long stroll backwards which was a special feature of this game.
Everyone who knew me in 1926 knew where Bischoff of Kiel got his plans, lock, stock and barrel when he announced the building of the Countess Marianna. As it was, the Nazis scratched all Bischoff’s experiments and research when they came to power. I understood Hitler’s decision, but he was already growing into another short-sighted politician. Thanks to their ideology they needed to show the public immediate gains. As with Stalin, life, dignity, spirit, everything was sacrificed. Goebbels was right. He and his friends were, indeed, temperamental opposites of the patient Jew. Seaman was himself very Teutonic and determined. The Slav possesses both virtues, which is why he survives so successfully through history’s ups and downs, resisting all outside conquerors.
My patience saved me undue exertion, whereas Seaman grew increasingly frustrated at the antics of his inefficient crew and at Sir Ranalf’s interference. With the second problem, I sympathised. I had explained to Sir Ranalf how a producer’s function is to be the efficient medium of the artist’s creativity, but he had tasted previously unguessed-at power and wanted to embrace it forever. Did the film have sufficient ‘authority’? Sir Ranalf mused. When we did not follow his reasoning, he explained that so far we had to take too much in the film for granted. The characters needed deepening.
As a team we united against him. We were not sure what he meant by ‘deepening’, we said. All the actors, even Esmé, had given extremely good performances. They were real people on the screen, with whom other real people could identify.
‘But not every one!’ Sir Ranalf insisted the film have as universal an appeal as possible. He was not sure he really believed, for instance, that Esmé was actually a voluptuously sensual temptress. I was offended by this. Our rushes showed Esmé to be thoroughly sexual. Clara Bow herself had said as much about Esmé.
‘But do we believe she could seduce the greatest priest in Egypt, the noblest of men, your good self, Ah-ke-tep! You are the mightiest engineering genius the world had ever known, sweet esqui
re, Rameses the Second’s most powerful architect!’
He had no need to butter my parsnips. Better than any I understood my story’s symbolism! I could not deny, for instance, a certain autobiographical strain. Yet I was puzzled by his body language. I was reminded of a semaphoring squid.
‘I think we should show Ru-a-na in a scene of her own. Where she reveals her charms to you.’ He cleared his throat.
‘Wot?’
Mrs Cornelius came ploughing through the dust to gulp refreshment. She had been on a camel most of the morning and unlike myself had no affinity for the animal. ‘Dirt?’
‘A scene of artistic nudity.’ Sir Ranalf ignored Mrs Cornelius, fuming and scarlet, behind him.
‘Wot the effin’ butler sor!’ she declared. ‘I noo you wos a twisted ticket, Rannie. Someone tol’ me yer made yer pile in dirty pictures!’
‘Really, my dear Queen of the Nile, I assure you I speak for the whole of Europe, where the nude scene is an accepted convention of the medium. In America, where prudishness reigns, I would agree that is not so. But surely you, as cosmopolitans, understand that I demand nothing unworthy of your great talents?’
‘Too effin’ right, chum.’ Mrs Cornelius drew me forcefully on, speaking in a rapid whisper. ‘I’ve ‘ad enuff, Ive. This bastard’s up ter somefink filfy, I c’n smell it. Git art, nar. Take an ol’ trouper’s tip.’ And, laying her pink finger alongside her delicious nose, she informed me she had been in touch with Major Nye in Cairo. ‘Me an’ ther major are chums again, since that larst night. ‘E sent a ticket, firs’ class. An’ I gotta bit o’ spendin’ money. I’ve reelly ‘ad enuff o’ this, Ive. Next fing yer know I’ll be on some bloody pilgrim boat off ter ther bloody Sultan’s ‘areem. God knows wot they’ll do wiv you!’ And she smiled, though her grip on my arm was urgent. I had rarely known her so positive. Yet she was asking me to give up the project of a lifetime. I needed to see my film completed. True, all our main scenes were ‘in the can’, and we had only to shoot a few more interiors, which could be ‘faked’; but I needed her with me! I begged her to remain. We would insist on complete control over any doubtful material. ‘It’s orl bloody doubtful, Ivan. You know as well as I do wot that bunch o’ Bubbles an’ Eye-ties do fer a livin’. Git on ther bloody train, Ive. Same time as me.’
I trusted her instincts, but my loyalty to Esmé and my art was greater than my fear. This loyalty, of course, was completely misplaced. I have never ceased to curse my own folly, though she never once reminded me of that warning, in all my years in England. I told her I would consider her suggestions. I would let Esmé decide (I could not, after all, abandon her). There was also the question of Sir Ranalf s partners investing in my Desert Liner. I had more than one career established in Egypt - then a country ripe for every kind of development. Surely I could trust men whose self-interest was identical to mine? I did not know then how many of those business people prefer to talk than act. (Unless of the most hysterical and irresponsible types they are racially conditioned to inactivity. The blood feud and the football match is all that engages them.)
During that boiling May I could see my chance of fame returning. Already history had rolled over my hopes and destroyed a career in Russia, another in Turkey, another in France. It threatened yet another in America. But now I had the chance to redeem everything. Here were wealthy potentates with private fortunes for developing ideas. I would point out the military as well as civilian use of my Desert Liner. Such a juggernaut at the heart of their armies would ensure British dominion over the entire desert as far away as their deeper African possessions.
Mrs Cornelius wished me to abandon that dream (as well as the dream of our screen union) together with my salary and my fiancée? How could I listen? Yet, so great even then was my belief in my old friend that I was prepared to consider flight, as long as Esmé would come with me. By now others were glancing curiously in our direction. Mrs Cornelius became evasive. ‘Well, ‘ave a good time wiv it, Ive. Don’ ketch cold.’ And she stormed towards her tent.
That evening we returned to Luxor and prepared for our evening meal aboard the boat. As soon as I could I took Esmé aside to tell her urgently that she should not do the scene Sir Ranalf suggested. At the station I would get us tickets for Alexandria. From there we would go to Italy, where we had friends. It would not be long before we were returning to America. I said nothing of my own reservations.
To my relief she would have none of my sacrifice! ‘You have set such store by this, Dimka. I could not let you abandon it. I understand the scene is necessary to the success of the movie.’ She giggled. ‘After all, my darling, I am not unused to a few appreciative male eyes.’
I told her, ‘That bad time in your life is a forgotten dream. I promised you need never suffer such awfulness again.’
‘Oh, Dimka, sweetie, it is fun,’ she said. ‘It’s just a jolly game. Sir Ranalf will explain. You mustn’t be so stuffy, darling.’
I was, I admitted, the product of a more upright age, yet I did not wish to seem unadventurous in my darling’s eyes. I required her voluntary obedience. I smiled at her jokes about my ‘stern, old-fashioned face’. She had won me! I saw how, through art, she would not demean herself. I had to add something in reference to Mrs Cornelius’s observation. Foreigners would feast, I said, upon her form.
She laughed. ‘None of them Moslems, Dimka dear.’
Then Wolf Seaman joined us, a bulky vibrating tower, and explained with lugubrious intensity how our film would shock no one in Europe. Without those scenes the story would lack a certain impact. Let us do this, he begged, for the sake of perfection. He did not know of course that Mrs Cornelius, whom he still referred to as his fiancée, was leaving. I made up my own mind. I sought my friend in the cocktail lounge and drew her from the bar into a quiet corner of the deck. With trembling voice I begged her to remain long enough to complete the tomb scene. She was adamant. ‘When I git a sniff o’ somefink narsty, Ive, I’m on me bike. This littel set-up’s gettin’ defnitely niffy. I’m orf while the goin’s good an’ ya’d better scarper, too. Mum’s ther word, eh?’
Of course, I could not betray her. I bowed. I kissed her hand. Then I returned, with some reluctance, to what remained of our fold.
Mrs Cornelius’s disappearance was discovered next morning, as we set up our shots beside the Colossi of Memnon, those strange guardians of a lost road to the barren valleys of the dead. I retired as quickly as possible to the little Greek cafe across the way, which catered to passing tourists. Sitting in the shade with a cup of Lipton’s, I listened to Seaman bellowing as loudly as those legendary Colossi whose voices had howled above the desert winds even when Caesar came here to marvel at the monuments to a conquered past. Seaman delivered a manifesto on the nature of art, the artist, his rôle and rights, his need for order, his own need for us to work as hard as he did, his understanding that punctuality was the backbone of a good movie play. They believed Gloria Cornish had remained behind in Luxor, but I had looked from my window early that morning and seen her, aided by tip-toeing Nubians, heading for the kalash stand at the top of the mooring steps. She was taking the early train to Cairo and would return to England with Major Nye, re-assess her career, and perhaps rejoin me in Hollywood later. She could easily get a job in England on the strength of Social Follies and Lady Lorequer alone. By eleven Sir Ranalf arrived, summoned by Seaman. At first our master seemed as angry as his director but then he had composed himself, going about with his usual authority, calming everyone, white or native alike. It was not, he said, an important issue. Our main footage was shot. Esmé could take a slightly stronger part. No actress, he was sure, and he touched his fingertips to her face, would refuse such a chance. Esmé flushed with pleasure. I must admit I became a little jealous. I left my place in the shade and strode up the path towards them, calling out, ‘Miss Cornish will be ready for us soon, I am sure. Meanwhile, I should remind you, gentlemen, that the story is mine. I will accept no interference. No dilutions.’ Had Sir
Ranalf, too, seen Mrs Cornelius on her way to the station? Perhaps while he glanced idly from the window of his hotel, overlooking our boat? He did not say. He was all soft reassurance, affirming our story as a model of the literary art. There was no question of interfering with its fundamentals. But he was a showman - a kind of window-dresser. It was his job to make sure the public would come to see our picture. If they did not come, my message would never be heard. This was a reasonable argument. I was relieved to hear it put this way. Then Sir Ranalf began the rather more difficult task of calming Seaman, who claimed he could not work without his star’s presence. Eventually it was agreed that we shoot all the scenes, with ‘Irene Gay’ heavily veiled, standing in for Gloria Cornish who would be with us the next day when we could shoot a few more scenes. Sir Ranalf reminded us that time was money and since this solution would cost more, no doubt we thought his acceptance exceptionally generous.