CHAPTER 12

DIGGING DEEP

            The next morning, Bayne, Cadmus, Simon, Mimi, and I left Athens for the site. Our trip would be by cargo jeep this time to carry various personal effects we had with us.  As we drove, it was a mostly silent trip except for Bayne and me. We talked the entire way to Larissa about theories we were interested in. Bayne was a wonderful compliment to me. He was a gifted paleontologist and had his own thoughts, theories, and ideas about the ancient world. Mimi enjoyed the jeep trip and with her camera captured the foreign scenery along the way.

            As we made our way from Larissa to the base of the mountain, the dirt road was quite bumpy. It was hard on all of us because you could feel every dip and turn. The sun was also very hot. We were all sweaty, dirty, and tired. While we did have water, the dryness in the heat kept your mouth parched.

Along the long, rural trail we came to a dog lying on the road. Mimi spotted him first and screamed for us to stop the jeep. She was afraid we would hit it. Bayne and Cadmus who had been sleeping in the back seat woke with a fright. I jerked the jeep to its stop. Both Mimi and Simon jumped out to check on the dog. It seemed unfazed by the sudden commotion.

            “Jack,” Mimi, kneeling next to the dog, said. “I need your canteen. Hurry!”

I grabbed my canteen and walked over to them. Bayne also got out but only to stretch his legs. Cadmus very easily went right back to sleep.

Mimi snatched my canteen and opened it. She then poured the warm water into the mouth of the dog. As she did this, the dog slowly used its dried tongue to lap up as much as it possibly could.

            “Simon,” Mimi summoned. “Go get your canteen and bring me my bag.” Simon jumped up and ran to the jeep and back. “Good,” she said. “Start pouring your water over her coat. She is burning up. We need to cool her down. Jack, I need you to keep pouring this water slowly into her mouth.”

            I bent down to resume her position next to the dog as Simon poured his water over her coat and rubbed it in. Mimi began looking through her bag and came to a handkerchief in which she had wrapped some cheese. She took the cheese out and began breaking it up into small pieces. As she did this, she glanced over behind us and realized that Bayne was relieving himself in the brush off the side of the road.

            She knelt back down next to the dog and with some of the cheese in her hand, she moved it slowly in front of the dog’s nose. It wasn’t even five seconds before the dog’s eyes opened, and she raised her head to take the cheese. With that, the dog stood up and shook herself from the water Simon had been slowly pouring on her back. Mimi then gave her more cheese and soon the dog was wagging her tail and licking Mimi’s hand.

            Mimi scooped the dog up in her arms and carried her toward the jeep. I stood up and turned to say, “What is it you think you're doing?”

            Mimi answered, “Well, we’re not leaving her out here. We’re taking her with us.” Simon looked over at me to see my reaction. Mimi didn’t even stop to wait for my answer. As she reached the jeep, she loaded the dog in the back on top of our luggage and supplies. Bayne, leaning against the car, just shook his head as he lit a cigarette.

            “You know, Jack,” he said. “This project doesn’t need any more baggage.”

I just said, “Come on. Let’s go. Everyone get back in the jeep.”

            We all got back in the jeep. Mimi was now sitting in the back with the dog and Simon jumped in next to her to face the back of the jeep. Bayne jumped in front with me, and we were on our way.

            Darby interrupted, “Was that the dog in the picture? Mum? Duchess’s mother?”

            Grandpa Jack, smiling, answered, “Yes. That was how we came about Mum.” He continued, “As we reached the base of the mountain, Grandma decided she would stay at Base Camp 1 to get things in order there. It was where we were going to keep our inventory of supplies and was to be our emergency medical station. This camp would also include a couple of tents with cot beds for our crew to retreat to and rest, away from the project site. Staying at Base Camp 1 would also give Grandma some time to nurse the dog back to health. The dog was doing much better on the ride in the jeep. She willfully accepted water and some food from Grandma’s hand. Simon watched as he saw this woman care for this dog that looked to be dying alongside an isolated Greek road. Such compassion, he thought. He was truly glad that he had joined this project.

            The rest of us hiked up the mountain to Base Camp 2. Two donkeys were waiting to make the trip with the rest of our supplies. The trek to the site was becoming easier thanks to Uri. Uri’s team had worked to clear a footpath that would make travel between the two base camps easy. It was nearing sunset when we arrived at the site. Uri’s team had set up a tent colony. Bayne, Cadmus, and I each had our own tents. There were a couple of larger ones that the rest of the crew would share. They would sleep in shifts to accommodate room for everyone.

            Upon our arrival at Base Camp 2, the sun’s glowing red was setting the mountains aflame with rich color. Cadmus checked in with the third shift foreman as to how things had been going so far. Things were progressing nicely. Optimism was all around the camp beaming from both Bayne and me. We were hopeful and sure we would find what we had worked months in theorizing - the bones of a great race of giants.

            Within those first two months, little in the way of giant remains had been discovered. We had uncovered fossilized remains of birds and other small animals but nothing close to the size of a giant. We had already burned through more than half of the grant money. Money was going quickly. We had to adjust our plans and that included focusing on our core ideals. Cadmus’s work on identifying the sediment levels within the cave would conclude the deeper we went, the older the rock was. I decided that the bulk of the dig should focus on the inner cave as opposed to the rest of the site. Cadmus agreed that we needed to focus more on the inner core of the cave and get as deep as possible to find centuries-old geology.

Grandma and her new dog, Mum, which she named after the flower, would work alongside the crew and help as much as she could with the labor-intensive work. We needed all hands available to make our funds last as long as possible. We planned that by November, we would be done ahead of schedule and able to conclude our field research on the mountain to avoid the possible chilly weather that would likely come close to the end of our grant term. With the lack of conclusive findings at our sight, the mood began growing tense. To make money last as long as possible, we had begun to ration food at the site. We also expected the crew to work longer hours for the same pay. We didn’t want to do this, but we had little choice. It was obvious that we had made some financial mistakes in budgeting for the project and could not turn back at this point.

Tension was also growing between Bayne and myself. He wanted us to sell our story to National Geographic to gain more notoriety and hopefully more funding. He was no longer optimistic about us being able to find what we were looking for in the time frame set by the university and the grant. He was thinking beyond the six months and hoping we would find additional funding by getting the National Geographic Society interested in our story.

I wasn’t concerned with the six-month deadline we had been funded for. I was still optimistic that we would find what we were looking for. I was not blind, though. I knew we had to make further drastic changes in the operation to prove our project successful. We needed to cut costs where we could and that would include not only the rationing of food and extending hours, we had to cut our three shifts into just two. Simon had gained much respect from Uri and would become the night foreman when the original night foreman quit due to problems with pay.

            Uri was even growing unsure of the nature of the project. He was finding it harder and harder to encourage his team to continue to work longer hours for the same pay and little food. Finally, one night he came to me. 

“Sir, I was talking to Dr. Bayne, and he was telling me about the possibility of the National Geographic Society…that it might get us more exposure and more…you know…money.”

            I knew what he was trying to ask for without directly asking for it. It was bad enough that I was beaten down by Bayne. Now, I felt like Bayne was using Uri to get me on board with his way of thinking.

I answered Uri back, “I know what Dr. Bayne wants. I am just not convinced we are off track entirely yet. I have faith that we are nearly there. I think with the changes we are making; it will serve us smartly.”

            Uri, with his head down and making no eye contact said, “Yes, sir. If that is what you think. I will continue to carry out the plan.” He avoided eye contact with me altogether. His eyes were either focused on the ground or beyond my shoulder toward the horizon. I knew that he was losing his faith in the project and me.

            “Uri,” I said putting my hand on his shoulder, “let’s focus the entire day crew in one location inside the cavern. Let’s have as many men as possible focus on that south wall. I have a good feeling about that section of rock. What do you say?” I was trying my best to pump him up about it all.

 “Yes sir. We will do just that,” he said, and he turned to walk away.

“Uri, one more thing.”

            “Yes, sir”

“We’ve been working together for two months now. How about calling me Jack?”

            “I will do that, sir…I mean…Dr. Jack…I mean Jack.” We both smiled and he turned and walked away. I know I was having little effect on him and that meant I was having little effect on our crew. Bayne, with his grandiose ideas of getting the National Geographic Society involved, was having more of an impact. Bayne was a good talker. He could easily motivate and influence people. That is what he was good at. It was Bayne who had given the overall presentation to the grant board. I was certain that is what gave us an advantage in getting them to fund our project instead of the rest of the groups that were up for the money. I knew I was not the polished talker he was. I allowed him to run the presentation because I knew that if he did all the talking, we would get it. And it worked.

            Over the next several weeks, we all focused our attention on the cave and the growing cavern inside. Within the first two months, our crew had managed to remove all the rubble around the opening and had begun digging in both a northwest direction and an eastern direction. The center seemed to contain solid granite that would prove to be difficult to mine. The operation would go around the hardest granite in both directions. Cadmus said that if we were lucky enough to find something at the site, it would not be embedded in the hard granite anyway.

With the focus on the cave, our team was making great strides in the operation. The site’s original six-foot opening in the cave was now twenty-seven feet deep. The two tunnels were going quickly. We had not uncovered much in terms of proof of the giants, but we found that the deeper we dug, the older the sediment was. Cadmus was more excited than we were to uncover what he concluded was ancient sediment. He said, regardless of whether we find the bones of ancient giants, this dig was an important discovery in the age of the mountains of the area. But we had come all this way to discover ancient giant bones, and so far, we hadn’t found what we were looking for.