“They cannot write,” said my father seriously. “Anyone who cannot write cannot succeed in life and death.”
Deep in thoughts, he raised the wine bowl in his hand, took a look back as if fearing Kipa was spying on us, drank a sip of wine, wiped his mouth and took my hand again leading me forward. I followed my heart heavy with sorrow but still resolved to become a soldier.
“Father,” I said as we went on, “soldiers’ life is comfortable. They live in barracks and eat good food, and in the evening they drink wine in the pleasure houses, and women look at them favourably. The best among them wear golden chains about their necks, although they cannot write. When they return from battle, they bring with them booty and slaves who toil and follow trades to serve them. Why shouldn’t I strive to become a warrior, too?”
But my father made no answer, only hastened his step. Near the big rubbish dump where flies buzzed in a cloud about us he bent down and peered into a low mud hovel.
“Inteb, my friend, are you there?” he said, and out crawled a limping, verminous old man, leaning on a stick. His right arm had been lopped off below the shoulder, and his loincloth was stiff with dirt. His face was dried and wrinkled with age, and he had no teeth.
“Is — is that Inteb himself?” I asked whispering from my father, looking at the old man in horror. Inteb was a hero who had fought in the Syrian campaigns under Thutmose III, the greatest of Pharaohs, and stories were still told of his prowess and of the rewards that Pharaoh had given him.
The old man raised his hand in a soldier’s salute, and my father handed him the bowl of wine. Then they sat down on the ground, for the old man didn’t even have a bench outside the hut, and Inteb raised the wine to his lips with trembling hands and drank greedily, careful not to waste a drop.
“My son Sinuhe means to be a warrior,” my father said, smiling. “I brought him to you, Inteb, because you are the last survivor of the heroes of the Great Wars and can tell him of the proud life and splendid feats of soldiers.”
23
“In the name of Seth and Baal and all other devils,” the old man said and cackled in a shrill voice and turned his nearsighted gaze upon me. “Is the boy mad?”
His toothless mouth, his dim eyes, dangling arm stump and wrinkled, grimy breast were so terrifying that I crept behind my father and gripped his sleeve.
“Boy, boy!” said Inteb and tittered. “If I had a mouthful of wine for every curse I have uttered upon my life and upon miserable fate that made a soldier of me, I could fill the lake that Pharaoh has had made for his old woman. True, I have never seen it because I cannot afford to be ferried across the river, but I doubt not I could fill it and that there would be enough over to fuddle an army.”
He again drank wine greedily from the bowl.
“But, said I, my chin quivering, “the soldier’s profession is the most honourable of all.”
“Honour and renown,” said Inteb, the hero of Thutmose, “they are droppings and dung that only benefit flies. Many a lie have I told in my time to get wine out of the goggling blockheads who listened to me, but your father is an upright man whom I will not deceive. Therefore, son, I tell you that of all professions the warrior is the most wretched and most degraded.”
The wine was smoothing out the wrinkles in his face and kindling a glow in his wild old eyes. He rose and gripped his neck with his one hand.
“Look, boy,” he yelled, “this scraggy neck was once hung with five loops of golden chains. Pharaoh himself hung them there with his own hands. Who can reckon the lopped-off hands I have heaped before his tent? Who was the first to scale the walls of Kadesh? Who burst through the enemy ranks like a trumpeting elephant? It was I, Inteb, the hero! And who thanks me for it now? My gold went the way of all earthly things, and the slaves I took in during battle ran away or perished miserably. My right hand I left behind in the land of Mitanni, and I should long ago have been begging at street corners were it not for the charitable people who give me dried fish and beer now and then for telling their children the truth about war. I am Inteb, the great hero, but
24
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