Chapter titles:

Foreword. Reminiscences of an English Gentleman in Turkey and Surrounding Countries.

  1. The First Birthday Present.
  2. The Black Searchers.
  3. The Second Birthday Present
  4. The Society of International Tramps
  5. Night Encounter on the Paris – Venice Express The Dungeons in the Doge’s Palace
  6. A Fax from home.
  7. The Stone Cross.
  8. Pete Crow Interrogated
  9. Lindy Alone
  10. The Cistern of 1001 Columns
  11. Pete’s Long Wait
  12. The Old Citadel in Ankara Major Billings suggests a Phone Tap
  13. The Sunken Gorge near Nar Golu
  14. The Eighth Tower attacked
  15. The Mist that came Above and Below
  16. The Final Solution

Excerpt from the Foreword:

I write this book with little hope of publication although that is the last consideration in my mind. The first must be that, in the writing of it, that I may be able to make some sense out of the wreckage of my life.

Perhaps that is too melodramatic.

Some things about it have even been worthy.

My concern for my common-law wife and my son, for example, had about it a genuine sense of caring, even if it came too late and turned into so ghastly a parody in the end.

Again, my apropriation of Herr Schliemann’s treasure was not entirely indefensible; for instance, was it his in the first place or was he guilty of stealing it from the Greek Government?

Indeed, if Troy and the Trojans actually existed perhaps the treasure should now be the property of the province of Cannakale in Asian Turkey.

It is questions like this that are at the nub of the matter. Herr Schliemann never chose to acknowledge my part in his discovery. His gift for self-publicity made it impossible for him to refer to the efforts of others, and even if I confronted him now, he would probably deny that it was my calculations that led to the crucial dig in which The Shield was first uncovered, just as it conveniently slipped his mind at the time and later, when he was being feted and made much of in Berlin.

‘The Hero of Troy!’ Yes, that was how they referred to him at the time, but by then I was three-quarters of the way  down the southern coast of Turkey with my ill-gotten gains.

…