In 1936 a young man named Geoffrey Clifton had met a friend at Oxford who mentioned what we were doing. He contacted me, got married the next day, and two weeks later flew with his wife to Cairo. The couple entered our world—the four of us, Prince Kemal el Din, Bell, Almasy and Madox. Clifton met us in El Jof, north of Uweinat. He sat in his two-seater plane and we walked towards him from the base camp. He stood up in the cockpit and poured a drink out of his flask. His new wife sat beside him. “I name this site the Bir Messaha Country Club,” he announced. I watched the friendly uncertainty scattered across his wife’s face, her lionlike hair when she pulled off the leather helmet. 

They were youth, felt like our children. They climbed out of the plane and shook hands with us. That was 1936, the beginning of our story.... 

 

 

They jumped off the wing of the Moth. Clifton walked towards us holding out the flask, and we all sipped the warm alcohol.