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36 Madox
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INT. LIBRARY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF EGYPTOLOGY. DAY
Madox and Almásy are camped in one corner of THE LIBRARY, hunched over their maps and papers and journals and clashing furiously over the site of the next part of the expedition.
MADOX (pushing away his charts)
You can't get through there.
ALMÁSY:
I was looking again at Bell's maps. If we can find a way to cross the wadi
we can drive straight up into Cairo....
(he points at a map)
--and this whole spur is a real possibility....
MADOX : So, on Thursday you don't trust Bell's map--"Bell was a fool, Bell couldn't draw a map,"--but on Friday he's suddenly infallible?
Almásy is surprised by Madox's anger.
MADOX : And where are the Expedition Maps?
ALMÁSY : In my room.
MADOX : Those maps belong to His Majesty's Government. They shouldn't be left lying around for any Tom, Dick or Harry to have sight of.
ALMÁSY : What on earth's the matter with you?
MADOX
: Don't be so bloody naive. You know there's a war breaking out.
(he tosses a slip of paper onto the map, recites its message)
This arrived this morning. By order of the British Government--all International
Expeditions to be aborted by May 1939.
EXT. CAIRO SOUK. LATE AFTERNOON
Almásy and Madox walk through the souk, the bars filling up as the stalls are closing. Both of them are sober.
ALMÁSY : What do they care about our maps?
MADOX: What do we find in the desert? Arrowheads, spears. In a war, if you own the desert, you own North Africa.
ALMÁSY (contemptuously) :Own the desert.
Almásy hesitates at a junction, clearly about to take his leave of Madox.
MADOX : Madox--that place, that place at the base of a woman's throat? You know, the hollow, here--does it have an official name?
Madox looks at him.
MADOX : For God's sake, man--pull yourself together.