The plump, black-haired Krajcir made few demands on Robbie. He was easy-going by nature, and handled all the important business of the agency himself, so his appearances in the outer office were infrequent. The previous day he had handed Robbie over to Pani Sebesta and it was she who played the part of task-mistress to the juniors. She was eagle-eyed and revoltingly efficient, never for a moment failing to find jobs for her underlings. It was obvious that the lanky Rudolph and the attractively curved Ludmilla both cordially disliked her. To Robbie they gave an eager welcome, being quick to realise that, since he knew nothing whatever about the travel business, he would be given all the most dreary jobs that they had had to do previously. And that was what happened.
That no attempt was made to initiate him into the mysteries of time-tables, ship-sailings and conducted tours was rather a relief than otherwise, as he knew that he would have had considerable difficulty in mastering such things; but he found being made into a ‘dog’s-body’ far from pleasant, and he soon became terribly bored with sorting endless stacks of folders into sets, stamping piles of envelopes and standing at the duplicating machine running off lists of hotels and their tariffs.
While employed on these jobs, he covertly kept an eye on all the customers who came to the agency, and listened to their conversation with his colleagues. Very few of them were people of substance seeking accommodation in good hotels or expensive travel outside Greece. Once or twice a day men, some of whom looked rather seedy, came in, asked for Krajcir and, evidently being known at the office, were shown straight in to him. But the great majority were men and women on holiday from Czechoslovakia. They were all good Communists who, as a reward for showing an enthusiastic Party spirit, had been nominated by their bosses for a fortnight’s cruise in the eastern Mediterranean, and were in Athens only for a couple of nights. Far from being customers wanting to hire cars or private guides, they had barely enough money to buy themselves a drink, and came in only to collect folders, with pictures of the places to which they had been, to take home with them.
After working in the agency for a few days, Robbie began to wonder how, with such a clientele, it could possibly pay its way. The answer, he decided, was that it didn’t and must be run as part of a propaganda programme. But, listen as he did with commendable patience, not one word did he hear exchanged between the members of the staff, or between them and anyone who came to the agency, that had any connexion with oil or tobacco.
Unaccustomed as he was to being ordered about, and loathing as he did routine tasks, by the end of the week Robbie was thoroughly fed up and felt that he could not stick it a day longer. On the Friday, when Krajcir doled out to him his meagre pay, he actually had it on the tip of his tongue to give notice, but at that moment a telephone call came through for the manager; so Robbie had to leave his room and, on second thoughts, he decided to put off taking the irrevocable step till after the week-end.
His reason for postponing the issue was his suddenly remembering that Luke Beecham would be back in Athens next day. On the previous Monday evening, after his first day at the agency, Robbie had called at Luke’s flat to tell him about his job, only to learn that, after spending the week-end in the villa that belonged to friends and looked out on Lavrion’s sunny beach, Luke had left for one of his periodic spells at his Company’s office in Salonika and would not be returning till Saturday. Although Robbie was now convinced that he was wasting his time at the agency, he still felt considerable qualms about abandoning his quest altogether and possibly incurring the anger of Pallas Athene. During the week, no other idea for continuing it in a new direction had come to him, but there was just a chance that Luke might produce one; so, when eight o’clock came, he said good night to his colleagues as usual, and walked round the corner to the Grande Bretagne.
The long siesta break, from midday until four in the afternoon, observed in most offices in Athens, had to be made up by a four-hour working session morning and evening. Robbie, being unaccustomed to such lengthy days of activity, had found in the past week that, after dining, he had been too tired to go to the last house at any of the cinemas. But after going early to bed on the first two nights his mind, having nothing new to think about, had once more become largely occupied with his book. In consequence, on Wednesday and Thursday evenings, instead of going straight to bed, he had got into a dressing gown and had worked for an hour or two on a new chapter. It was the story of another of the Heroes, and by eleven o’clock on this Friday night, he finished it. Laying down his pen with a sigh of satisfaction, he sat back and read over what he had written:
THE HEROES
(NO. 2 PERSEUS)
Once upon a time, there was a King of Argos named Acrisius. Like most of the ancient Greeks he was terribly keen about having his fortune told, so he consulted an Oracle. Afterwards he wished he hadn’t, because he was told that he would die by the hand of his grandson. This worried him a lot; but he had only one child, an unmarried daughter named Danaë, and he thought he might manage to cheat Fate by locking her up so that no man could get at her, because then he wouldn’t have any grandchildren.
So determined was he to keep Danaë, a virgin that he was not content to put her in an ordinary prison, in case some stalwart youth came along with a pick-axe and hacked a way to her through the wall. For the job, he built a tower of brass and shut the poor girl up in that. But the one thing he could not do was to turn Danaë from a most lovely girl into an unattractive frump, and it was that which led to his going to all this trouble for nothing.
Zeus happened to come coasting along on a cloud with nothing much to do, and looking down he saw Danaë. The gentle reader will guess what happened then. In the twinkling of an eye the old rip had turned himself into a shower of gold and streaked down through the top of the brass tower. From her attitude to life later it seems that Danaë thoroughly enjoyed what happened after that. Anyhow, the next time her father visited her he found to his dismay that she was in the family way, and too far gone for him to do anything about it.
The child to whom she gave birth was Perseus. When King Acrisius learned that she had had a boy he was so scared for himself that he thought of killing the child, but he just could not get up enough courage to have such blood-guilt on his hands. As the next best bet for yet avoiding the Fate decreed for him, he had the mother and her infant put in a wooden chest and the chest thrown into the sea, hoping that they would both drown or be dashed to pieces on a rocky shore.
Whatever one may think of Zeus’s morals, he always did his best to look after girls who had given him a good time; so he got in touch with his brother Poseidon and asked him to do the necessary. The Sea King obliged by stilling the wind and waves and gently pushed the chest ashore on the island of Seriphos in the Aegean.
There Danaë and her infant were found by a fisherman named Dictys. He was a good man and took them to his house, where he brought Perseus up as his own child. As Perseus grew up he so greatly outshone in strength, agility and beauty all the other youngsters on the island that it became pretty clear to everyone that he must be the son of a god, and they willingly made him their leader.
But trouble was brewing. Dictys had a brother named Polydectes, who was chief of the island, and after a while he began to make passes at the beautiful Danaë. She proved very smell-face about this, and said that having had Zeus for a lover she was not prepared to play those sorts of games with any mere mortal. Perseus was very devoted to his mother and by then old enough to defend her. He said in no uncertain manner that if Polydectes laid a finger on her he’d sock him for six.
Feeling that he would stand a better chance with Danaë if he could get this tiresome young man out of the way, Polydectes ordered Perseus to go and slay a terrible monster called Medusa. Why Perseus, having defied Polydectes over the question of his mother, should have felt compelled to obey this order is by no means clear. But apparently Athene had been sending him dreams in which he saw himself as the equivalent in those days of a film star. Convince
d that he could count on the backing of the goddess, he would have been a pretty poor fish if he hadn’t been tempted to go off and do something spectacular, so as to be feted and admired by all. Anyhow, he seems to have persuaded himself that his mother was quite capable of taking care of herself during his absence, and declared himself willing to go and put paid to Medusa.
When the news of this reached Olympus the gods became a bit worried, as they feared he might be biting off more than he could chew. Medusa was one of the three Gorgon sisters and the only one who was mortal, but she packed a weapon not much less deadly than an atom bomb. When young she had been rude to Athene, so the goddess had turned her hair into vipers and made her face so horrible that whoever she looked at was instantly turned to stone.
Athene, now scared that one of her protégés might be done in by her own handiwork, came hurrying down to Perseus to warn him to be jolly careful how he tackled this terrible foe. She told him that he would be as dead as a fried haddock if he even met Medusa’s glance, and lent him her own shield which was so brightly polished that it could be used as a mirror and he would be able to see his enemy in it while his back was turned to her. Then some of the other gods rallied round. Hermes gave him his crooked sword that could cut through the thickest armour, and tied on his feet his own winged sandals that would enable him to fly over land and sea. Pluto sent him from the Underworld a magic helmet that made its wearer invisible and, finally, Athene provided him with a goat-skin bag in which to put Medusa’s head when he had cut it off, because even in death it could instantly strike dead anyone who saw it.
It’s a funny thing, but after providing Perseus with all this lease-lend help his immortal friends could not tell him where to find Medusa. They could only suggest that he should go and wring the information out of the Graeae, three half-sisters of the Gorgons who lived in the far-distant frozen north.
Having asked Athene to keep a protecting eye on his Mama, Perseus set off without further delay. Hermes’ sandals enabled him to fly like a jet-bomber to his destination and Pluto’s helmet made him invisible. He came down in a region of eternal snows and icy mountains on the shores of the Hyperborean Sea.
There, crouching in a huddle, which is hardly to be wondered at seeing how cold it must have been, he found the three Grey Sisters. Their long white hair was frozen stiff with icicles and they were so old that they must have been pretty well past everything. I mean, when three people are reduced, as they were, to sharing one eye and one tooth between them, they can’t be fit for much, can they?
Wearing the helmet that made him invisible, Perseus came creeping up on those poor old girls and, while they were bickering over who should have the eye to see the person whose footsteps they could hear crackling the icy ground, he snatched it from them.
At that, one gathers, their language became unprintable, but Perseus just danced around them making rude noises and told them that unless they told him where the Gorgons lived he’d take their tooth as well, then they wouldn’t be able to munch whatever it was they did munch to keep the life in their skinny old bodies. Seeing that it was all up they came clean and gave him the address he wanted.
Having given them back their eye, he was off like a thermonuclear rocket out of the icy mists, heading south into the brilliant sunshine.
The gentle reader will appreciate that it is not exactly easy to figure out where places mentioned by the ancients are on the maps in use today, so I must be forgiven for not being able to tell you where the island was in which the Gorgons lived. But it was definitely in the tropics and as far as I can make out off the coast of Africa.
When Perseus arrived above it the three sisters were lying asleep in the middle of what must have looked like a cemetery, for all over the place there were statues of people and animals; though really, of course, they had once been alive and Medusa’s glance had turned them to stone.
Medusa was lying between the other two and in one quick look Perseus saw that she was a most repulsive creature. Her great body was covered in horny scales, her hair was a mass of writhing serpents, she had wings of brass and her hands and feet were terrible claws. Anxious to get the job done before she should wake up he wasted no time but held Athene’s mirror-shield above his head and focused her face in it. Whether he had practised, such a tricky stroke before, history does not relate, but he struck backward over his shoulder with Hermes’ crooked sword and in one mighty slash severed her head from her body. Then, fumbling behind him, he pushed the head into the goatskin bag that Athene had given him for this purpose. Cock-a-hoop at having pulled this fast one on her so easily he leapt skyward with a shout of triumph.
That was a silly thing to do, because it woke her horrible sisters. When they saw Medusa’s headless corpse they nearly burst themselves with rage. Clashing their brass wings and screaming with fury they came hurtling after our hero. His goose would have been cooked in no time if he hadn’t been able to clap on the helmet that Pluto had sent him, which made him invisible. That enabled him to give them the slip and turning north he sped over a vast desert that was probably the Sahara.
While he flew on, drops of Medusa’s blood trickled out of the goatskin bag. As they fell on the sand below they turned into snakes and scorpions. That is why there are so many of these poisonous reptiles in Africa. However, he seems to have got a bit off his course, for instead of landing back in Greece he came down in Morocco.
By then he was pretty tired, and one can’t wonder. Seeing old Atlas kneeling there supporting the world on his shoulders, and knowing that he owned the Garden of the Hesperides, Perseus asked if he might rest there for a while. But Atlas got the idea that he intended to pinch some of his golden apples, and refused him permission.
As the Greeks were very hot on observing the laws of hospitality towards strangers, Perseus decided to teach the giant a lesson. He uncovered Medusa’s head, which still had the power to turn to stone anyone who looked at it, and showed it to Atlas. Before you could say ‘Jack Robinson’ the mighty giant had become a mountain. Personally I think that was a bit overdoing it, but that is what happened, and if you go to Morocco today you can see him with snow on his head and forests sprouting out of his chest and shoulders.
By then Perseus was either lost or thought he would like to fly round for a while before returning to his home on Seriphos. Anyway he shot off eastward, crossed the Nile and sped down the Red Sea. The south-western coast was then part of Nubia, as the ancients called Abyssinia, and, glancing down, Perseus chanced to see a great black rock sticking up some way from the shore with a girl chained to it. Naturally he went down to investigate and he found her to be an eyeful. Seeing the country they were in one would have expected her to be a coal-black negress, but not a bit of it. She was a lovely golden brown, and an absolute smasher, but tears were running from her lovely eyes and she was obviously needing to be rescued.
When he asked her how she came to be there she didn’t answer, but shut her eyes and blushed crimson. The poor girl’s trouble was that she had no clothes on and she felt too embarrassed to talk to a strange young man while naked. Being a well-brought-up chap, Perseus realised what was biting her and put his hat on, then asked his question again.
Now that he was invisible, the girl perked up. She said her name was Andromeda and that she was the only daughter of Cepheus, the King of those parts. Apparently her mother, Cassiope, had been silly enough to boast that she, Andromeda, was more beautiful than Poseidon’s daughters, the Nereids. They had been very peeved when they heard this and persuaded their father to send a terrible sea monster to ravage King Cepheus’s coast and gobble up all his fisher folk.
Much upset by this, the King had gone off to Libya and consulted the Oracle of Ammon there as to how he could protect his people. The Oracle had told him that the monster could be got rid of only by sacrificing his daughter to it. One need hardly add that the King and Queen did not like this idea one little bit; but after a while their people had forced them to take this terrible cour
se, so poor Andromeda had been chained to the rock and was waiting for the monster to come and eat her.
She had only just finished telling Perseus this when she let out a terrible shriek, for at that very moment she had spotted the monster as it bobbed up from the depths some way behind him.
‘Fear naught!’ cried Perseus, or words to that effect, and in a trice he had freed Andromeda by cutting through her chains with Hermes’ sword. Turning, he then sprang into the air and rushed upon the monster.
No doubt the gentle reader here expects me to describe a terrible combat, but if the truth be told it was a walkover. For all its foaming jaws and huge swishing tail the giant whale, or whatever it was, did not stand an earthly. Like a tennis ball endowed with perpetual motion, Perseus simply bounced up and down driving his sword into the poor brute’s back every time he descended, till the sea was red with its blood and it turned stomach up showing that it was a goner.
When he had done his stuff a mighty cheer broke out. Andromeda’s parents and half the population of the countryside had assembled near the shore to see the end of her. The scream she had given on spotting the monster had brought them running to the edge of the cliff, and now they came swarming down it to acclaim our Hero.
As soon as Andromeda had been got ashore and wrapped up in a blanket Perseus told her parents that he wanted to marry her. Just in case they should be against her taking a husband who was not out of the top drawer he added quickly that they would find him in their version of Debrett as a son of Zeus. On hearing this, the King was so delighted that he said Perseus could have the girl and the whole kingdom too if he liked; so everything seemed set fair for the two young people getting to know one another better.
However, it soon transpired that there was a fly in the ointment. Apparently King Cepheus had temporarily forgotten that Andromeda was already engaged to a chap called Phineus. When Phineus heard what was on he became very shirty, and he completely spoilt the wedding feast by turning up at it and demanding his promised bride.
Mayhem in Greece Page 9