Stiff Upper Lip

by Lawrence Durrell

  “It happened while I was in Paris,” he said. “Quite inadvertent, the whole dashed thing. It could have happened to anyone. I popped into the Octagon for a bite. It wasn’t until the addition came that I realized. Old man, I had eaten a piece of horse!”

  I sprang up, startled. “You what?” I cried incredulously, realizing that I was in the presence of tragedy.

  “Horse,” he repeated wearily, passing his hand over his forehead. “As I live, Antrobus, a slice carved from a gee-gee. It all seems like a horrible dream. Yet I must say it cut quite sweetly and the sauce was so dashed good that I didn’t realize it. It was only when the bill came that the whole of my past life flashed before my eyes. Dear God—a horse! And I a Colonel in the Blues! I was so surprised you could have poured me out with a spoon.”

  I groaned in sympathy. He gave a harsh cracked laugh and went on. “To think of it, I who have lived for, and practically on, horses. The irony of it all. To find myself sitting there, involuntarily wrapped round a succulent slice of fetlock, feeling the world’s biggest bounder. And with a touch of mustard, too.” He shuddered at the memory.

  “But surely,” I said, looking as always for the Silver Lining, “you are hardly to be blamed, Mungo. Surely you could have absorbed just one slice and then Hushed Everything Up? No-one could find it in his heart to blame you.”

  He shook his head sadly. “I thought of that,” he said, “but my conscience wouldn’t give me any rest, Antrobus. After all, here I am, a founder-member of the Society For The Prevention Of Everything To Nags. Old Boy, I was largely instrumental in getting all those country houses set aside for aged horses, for getting them into the Health Service, for getting them painted by Munnings before they Passed On. Why, we were hoping to get one into Parliament this year.… How could I strike my colours, go back on my basic principles? I admit I thought of it. After all, I have eaten many strange things in unguarded moments. I once ate some smoked grandmother in the Outer Celebes, but that was to save the regimental goat. And once at Government House in Gibraltar I think I ate a portion of infant monkey. But it was never proved. The A.D.C. refused to confess. But all this is a far cry from horses, old chap. A different world. No, I confess that I sobbed aloud as I paid that bill.”

  For a moment he was silent, and then went on. “After that, Antrobus, there came an endless chain of sleepless nights. I brooded, old man. No peace. At times I thought I might go and throw myself on the mercy of Elizabeth David, confessing everything to her frankly, hiding nothing, asking for absolution. But when I mugged up her books I found no references to anything more questionable than eels or bloater paste—revolting enough, but mundane compared to what I was up against. No, there was no way out. I realized that I should have to Face the Music. So I did. I confess it hurt. I resigned from Whites and Boodles. I had myself crossed off every Stud Book in the Shires. The Athenaeum will see me no more. I even closed my account with the Army, Navy and Air-Force Stores. I transferred my overdraft. I confessed all to the Pytchley and did a public penance at Hurlingham. Then I broke my saddle over my knee … and all was over. I am a broken man, Antrobus. I simply came back to collect my gongs and brasses. I only popped in to say good-bye. I somehow felt you would understand.”

  I was deeply moved. But what could I say to comfort and console poor Mungo? Little enough in all conscience. He still had a fortnight to carry his bat until a replacement arrived and all this time he spent in strict purdah, refusing all invitations. There was only one little incident which, in the light of subsequent events, seems to me significant. It proved how deeply he had been marked by this Major Experience. His inhibitions had begun to slough off. De Mandeville reported that Mungo had been seen in a local hotel dining on octopus. I could hardly believe it. Octopus! The stuff that comes like ectoplasm! But this was the only straw in the wind. After that, silence closed in. Then Mungo left us and passed out of memory. As the years went by I often thought of him with a twinge of compassion. Doubtless he was in some far-enough-flung colony to dine openly on yams and white mice. I saluted his gallantry in my heart.

  But now here is the grisly sequel to my tale. Spalding used to go to Kenya every year to see his family and shoot a bit. One year he went up-country on safari. In the heart of the jungle, in a clearing, before a modest hut of wattle, he came upon a dinner-jacketed figure having a pre-prandial. “Mungo!” he cried. Yes, it was Mungo. He had hidden his shame in that remote corner. They embraced warmly and Spalding was glad to see that his character still had a few fibres intact—for he was correctly dressed for dinner. They sat down on camp-stools and discussed a two-to-one Martini which Mungo mixed with all his old flair. Though he had aged he still looked fairly steady on his pins, and he still made the sort of Martini which fairly whistles through the rigging. Heartening signs, these.

  It was only when the brain-fever birds began to call and the little radio in the corner struck eight o’clock that Spalding Suddenly Understood that it wasn’t, it couldn’t be, the old Mungo.… For his host said, quite distinctly: “Why not stay and have pot-luck with me tonight? We have elephant for dins.” Elephant!

  Spalding paled—he had been very strictly brought up. Was it possible that Mungo was sitting out here in the wilds gorging himself on elephant? (And if so, how was it done? It must take ages to marinate?) He gulped loudly. “Did I understand you to say elephant, Mungo?” he said.

  “Yes,” said Mungo, with a kind of loose grin. “You see, old boy, there is no such thing as a cuisine in Africa. Once one leaves the Old Country one achieves a kind of Universality, a Oneness with Nature. HERE EVERYTHING IS EDIBLE.” He spread his arms to the night, knocking over his glass. “If you don’t like elephant,” he went on, “I can organize squirrel or chipmunk or boa-constrictor. It’s all one. I just send out a little man with a blow-pipe and it’s all yours.”

  Spalding shuddered and muttered a prayer under his breath. “Yes,” went on Mungo, “I gave away my Boulestin and both my Elizabeth David’s. They are no use here except for missionaries who have Outworn Concepts. Personally I use Buffbn’s Natural History to give me ideas for my meals. Why, just to leaf through Section One (Primates) stimulates the appropriate juice, gives one an appetite. I say, you’ve turned awfully pale. You aren’t ill, are you?”

  “No, no,” said Spalding, “it is simply the kerosene light shining on my rather high and pale forehead.”

  Mungo settled himself on his camp-stool and said: “Yes, old boy. If once the readers of The Times found out just how Edible everything is, it would be all up with the Wine and Food Society.” Then in a slow, dreamy voice, full of naked luxe and volupté, he began to recite sofdy: “Leeches a la rémoulade.… Giraffe Truffée aux Oignons. … Boa-constrictor Chasseur.… Ragoût de Flamingo with Water-Rat Flambé.…” He was sunk in a deep trance.

  Spalding could bear it no longer. He tip-toed out of the clearing and ran like a madman in the direction of Nairobi.…

  Now I didn’t tell you this story (said Antrobus) simply to upset you. No. Moreover, I hope you won’t repeat it. I should hate it to get back to the Household Cavalry. It simply illustrates the sort of thing one is up against in the Service. The next Christmas, when my Aunt Hetty asked me to choose two quotations for a sampler she was making me, it was really with Mungo in mind that I made my choice. One text reads: “By their Menus shall ye know them.” And the other: “Nothing Exceeds like Excess …”

  I trust you take my point?

  The F.O.’s senior courier running howling across the town

  5

  Where the Bee Sucks …

  One is at a loss (said Antrobus) when one looks back on those rough old times to account for the thin but rich vein of fatuity which ran through the character of Polk-Mowbray. Though in many ways an admirable Chief of Mission, a talented and self-disciplined man, nevertheless, he was in others simply a babe in arms, old boy, a babe in arms.

  The main thing I think was that he was subject to Sudden Urges. He was over-imaginative, he wa
s highly-strung. One week for example it would be Sailors’ Knots. It was all right so long as he only sat at his desk playing with string but this was not all. He grew reckless, ambitious, carried away by all this new knowledge. He took to demonstrating his powers at children’s parties, charity bazaars, cocktails—everywhere. And the awful thing was that his tricks never worked. He trussed the German Ambassador’s eldest son up so tightly that the child nearly suffocated; we just released him in time with the help of the garden shears. Drage had to pour a pail of sweet iced Cup all over the little swollen Teuton face to revive the brat. Then Polk-Mowbray tied himself to the Embassy door-knob and could not disengage. Quite a crowd gathered. It was humiliating. Once more we had to resort to the shears. I took to keeping a pair of them handy in my office. As Head of Chancery you can imagine how my responsibilities weighed upon me.…

  “Antrobus,” he used to say to me as he sat abstractedly making love-knots in a length of high quality manila. “Antrobus I am in the wrong profession. Only just realized it. I should have been sent to sea as a youth. Round the Cape in a sou’wester, what? That should have been my life, Antrobus.” Who was I, as his junior, to contradict?

  Two days later I came in to find his typist spliced to the Chancery radiator by one swollen wrist. She was in tears. Polk-Mowbray could not release her and nor could I. “Tut tut,” he kept saying. “And such a simple little running bowline too. It is most vexing. I was just trying to show Angela a wrinkle or two.” In the end, Morgan the Chancery guard was forced to pull the radiator out of the wall to free her. Water poured out into De Mandeville’s office and ruined a Persian carpet he prized. Obviously things had gone far enough. We had a secret meeting and delegated to Butch Benbow, the Naval Attaché, the task of crushing this little hobby before the whole Corps was infected by it. We knew that in his present mood Polk-Mowbray reverenced all seafaring men—even if they were martyrs to sea-sickness as Butch Benbow was.… I must say, though, he was clever, was Butch. But then you can always count on the Navy. He asked Polk-Mowbray outright whether he wasn’t afraid to go on playing with string at such a rate—and on such a scale?

  “Afraid?” said the Chief Of Mission mildly. “Why afraid?”

  “The last Ambassador to suffer from stringomania”, said Butch earnestly, “hung himself.” He went krik krik with his mouth and drew a string round his neck with his finger. Then, to complete the pantomime he rolled his eyes up into his skull until only the whites showed and stuck out a large—and I must say somewhat discoloured and contused tongue. “He’s quite right, sir,” I said. Polk-Mowbray looked from one to the other, quite startled. “But sailors do it all the time,” he said.

  “Sailors can untie themselves when they wish,” said Butch somewhat stiffly. “Besides they don’t walk in their sleep like you do, sir. The Ambassador I spoke of was also a sleep-walker.” This really made Polk-Mowbray jump. It was one of those lucky hits. Actually he had only once walked in his sleep—though the result was disastrous. I’ll tell you about it sometime. It was after a prawn curry devised by De Mandeville. He sat staring at us for a long time with popping eye. Then he sighed regretfully and we knew that for him the days of sail were numbered.

  “Thank you for your solicitude,” he said.

  Well, that was only an example: I really wanted to tell you about the infernal bees. One day I walked into his office and found him clad for the most part in a beekeeper’s veil and gauntlets and holding a sort of tuning-fork with which, as I understand it, you pick up the Queen. I was aghast, but he only waved airily and told me to sit down. “Antrobus,” he said, “I have the answer to the monotony of this post. The murmur of innumerable bees, dear boy. A pastoral hobby, suitable for diplomats. Something that harms no-one, and which yields honey for tea.” All around him lay magazines and brochures entitled Profitable Bee Keeping, The Hornet and Bee Guide, The Bee-Fancier—and that sort of thing. It was clear that he had been delving deeply into bee lore. “I have ordered a hive from Guernsey,” he said, “and asked the Bag Room to send them on.” “The Bag Room,” I faltered. “But surely livestock is on the proscribed list?” The people who make up the Diplomatic Bag as you know are pretty touchy and there are endless rules and regulations about what you can and can’t send by bag. Polk-Mowbray shook his head. “I’ve looked up the regulations,” he said, “there is nothing about bees. The chief prohibition is on liquids, but a hive of bees isn’t liquid.” I doubted the soundness of his reasoning. Liquids were proscribed because once in the old days a young attaché had sent a bottle of inferior Chianti back to his mother and it had exploded. Most of Lord Cromer’s despatches had to be hung out to dry before serving, and some of them actually turned green. The bottle must have been sinfully corked. But then Italian wine.… Anyway, I still didn’t like to think of the Bag Room trustingly accepting a cardboard box with a few holes in the top. “What if they make honey among the confidential despatches?” I said. He laughed airily. “Pouf!” he said. “There will be no difficulty about that. You will see.”

  I said no more. Seven days later a disgraceful scene took place on the platform at Venice. The bees, maddened by their solitude in the bag, broke out and stormed into the first-class carriage where Fothergill the courier was eating a ham sandwich. They stung him. He, poor fellow, was attached by a padlock to the sack and could not free himself in time. The next thing was the spectacle of the F.O.’s senior courier running howling across the town waving a bag out of which poured bees and confidential reports in ever increasing quantities. The other couriers, in a vain attempt to help followed him in a sort of demonic paper-chase which only ended at St. Marks, where Fothergill took sanctuary behind the altar. Here the darkness foxed the bees and they turned their attention to the priests. And our mail? Old man, it was all at the bottom of the Grand Canal. The consul general was forced to set out with a fleet of gondolas to rescue it before it fell into Unauthorized Hands. You can imagine what a scandal. Fothergill arrived beeless and bagless and under a threat of Excommunication. I thought this would cure Polk-Mowbray. Not a bit. The next lot were sent out by air in an airtight container and Drage was sent to meet them at the airport. A hive had been rigged up in the garage and Polk-Mowbray walked about the Residence in his veil waiting for his blasted bees with feverish professional impatience. At last the moment came. He knew just how to tip them out, and so on. But the bees took violent exception to the hive and within a matter of seconds were darkening the sky. They flew round and round in a desultory fashion at first and then with a roar flew into a drainpipe and emerged in the Chancery where they settled in the old tin stove by the bookcase. For a while everyone was on guard but the little creatures were quite well behaved. “Live and let live,” cried Polk-Mowbray sucking his thumb. (He had been stung.) “If the brutes want to live here we shall respect their wishes.” “I thought it a bit hard on the junior secretaries but what could I say?

  But somewhat to my surprise the bees gave no trouble whatsoever; indeed as time went on their subdued murmuring helped rather than hindered the composition of despatches. Polk-Mowbray rather lost interest in them: from time to time he would put on his veil and peer up the stove-pipe, calling upon them to be good boys and come out for a fly round, but much to everyone’s relief they ignored him. Gradually nobody thought of them at all. But alas! This was not to be the end of the story. When the bees finally did emerge they created unparalleled havoc. It was all due to a new secretary, Sidney Trampelvis, who had been insufficiently briefed, and who, on a whim, filled the stove with old betting slips he no longer needed and blithely set them alight. Now at this time there was one of those Ineffably Delicate Conferences taking place in the committee-room, presided over by no less a personage than Lord Valerian—you know, the Treasury chap. It was all about a trade pact—I must not reveal the details. Now this fellow Valerian—rather a bounder I thought—for some reason awed Polk-Mowbray. I don’t know why. Perhaps he had highly placed relations in the F.O. Perhaps it was his enormous beard which hung
down like a fire curtain and only parted occasionally when he moved to reveal a strip of O.E. tie. Typical of course. The rumour was that he used to wear his O.E. tie in bed, over his pyjama jacket. Well, we Wykehamists can only raise a lofty eyebrow over this sort of gossip—which by the way we never repeat. Well, there we all were in solemn conclave when there arose a confused shouting from the Chancery where Trampelvis was receiving the first thrust, so to speak. There followed a moment of silence during which Valerian cleared his throat and was about to launch himself again, and then there came a tremendous hum followed by the sound of running feet. I did not know Drage was capable of such a turn of speed. Into the room he bounded—perhaps with some vague idea of saving his Chief, perhaps of issuing a general gale warning. But it was too late. They were upon us in a compact and lethal cloud, flying very low and with stings at the ready. The confusion was indescribable. Have you ever seen bees on a fighter sweep, old boy? Ever felt them crawling up your trousers, down your collar, into your waistcoat? One would have to have nerves of steel not to shriek aloud. To judge by the noises we started making it would be clear that diplomatic nerves are made not so much of steel as of raffia. People began beating themselves like old carpets. Polk-Mowbray after one plaintive cry of, “My bees,” seized a poker and started behaving like Don Quixote with a set of particularly irritating windmills. Drage lapsed into Welsh religious verse punctuated by snarls and a sort of involuntary pole-jumping. I hid myself in the curtains and extinguished the bees as hard as I could. But the awful thing was that the Queen (I imagine it was her) made a bee-line (to coin a metaphor) for the Drury Lane beard of Lord Valerian who as yet had not fully grasped the situation. He looked down with ever-growing horror to find them swarming blithely in it, with the obvious intention of setting up house there. He was too paralysed to move. (I think personally that he used to spray his beard with Eau de Portugal before committee meetings and this must have attracted the Queen.) Mind you this all happened in a flash. Polk-Mowbray, what with guilt and solicitude for Valerian, was almost beside himself; no sacrifice, he felt, was too great to save the day. In a flash of gallantry he seized the garden shears which had been lying on the mantelpiece (pitiful relic of the days when he played with string) and with a manful though ragged snip … divested the Chairman of both beard and O.E. tie at one and the same stroke … I cannot say it improved Valerian’s temper any more than his appearance—Polk-Mowbray had sliced rather badly. But there it was. Walking wounded had to retire to the buttery for a Witch Hazel compress. The bees, having done their worst, flew out of the window and into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs across the road. I did not wait to see the sequel. I was so grateful for emerging from this business unscathed that I tip-toed back to my office and rang down to the buttery. I don’t mind admitting that I ordered a Scotch and Soda, and a stiffer one than usual. I would even admit (under pressure, and sotto voce) that you might have seen a faint, fugitive smile graven upon my lips. I was not entirely displeased, old man, with Polk-Mowbray’s method of dealing with an O.E. tie. In my view it was the only one. Was it, I wondered, too much to hope that it might become More General?