The Europe That Was

by Geoffrey Household

  Sergeant Torbin took the bowl in his hands with reverent precautions. Round the bottom, which he had not seen before, two winged horses pulled a chariot. He wondered what on earth he would ever have dared to do with so exquisite a piece if he had bought it. He might have presented it to the squadron but, like himself, the squadron had no safe place to keep it.

  ‘How the devil did you know I was a colonel?’

  Bill did not like to say that he couldn’t possibly be anything else unless it were a general, but he was saved by the bell. The church clock struck six.

  ‘Ah, they’ll be opening now,’ said the colonel with satisfaction. ‘How about a drink?’

  Bill Torbin murmured doubtfully that his train left at 6.30. The colonel announced that Falkstead station was only two minutes from the pub, and that he himself had often done it in eighty seconds flat. Considering the noble expanse of checked waistcoat, Bill thought it unlikely. But you never knew with these tough old Englishmen. Half of the weight might be muscle.

  The colonel led the way to The Greyhound. It was a handsome little pub, built of white weather-boarding with green shutters, but Torbin had no eyes for it. He was watching the precious cylix, which was being swung by one of its handles as carelessly as if it had been a cheap ash-tray. The sergeant decided that the British had no reverence for any antiquities but their own.

  In the bar were four cheerful citizens of Falkstead drinking whisky, two boat-builders drinking beer with the foreman of the yard, and, at a table near the window, the auctioneer and his clerk keeping up respectability with The Greyhound’s best sherry. The colonel, disconcertingly changing his manner again, greeted the lot of them as if he had just arrived from crossing the North Sea single-handed, and enthroned the cylix on the bar.

  ‘What have you got there, Colonel Wagstaff?’ the innkeeper asked.

  ‘That, Mr Watson, is a Greek drinking bowl.’

  ‘Never saw ’em used,’ Mr Watson answered, ‘not when I was a corporal out there.’

  Wagstaff explained that it was an old one, which possibly had not been used for two thousand years.

  ‘Two thousand four hundred,’ said the auctioneer, taking his pipe out of his mouth, ‘at the very least.’

  ‘Time it was!’ Mr Watson exclaimed heartily.

  ‘What are you going to put in it?’ the colonel asked.

  ‘Who? Me?’ Watson said, not expecting to be taken literally.

  ‘But you can’t start drinking out of it!’ Bill protested.

  ‘It’s what it is for, isn’t it?’

  ‘And an unforgettable experience for our American friend,’ said the auctioneer patronizingly, ‘to drink from the same cup as Socrates—or at any rate someone who knew the old boy.’

  ‘Well, seeing as it’s this once,’ Mr Watson agreed, ‘what would you say, colonel?’

  ‘That Burgundy which you bought for the summer visitors is quite drinkable.’

  The cylix was about two inches deep, and just held the bottle which Mr Watson emptied into it. The terracotta flushed under the wine. The figures blossomed.

  ‘See?’ said Colonel Wagstaff. ‘Like rain in a dry garden!’

  The company gathered round the bar. Wagstaff raised the bowl in both hands and took a hearty pull.

  ‘Tastes a bit odd,’ he remarked, passing it on to Torbin. ‘Still, you can’t have everything.’

  The loving cup went round the eleven of them and Mr Watson.

  ‘Fill her up again,’ said the auctioneer.

  The next round was the colonel’s, and after that there was a queue for the fascinating honour.

  ‘If you take the 7.45 bus to Chesterford,’ Colonel Wagstaff suggested, ‘there’s sure to be a train from there.’

  Bill was beginning to feel for the first time that England had human beings in it. But it was not the facile good-fellowship which persuaded him to wait for the bus. The bowl had become a local possession, and The Greyhound a club in which he was welcome to drink but might not pay. He was jealous. He could not bring himself to leave his goddess skittering along the bar in pools of Burgundy without his own hands ready to catch her.

  The auctioneer said a fatherly good-bye to all, trod upon his bowler hat and left. Bill was astonished at the dignity with which he ignored his oversight and knocked out the dent. He looked at the clock. He felt bound to mention that it was 7.40.

  ‘By Jove, so it is!’ said the colonel, taking his moustache out of the bowl.

  Till 7.45 he addressed them shortly on the value of punctuality in the military life, and then they all piled out into the street, led by Colonel Wagstaff, the bowl and Sergeant Torbin, and cantered through the village to the yard of the Drill Hall where the Chesterford bus was waiting.

  It was a typical, dead, East Anglian bus stop on the edge of the North Sea marshes. The bus was not lit up, and there was no sign of the driver. The colonel swore it was a disgrace and that Sergeant Torbin would never catch his train at Chesterford.

  ‘What time does it go?’ Bill asked.

  ‘I don’t know. But you might very easily miss it. It’s a damned shame! Here’s a gallant ally trusting conscientously to the Chesterford Corporation to get him to camp before midnight, and he lands in the guardroom because their bloody buses can’t run to time! I’ve a good mind to teach them a lesson. Anyone want to go to Chesterford?’

  About half a dozen of them agreed that it would be a reasonable act of protest to run the bus themselves, whether they wanted to go to Chesterford or not.

  Wagstaff opened the driver’s door and switched on all the lights. Bill was fresh from a lecture in which he had been told to behave in England with the formality of the English. He decided that he had better be American and hire a car. But the colonel had tossed the bowl on to the driving seat and was just about to sit on it. Bill rescued it with a quarter of an inch to spare, and found himself on the way to Chesterford.

  The colonel was roaring along between the hedges when the auctioneer’s clerk leaned forward and tapped Bill on the shoulder.

  ‘Sergeant,’ he said. ‘It is 8.45 the bus starts, not 7.45. You had better go back and catch it.’

  Wagstaff jumped on the brake, and Sergeant Torbin just managed to save the bowl from violent contact with the dashboard. Several of the passengers slid on to the floor, where they continued to sing ‘Down Mexico Way’ half a bar behind the rest.

  ‘So it is,’ the colonel exclaimed. ‘Changed it last week! Well, I’ll teach ’em to monkey with the timetable.’ And he let in the clutch, cursed the gears, found top and put his foot down.

  Bill was still wondering whether the auctioneer’s clerk was sober or whether his liquor just made him more clerkly, when the man leaned forward again and tapped the colonel. ‘Has it occurred to you, sir,’ he suggested precisely, ‘that it might be thought you had stolen a corporation bus?’

  Sergeant Torbin cuddled the bowl, and this time only bumped his elbow.

  ‘We’ll get out here, chaps,’ the colonel said, pulling up so close to the hedge that they couldn’t and had to get out by the driver’s door—all except the boat-builder’s foreman who broke the glass over the emergency exit and managed to make it work. ‘The Bull is just up the road.’

  The Bull was a small riverside pub, empty except for two farm hands and a ferryman. It fulfilled, far better than The Greyhound, all Bill’s expectations of the quiet English inn.

  ‘Mr Baker and gentlemen,’ Wagstaff announced from the head of the procession, ‘we are celebrating the acquisition of a Greek drinking bowl. Could we allow it to go to America? Never!’

  ‘Say, why not?’ Bill asked.

  ‘Because they don’t drink wine in America. They drink gin.’

  Bill was about to say that it was not true, and that works of art were appreciated a darn sight more than … but he was too late.

  ‘What’s wrong with filling her up with gin?’ asked the boat-builder’s foreman.

  ‘Neat?’ protested Mr Baker.

  �
��It is indeed long,’ said the colonel, ‘since she was accustomed to those heights of felicity where you, Mr Baker, would be legally bound to refuse to serve us. So slowly, slowly. Gin and tonic. Half and half. Old Greek custom. Always put water with it. Not the men we are today.’ And he began to sing ‘Land of Our Fathers’ at the top of his voice.

  Mr Baker had just filled the bowl when Torbin’s ear, trained by conversation in the presence of jet engines, heard the bus draw up outside. He shouted the news at Wagstaff.

  The colonel sprang into action. ‘Right, Bill! Our fault! Won’t get you mixed up in it!’

  He pushed the sergeant on to the window-seat, made him lie down and covered his uniform with a couple of overcoats. When the bus driver, accompanied by a full load of cops from a police car, crashed through the door, he was kneeling at Bill’s side and bathing his forehead with gin and tonic out of the bowl.

  ‘Now which of you gentlemen—’ a policeman began.

  The colonel kept his handkerchief firmly over Bill’s mouth and explained in a voice which was the very perfection of quiet respectability that he had bought a priceless Athenian cylix at the late vicar’s late niece’s auction, and that an American art dealer had endeavoured to steal it from him outside The Greyhound.

  Foiled by these gallant citizens and especially by this poor fellow—he tenderly mopped Bill’s forehead with gin—the art dealer had made his escape in a corporation bus. They followed, some on foot, some clinging to the vehicle. The bus stopped suddenly just down the road, and the fellow bolted into the darkness before they could get hold of him.

  ‘There was a tall, dark American sergeant in Falkstead this afternoon,’ said another cop.

  They all swore that it wasn’t the sergeant. No, a civilian. A little, fairish chap.

  ‘And six of you couldn’t stop him?’

  ‘He had a gun,’ said the boat-builder’s foreman, and choked into his handkerchief.

  The bus driver, having no official duty to believe unanimous witnesses, went straight to the point which interested him.

  ‘Which of you blokes broke the window above the emergency door?’

  ‘I did,’ answered the colonel magnificently. ‘It was an emergency.’

  Mr Baker polished glasses and said nothing. The ferryman and two farm hands waited patiently for free drinks. After telephoning a description of the art dealer to county headquarters, the police escorted the bus back to Falkstead.

  ‘Now, Bill,’ said the colonel, ‘be reasonable! Whatever is the use of having allies if one can’t put the blame on them?’

  ‘Hell!’ Bill replied, and accidentally kicked over the bowl which was on the floor at his feet. He picked it up and glared protectively at the lot of them.

  ‘Bill, you have upset these gentlemen’s liquor.’

  Sergeant Torbin was in honour bound to have her filled up again. He discovered that he was delighted to do so, and reminded his conscience that the Athenian potter must have designed his wares to stand up to an evening’s amusement.

  What with one of them pointing out that the horses at the bottom seemed to trot whenever the tonic water fizzed on to the gin, and another swearing it was possible to hold a full bowl by one handle without spilling any—which it wasn’t—the strength of the cylix was certainly astonishing. Mr Baker put the auctioneer’s clerk to bed upstairs—explaining that he didn’t want his house to get a bad name by turning him loose on the road—and that left Bill aware that he was the only member of the party with any worry at all in the back of his mind. Not that he hadn’t been drinking his share. But in early days at The Greyhound, when the rest of them had been laying a foundation of Burgundy as if it were beer, he was too overcome by his respect for the bowl to commit more than a reverent sip whenever it came round to him.

  At 9.30 he suggested that he ought to telephone for a taxi.

  ‘Don’t you bother!’ the colonel said. ‘We’ll cross the ferry here, and then it’s only half a mile to the junction. He’ll get a train from there, won’t he, Mr Baker?’

  Mr Baker consulted a sheet behind the bar, and said pointedly that if he hurried, he would.

  They all piled out on to the landing-stage, and Mr Baker locked up the bar though there was half an hour to go before closing-time. The ferryman unchained his punt, and twice took Bill and the colonel nearly over to the other side. The first time he turned round in midstream without noticing it, and the second time he had to put back because the boat-builder’s foreman had fallen off the jetty while waving good-bye.

  Bill and Colonel Wagstaff landed and set off along the creek-side path in single file—until, that is, Bill noticed that Wagstaff had left the bowl behind in the punt.

  ‘Now, see here, colonel,’ Bill recommended when they had recovered it, ‘you let me carry that!’

  ‘OK,’ said the colonel. ‘Catch!’

  After a quarter of a mile, Wagstaff, who was leading, sat down on a tussock of grass and began to laugh. ‘Bill—Guineas!’

  Bill grunted. He had reached the sentimental stage of liquor, and his eyes were dramatically wet as soon as he was reminded that for a dollar and a half and a little courage he could have saved a priceless possession from the inevitable smash.

  ‘Not fair! I knew guineas would fox you. Unsporting to take advantage of an ally. Funny at the time, yes! Bill, I present you with the bowl.’

  ‘No, colonel, I won’t take her.’

  ‘Got to take her.’

  ‘Say, we’ve had a lot to drink, and—’

  ‘Boy, I was military attaché in Moscow.’

  ‘Well, that sure makes a difference, colonel, but—’

  It did. By the standards of his experience, Bill could not describe the colonel as drunk. He was merely incalculable.

  ‘Also,’ said Wagstaff repentantly, ‘I have used it as a common utensil.’

  ‘Not yet,’ Bill answered. ‘I guess you would if I wasn’t carrying it.’

  ‘But from now on it is yours.’

  ‘Then you let me pay for it,’ said Bill, handing the bowl to the colonel and feeling for his wallet.

  ‘Not allowed to pay for it. That’s an order from a superior officer. Even in retirement, sergeant, certain privileges attach themselves to—’

  ‘Order, my foot!’

  ‘If you won’t take it, I’ll pitch the bloody thing in the river.’

  ‘Go on! You pitch it!’

  The colonel did, with a neat back-handed action of the wrist. The cylix flew like a discus into the darkness and landed with a plop on the tidal mud.

  Bill Torbin, after one horrified stare at the personified obstinacy of the English, drunk or sober, plunged after it. He squelched out towards the water, while the smell of primeval slime rose from the pits where his legs had been.

  The sounds of progress became less violent. There was silence, except for the shunting of a distant train.

  ‘Colonel, I’m stuck,’ Bill said.

  ‘Nothing to bother about, boy! We’re used to it round these parts. Lie on your stomach!’

  ‘I can’t. I’m up to my chest.’

  ‘Hard under foot?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be talking to you if it wasn’t.’

  ‘Then I’ll come and pull you out.’

  The colonel advanced over his knees and took off his coat. Keeping hold of one sleeve, he swung the other over to Bill. Between cuff and cuff were a good eight feet.

  ‘I think I see her,’ Bill said. ‘You pull me clear and then I’ll sort of swim.’

  Wagstaff pulled. The sergeant emerged as far as the thighs, and flung himself forward down the slope. The object was an old white-enamelled basin with a hole in it.

  Bill managed to turn, and floundered back like a stranded porpoise until the choice between sinking head first or feet first became urgent. The colonel took a step forward and flung the coat again. He, too, went in up to his chest.

  ‘I guess this mud is covered at high water,’ Bill said after a pause.

  �
��Float a battleship!’ Wagstaff agreed cheerfully. ‘But there’s an hour in the ebb still. Nothing to worry about. Round here everybody knows where everybody is.’

  ‘Well, if you say so, colonel.’

  ‘If I’m not home when the pubs shut,’ Wagstaff explained, ‘my housekeeper will telephone The Greyhound because she was expecting me home to dinner. Mr Watson will telephone Mr Baker. Mr Baker will telephone the junction. The stationmaster will say we never arrived, and somebody will come and look for us. You’ll see. Cold, this mud isn’t it?’

  The comment struck Sergeant Torbin’s mixed drinks as excessively funny. He began to hoot with laughter. The colonel, after two or three staccato explosions like an ancient truck protesting against the starting handle, warmed up and joined the racket an octave lower.

  ‘But you shouldn’t … you shouldn’t …’ yelled Torbin, trying to control himself, ‘you shouldn’t have drunk out of her.’

  ‘Only pity for her, Bill. Only pity for her. How would you like to spend sev–seventy years on the vicar’s mantelpiece remembering Alci–bibi–biades?’

  Bill pulled himself together, mourning perfection farther out in the mud. ‘She was safer there,’ he said solemnly.

  ‘At the mercy of any passing housemaid. Euphemia, she was called. I knew her well. But out of this nettle, safety, we pluck—’

  ‘You’ve got it wrong.’

  ‘Shakespeare, Bill.’

  ‘Common heritage, Colonel.’

  ‘What I mean to say is that when we pick it up it’s yours.’

  ‘Can’t get at ten guineas. Under the mud.’

  ‘Then that’s settled. Do you know any songs to pass the time, Bill?’

  ‘If I had my ukulele—’

  ‘I’ll do that bit,’ said the colonel, ‘if you don’t mind it being a banjo.’

  Bill’s repertoire was good for an hour and a half.

  ‘I could do with a drink,’ Wagstaff said, giving a final plunk to his imaginary strings.

  ‘That search party is sure taking a long time, colonel.’

  ‘Must have slipped up somewhere. You’d have thought they would have heard us.’

  ‘Your turn now.’

  ‘I was considering that question in the intervals,’ Wagstaff said. ‘The trouble is, Bill, that the only songs I can ever remember were acquired during the sheltered life of school and university, and are of such monstrous indecency that even sergeants’ sing-songs have been closed to me.’