‘Well, sir?’ Vivien raised his eyes. They were amazingly quick when no longer screened by those long, curling lashes that had caused so many people to dub him an effeminate young fool. He’d failed every examination for which he’d ever sat; yet those eyes had induced old ‘Frosty’ to give him a chance in the only Government department where no examinations are required.
‘Damnable business,’ said Sir Charles. ‘As this was a civilian case we couldn’t stop it from getting into the papers.’
‘There have been others, then?’
‘Yes; six in the last week. The girl must have caught it from one of them. They’re all Service men, balloon-barrage aircraftmen or anti-aircraft gunners, and all of them were stationed in North London. This menace is being spread deliberately; but even the Nazis wouldn’t stoop as low as this. It must be some Hitler-worshipping maniac working on his own. Here’s a list of the men; they’re all on the isolation ship. Go and see what you can find out—and for God’s sake do it quickly.’
That afternoon, swathed from head to foot in a white overall and a mask of medicated gauze, Vivien questioned the semi-conscious victims on the isolation ship; but on his way back he had to admit to himself that he learned little of any value. One of the men had been walking-out with Sara Neilson, but they were all complete strangers to each other. None of them had been down to the docks where they might have been bitten by a plague-rat or caught it off some coloured seaman from the East, and they had all led very normal lives at their respective depots, spending their off-time in cinemas, at the dogs, in pubs, or at home with their families.
The following morning Sir Charles telephoned to say that another case had been reported in Aldershot. So Vivien went down to the ship again to be there when the latest victim was brought in.
Once again the results proved disappointing. The man had had twelve hours’ leave two days before. He had gone straight to his home in Hampstead, visited a cinema with his widowed mother, and talked to no one else whilst in London except when he had bought some cigarettes and taken a book out of the local ‘2d. Library’ on his way to the station. So, having taken the address of the tobacconist and the library, Vivien wished him a speedy recovery and departed.
That evening he took a bus up to Hampstead, and following the soldier’s directions arrived at the tobacconist’s. He asked for a packet of Player’s and while the girl was wrapping them up he remarked conversationally: ‘Get lots of soldiers coming in here these days, don’t you? Keeps you busy I expect.’
She tossed her head and he saw that she was a coquettish piece. ‘If it were only soldiers I wouldn’t mind—it’s the refugees I can’t abide.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes. I don’t mind telling you it’s quite a treat to serve an English customer. The Gateway to the Continent; that’s what we call these parts now—and the way these foreigners carry on,’ she continued, warming to her theme. ‘They don’t think twice about elbowing a lady off the pavement, and they never so much as say “pardon”, not them. Mr. Higgins—that’s my boss—was sayin’ only yesterday they ought to be ever so grateful for us letting them live here at all instead of behavin’ as though they own the earth. The way they look at a girl, too…’
Vivien nodded sympathetically. ‘It must be rotten for you.’
She smiled coyly. ‘Oh, well, things aren’t so bad reely—I mean I’ve got me own friends; then sometimes I get a chat with a nice gentleman like you…’
Vivien blushed furiously and, satisfied that the girl’s evident antipathy for foreigners together with the fact that the shop was British-owned rendered it a most unlikely centre for treasonable activities, made his escape.
He was still slightly flushed when he reached the 2d. Library. It was fairly full, so whilst waiting his turn he went round the shelves and, in the pretence of looking for a book, watched the greasy, bespectacled little man serving behind the counter. The librarian was definitely non-Aryan and spoke with a heavy accent. When it was Vivien’s turn he handed over the book of his choice and said:
‘I was recommended this thriller. I suppose I’m lucky to find a copy in now there are so many soldiers about. They all go for the lastest thrillers, don’t they?’
‘Some, sir, not all. Twopence, pless—excuse.’
The busy librarian turned to a young man in khaki who had come to the shop a few minutes after Vivien.
Having glanced at the title of the soldier’s selection he held it up for Vivien to see. It was How Green was my Valley, a serious novel of great beauty and power. Then, turning back to the soldier, he said: ‘One moment, pless,’ and went through a door at the back of the shop.
When he returned he was pushing a small silk Union Jack between the leaves of the book. ‘Jus’ a book-marker—a little present for you,’ his wizened face creased into a smile as he returned the book to the soldier.
‘Don’t I get one?’ Vivien asked.
‘No, no; they’re for our brave boys only. I am a refugee from Nazi persecution and I would to show…’ Before he could finish Vivien snatched the book from the astonished young soldier and grabbing the librarian by the scruff of his neck pushed him into the back room. There, on a table against one wall, were a row of glass test-tubes, the lower parts of which were opaque with bacilli cultures, a sterilising apparatus, and beside it a neat little pile of silk Union Jacks.
With one heave Vivien pitched the little man head foremost into the row of test tubes so that they shivered to fragments, making a score of cuts upon his face.
‘I’m not charging you for the moment,’ he said, ‘but I will if you ever come off the isolation ship.’
STORY XIV
IT WAS not until long after I had written this story that in 1938 I first saw Athens, from a giant seaplane. Later that spring I came to it again on my way back from Egypt and stayed there for some time. I also spent a good part of the spring of 1960 in Greece, Rhodes and Crete, in order to get an accurate background for my book, Mayhem in Greece, so now know far more about that country and its people.
Had I written the story after my visit I should certainly not have made the Greek workman in it such a villainous character. There are, of course, black sheep in every race, and it is stupid to pretend otherwise. That is why it is particularly silly for people to write to authors, as they sometimes do, expressing the strongest resentment or a personal grievance that one has portrayed one of their countrymen as the villain in a book. All fiction characters are imaginary, anyhow, and to paint a foreigner, or an Englishman for that matter, as an unscrupulous blackguard is no reflection whatever on his race.
But this is a special case. Among all the countries in which I have travelled I have found the Greeks unique in their attitude to tourists—and this story concerns tourists. The Greeks are so proud of their lovely country and its magnificent contribution to civilisation that their greatest joy is to show it to their visitors. They even refuse to take tolls from tourists who use their roads, and the Greek guides bring their charges presents of flowers, fruit, and wine for which they will take no payment. Therefore it is more than usually unlikely that a Greek workman would have sought to prey on foreigners as this one did in the tale.
Athens always reminds me of an amusing episode that occurred when I was there. The First Secretary of our Legation received my wife and myself very kindly, and one night during the Carnival he and his wife took us out to see the fun in a popular restaurant, together with the son of the Court Chamberlain.
Great merriment prevailed, and there was much throwing of paper streamers together with—a thing that I have never seen elsewhere—wax eggs of many colours containing confetti, which broke quite harmlessly upon one’s head. I’m sure the number of those eggs we used cost our host far more than the dinner.
Anyhow, about one in the morning, although the fun was still at its height, our party got up to leave. Immediately the band stopped the dance tune it was playing and broke into the British National Anthem, while every soul in the place
got to their feet and cheered as though they meant to lift the roof off.
As the only woman guest my wife went out first, bowing her acknowledgments for the unexpected courtesy to right and left, while the rest of us, looking a little self-conscious, trailed after her.
When we were outside I said to my host: ‘All the Greeks we’ve met have been charming to us, but I didn’t realise that they are so fond of the English that they give them public ovations.’
‘They don’t.’ he replied. ‘At least, I’ve never known them do so before, although we’re certainly very popular. I was a little startled myself, and I don’t quite understand it.’
Next morning we had the explanation. Princess Mary had arrived the previous afternoon on a visit to King George of Greece. My wife is not the least like Princess Mary to look at, but about the same age, and seeing her seated between a British diplomat and the son of the Court Chamberlain, the crowd in the restaurant had mistaken her for the Princess.
It is nice to think, though, that quite a number of Greeks must have gone home that night with the happy illusion that they had been hit in the eye by a wax egg sent with unerring aim by the King of England’s sister.
ATHENIAN GOLD
‘OF COURSE,’ I remarked casually, ‘there is no doubt that there are cases in which appropriating other people’s money is justified.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked the girl with the blue eyes.
I smiled my very nicest smile as I answered her question. It had taken no little skill on my part to manœuvre her a little way away from the rest of the party, which was being shown over the Acropolis.
‘Didn’t you know?’—with an airy gesture I included the Colonnade of the Parthenon, the Temple of Niki, and the Carytides of the Erechtheion—‘all these were built with stolen money.’
She shook her charming head. ‘The guide just said that they were built by Pericles—wasn’t he the King of Athens in those days?’
I laughed. ‘Lord Mayor would be nearer the mark; he pinched all the money to build these wonderful places out of the rates—he would have got seven years for embezzlement in these days; as it was, there was no end of a rumpus, but he had finished the job before they found him out.’
She favoured me with a most delicious smile, so I was encouraged to go on. ‘Think of all the millions we pay in rates every year in London—ten bob in the pound, and in Poplar it got to twenty-two and sixpence before someone put a stop to it—and what have we to show for it? Not a single thing. Old Pericles wanted to make his city beautiful, and the other aldermen were just about as stuffy and as narrow as ours are today, so he purloined the cash and left us these lovely things to marvel at.’
‘That is interesting,’ she said.
By this time we had dropped quite a way behind the others, and I did not mean that we should catch them up for a bit, if it was in my power to prevent it. I had seen her the night before in the lounge, so I knew she was staying in the same hotel. Now was my golden opportunity to ‘get acquainted’, as the Americans say.
I racked my brain for any odd bits of information about the Greeks that might have stuck there. I didn’t know much, but it was more than she did, and enough, anyhow, to retain her interest until we could get on to the safer ground of holidays in general, and where she liked dancing best in London.
The ice was nicely broken by the time we were walking down the giant staircase of the Prophylaer. Our motor-coach was waiting some little distance from the bottom, and the people were climbing in. A stout woman called in a querulous voice: ‘Do come along, Venice, dear,’ and the girl at my side hurried forward.
‘So her name is Venice—what a lovely name,’ I thought, and how splendidly it suited her. Those eyes—the blue of the Adriatic was never more dazzling, and the dark curling hair under the wide-brimmed hat—Venetian night! Of course we had to separate and take our respective seats in the big coach. I cursed the stupid rhapsodies of the little woman in the giglamps who sat on one side of me and the lunatic American who occupied the other. He said he didn’t reckon the Ar-cropolis was anything to go bats about—the Capitol in Washington had it beat by a long sight. They got involved in a heated argument with myself as a kind of no-man’s land: how I wished they would both shut up! I wanted peace and quiet to think about Venice—I wanted to think about Venice lots and lots.
On the way back to the hotel we pulled up at the ‘Tower of the Winds’. I lost not a moment. Directly the guide began his discourse I shook off the woman with the specs, and edged round to where Venice was standing. To my disgust I found she was talking to a little square, red-faced chap. I had seen him with her in the lounge the night before, so I had to bide my time.
The guide moved on; like a flock of sheep the party followed, I seized my chance. ‘Have you seen the tombs?’ I said.
‘Are there any here?’ she asked, surprised.
‘Rather,’ I assured her. The Tower was set in a small garden which boasted only a few dwarf acacias, sprouting among the lumps of fallen stone. I pointed to the far end. ‘They’re over there.’
The red-faced man had drifted forward with the rest of the gaping crowd; Venice walked beside me over the dusty grass. We passed through a ring of broken columns, and I glanced quickly from side to side, fervently praying that I might find something which I could tell her was a tomb.
‘Those are the tombs,’ I said, with a sigh of relief, as I pointed in the direction of some cave-like holes with iron gratings across, which I had spotted in the garden wall.
‘How very interesting.’ Venice smiled politely, but there was a sweet merriment in her blue eyes. I could see she didn’t believe me, and she went on quietly: ‘Do you know, I had an idea that the Athenians buried their dead outside the city! In fact, we went to see the street of tombs yesterday afternoon.’
‘Ah, those are very special ones,’ I answered quickly, and I hastened to change the subject. ‘I wonder what those vandals are going to put up on the other side of the wall?’
‘It seems a sin to build anything here, doesn’t it?’ she agreed. ‘Look, they’ve even cut a trench through into the garden.’
We strolled over to the trench—half a dozen dusty Greek labourers were digging in the far end of it; farther off a crowd of them were struggling with an enormous boiler. They were trying to get it into its place amongst the already completed cement foundations.
A little fat man in an absurd bowler hat stood on a pile of masonry giving instructions. We stood watching for a moment.
Just as we were about to turn away, Venice prodded the side of the trench with the point of her parasol.
‘What’s that?’ she said.
I looked, and the dull gleam of metal caught my eye. ‘By Jove,’ I. exclaimed, ‘I believe you’ve had a find!’ I stooped quickly and picked it up from the place where it rested on the lip of a small hole opened up by the earth being cut away. It was a gold coin, dull with the grime of centuries, but as I rubbed it with my thumb it shone! It was gold, right enough—gold never tarnishes.
‘What fun!’ she cried. ‘Do let me look.’
I passed it to her. I think I was even happier than she was—it only needed a little thing like that for us to become really friendly.
‘I wonder if there are any more in that hole?’ I said suddenly. ‘Some old fellow may have buried a hoard there ages ago.’
‘Do see—we’ll go shares if there are,’ exclaimed Venice, the generous darling.
I was just going to stoop down when I caught sight of one of the Greek labourers watching me. ‘Hide it!’ I said. ‘Quickly.’
She slipped it into her palm and gave me a puzzled look. ‘Why?’ she asked.
‘Got to be careful,’ I explained; ‘there’s sure to be some rotten law about all treasure trove being the property of the State in a place like this, and that chap’s got his eye on us—times have changed since Lord Elgin got away with the Parthenon marbles.’
‘Did he?’ she laughed. ‘How did he do tha
t?’
‘The Parthenon was almost perfect till two hundred years ago, then the fool Turks used it to store gunpowder in. One fine night it blew up, and most of the figures tumbled off in bits and pieces. Old Elgin came along a hundred years later and picked up the fragments. Not content with that, he pinched most of the figures that were still intact on the frieze; they’re in a special room at the British Museum today.’
‘Of course; the famous Elgin Marbles; yes, I’ve seen them, but however did he get them away?’
I had one eye on the Greek, but he was still watching us. ‘He just walked off with them,’ I answered. ‘You could do that sort of thing in those days; he jolly nearly lost the lot, though. They were so heavy that the ship he chartered to bring them home sank in the harbour, here; they were several years at the bottom of the sea, too, before he could get them up!’
‘I wish that workman would get on with his job,’ she said impatiently. ‘I’m dying to see if there are any more coins in that hole.’
‘ ’Ot, ain’t it, Guv’nor?’
I looked up quickly; the little man in the bowler hat had approached us along the wall. He was mopping his round head with a red-and-white spotted handkerchief. I suppose I looked surprised. One hardly expects to be addressed in broad Cockney by the foreman of a gang of labourers in Athens!
‘You’re right,’ I said; ‘it can’t be much fun working in this heat, it’s bad enough just rushing from place to place seeing things.’ And in fact the heat was grilling—the sun streamed down from a cloudless sky, so that the glare of it on the white stones pained one’s eyes.
‘Wish I was back in Blighty,’ he went on. ‘Steak and onions an’ a pint o’ bitter aside the fire on a foggy dye—that’s wot I’d like ter see.’
‘What are you doing in Athens?’ I asked.
‘Sent art by the firm, I was,’ he grumbled. ‘Said it ’ud be a six weeks’ job, they did, an’ it’s darn near six munfs—these here Greeks ’as a hidea that work’s bad fer their ’ealth, I reckon. I wouldn’t stick it but what it’s decent pay.’
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