Europe in the Looking Glass

by Morris, Jan, Byron, Robert

  Today we are more apathetic. But though moral issues can make but little appeal to a public sensibility that has seen a whole generation of its manhood exterminated, there exists perhaps in the naval base at Leros, a more concrete ground for interest. Not only from the words of Dr Zervos, but from accounts of actual eye-witnesses, did Coningsby and I afterwards corroborate the facts of the transformation of this rocky islet, with its excellent harbour, into a fortified stronghold calculated to command both the west coast of Asia Minor and the route between two of the most important channels of international communication, the Suez Canal and the Bosphorus. Aeroplane hangars have been built and big naval guns installed; a submarine base has been constructed; and storehouses and barracks are in process of erection – a final proof, if one is needed, that the Italians regard their occupation of the islands as permanent. But what purpose can a military, as well as a naval and air base serve in such a position? The answer is to be found in the immense mineral wealth of Lycia, the south west province of Asia Minor, and the coalfields of Heraklea on the Black Sea. Both of these the Italians make no secret of their ambition to possess. And, as a collateral expression of the new Mediterranean imperialism, may be taken the arrival not long ago in the harbour of Valetta of two boat-loads of black-shirted Fascisti shouting ‘Malta for the Italians’. In fact, to all intents and purposes, the followers of Mussolini appear, in the eyes of those few who are in a position to speak – independent visitors are not encouraged in the Dodecanese – to be preparing for a Mediterranean ‘Der Tag’, as surely as the Prussians were calculating the final subjection of France before 1914. Thus it is not surprising that the travesty of the Anglo-Italian debt settlement, synchronising as it did with our own dispute with the Porte over Irak, should have been regarded in certain quarters as cloaking some secret agreement of an anti-Turkish nature. That motive does actually lie behind the rapprochement that has momentarily sprung into being between Italy and Greece. Meanwhile the Dodecanesians suffer.

  ‘How long will the present state of things continue?’ I asked Dr Zervos.

  ‘We hope for the assistance of England or the League of Nations,’ he replied, ‘or else…’ He paused; then invoked the analogy of Crete, an island which, it will be remembered, carved its own independence.

  ‘And now,’ he continued, ‘allow me to present you with the book I have written on the subject of the Dodecanese. I will send it round to you, if you will be so good as to write your name and address on a piece of paper.’

  He handed me a pencil. As I wrote, his face seemed to light up; his eyes opened. Seizing both my hands in his, he swayed up and down in front of the long windows looking out on the hot sunlight of the narrow Athenian street, crying ‘The new Byron! The new Liberator!’

  England is not conscious of the veneration in which she is held by the country that she sponsored a century ago into a second being. The Byron legend is a living force; and it is to the English that the Dodecanesian Greeks look for their eventual deliverance from a regime that is robbing them not only of nationality, but their very means of livelihood. At the present time the man in the street is barely conscious even that the Dodecanese exists. But those individuals who are, cannot help feeling that it may not be long before the attention of the world is directed thither with unexpected suddenness. Of the death of Byron at ‘Missolonghi, April 19th, 1824’ John Drinkwater has written:–

  Let Italy remember that the clarion cause may one day sound again.

  CHAPTER X

  IT WAS A BANK HOLIDAY. On such occasions the population of Athens eats garlic. Impelled by the unflagging energy of Howe, we decided, as many other bank holiday-makers have decided before, upon a day in the country. Our party consisted of David, Simon and myself, Howe and Michael, and Komara and Cartaliss. The chauffeur had formerly been in the employ of the Royal Family; and his car which, we were obliged to hire owing to Diana’s indisposition, was built of wood on the lines of a summerhouse calculated to withstand bad weather. The heat was intense; burning dust and burning air scorched the exposed hands and face; while every portion of the body received the most acute blows as we lurched in and out of the dust-concealed craters, of which Greek roads consist. Once we stopped to pick grapes with which to quench our thirst; but as these themselves were almost boiling, it seemed better to wait until we could unpack the lunch that we had brought with us.

  After about twenty miles, we forsook the main road for a small track, eventually coming to a stop beneath a group of large and shady olive trees. Beneath these were seated parties of men and women eating and drinking at long tables, some already hilarious; to the back were one or two low white houses and a little church; in front, the sea. Moored to the shore was a single boat, of the same classical proportions as that which we had seen at Sunium. Howe, bent beneath an enormous amphora of Cretan wine two feet in height and one in diameter, led the way on board, followed by the rest of the party, bearing sandwiches, figs, goats’ cheese, grapes, eggs, local beer, and one glass, which the boatman immediately sat upon. We unloosed and sailed into the bay.

  Porto Raphti had been, in medieval times, the main harbour to Athens. The inlet, about two miles in width, is, like the entire coast of Greece surrounded by hills rising sheer from the sea, which curve right round to form a horseshoe. At the opening of this stands a tiny but very high conical island the approach to which is complicated by the presence of a small flat-topped rock, tenanted by rabbits and green bushes, which lies in front of it. Very leisurely we sailed over the surface of the bay, tacking from side to side. David was given the tiller to hold; and being unfamiliar with the evolutions of a sailing boat sent us some distance out of our course.

  Meanwhile we bathed. The water was alive. It seemed to breathe. It was as though a million sun-warmed beryls and ice-cold aquamarines were rushing silently over the skin; while a fundament of sapphire was sucking at the feet. The whole body shivered with conflicting exhilarations. Then as we lay about, blinking at the sun and peering into the darkened clarity of the depths, a soft gust of wind would drive the boat ahead; and we would swim after it and clamber in, to sit and bake and eat the goats’ cheese and eggs, and drink the Cretan wine. Round and round the enormous jar circulated, like some primitive loving-cup; while the contents, a strong and burning, thick, red drink, showed no signs of lessening. The boatman had his own supply in a smaller pot.

  Thus the afternoon passed. Had a strange tourist come upon the scene, he would have been astonished to behold this cargo of Ettys, Tukes and Alma Tademas, gliding like an oleograph over the bosom of the ocean. Gradually the sun began to drop in the heavens. And gradually we became aware that we were making no progress. At length Komara took the tiller.

  As we now drew closer, it became apparent that the island fell sheer into the sea, save at one point, to reach which entailed sailing between the rabbits on their rock and the further uninviting shore. Though this channel, now that we approached it, was a full three hundred yards in width, some combination of wind and current effectually prevented our accomplishing our objective. We tacked, we ran before the wind; we hauled up auxiliary sails at one end of the boat and let down others at the other. The wine upset; our clothes fell into the sea. We jumped from left to right and right to left, as the masts dipped into the waves and the main sail bellied in the air. Meanwhile the faintest syllable of breeze had vanished. Eventually, bereft of all hope, Simon and I threw ourselves miserably into the water, determined to make the island by some means or other. What had appeared to be a distance of about fifty yards, now expanded into a quarter of a mile. Gallantly we struggled on our voyage of exploration. As we neared the island, pebbles developed into boulders and boulders into cliffs. Faint with apprehension, we attained the first rocks. Above us the island rose like a gigantic spire. Below, fastened evilly upon their submarine promontories, the barbarous black points of myriad sea urchins threatened to harpoon our legs. With extreme care, we clambered from the water, and set off for the summit.

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sp; Meanwhile the others, guided by us, had succeeded in mooring the boat, and were following in our wake. Being shod they had the advantage of us. All nature had combined to hinder the ascent. Great, jagged cubiforms of rock, each facet sharpened to a razor-edge, alternated with every variety of thorned vegetation ever classified: creeping thorns and upright thorns; thorned ivy and thorned helibore; bushes displaying a regular octagonal mesh of thorns like rabbit-wire; thorns that protruded and shot back again like lizards’ tongues. And in addition, insects: vast horseflies, clouds of invisible gnats; midges; bluebottles; hornets, wasps and bees. While large rats, that can have subsisted only on each other, slunk lethargically to cover as we passed. The crannies were filled with potsherds and old bones. Part of an unornamented vase we discovered and several fragments, cast in wavy lines. Also a flower, not unlike a columbine in shape, with white, fleshy petals and a purple middle, that smelt of all the honeys in the world and yet resembled none of them. At last, after half an hour’s hard climbing, we topped the pin-point of the cone. And there, with her back toward us, seated majestically upon a pedestal of unmortared blocks, was the statue, white against the sky, with the purple shadows of evening already darkening the white folds of her drapery. We had viewed her from the mainland, a dot upon her pinnacle. Close at hand she would have measured perhaps ten feet in height; and her plinth as high again.

  Niccolo de Martoni, an Italian lawyer of the fifteenth century, made mention of yet another statue at Porto Raphti. A woman, the medieval legend ran, being pursued by a man, prayed that rather than fall into his clutches, both might be turned into stone. No statue, however, could ever have sat companion to that which now confronted us, placed as it was upon the very topmost point of a perfect cone. The older story is more beautiful, and at least as authentic. A wife, whose husband had sailed to the wars took up her residence upon the island, where she sat, day by day, surveying the horizon of the sea in expectation of his return. He never came. Summer and winter she watched. At last she died. And then, too late, he reappeared, and hearing the tale of her devotion erected this statue to her memory.

  Thus she has sat for a quarter of a hundred centuries watching, ever watching. Gradually her hands, feet and even head, have been sacrificed to the greed of thieves and antiquarians. Yet wind and rain and sun have healed the wounds, worn smooth the scars. And for all their headlessness, the eyes still strain for the longed-for sail; the absent hands still rest impassively on the slightly parted knees. The day was drawing to its close. An amethyst light crept over the water. Far below, the islets and lower hills assumed a dark and cold blue tinge, as their eastern slopes fell into the twilight. Simultaneously, the purple and brown of their opposite faces caught the fire-opal lights of the setting sun. Long shadows moved over the sea. The sky deepened. A breeze blew out of the night and was gone. And the changeless marble figure, poised between earth and sky and sea, seemed to incarnate that land, a land oblivious of the conqueror, whether Frank, Venetian or Turk, the land of Homer and of Byron, of Pericles and Venizelos, for whom men of all epochs and nationalities have fought and died; for no other reason than that she is Greece.

  During the descent John Lennox Howe performed one of those heroic acts of charity that enshrine men for ever in the hearts of their fellows. The feet of Simon and myself had become so cut and bruised that half-way down we found ourselves, even with the aid of dead mullein stumps, literally unable to move. For it was impossible to let the weight of the body fall upon the arms, as during the ascent. We were on the verge of tears from sheer pain, when the head of Howe, who had gone on ahead, suddenly reappeared beneath our feet. He had run down the whole way to the boat and returned with our shoes. By the time we were all embarked it was practically dark.

  The wind had died down, and the boatman grew agitated as the lights began to twinkle out from the furthest distant inland point of the bay. Despite his entreaties, we insisted on another bathe; then took the oars and rowed in turns, with only the light to guide our direction. It was nearly eight o’clock by the time that the boat was moored to the miniature stone jetty where we had found it. A drone of singing came faintly from under the olive trees; and a group of human beings straggled out of the darkness to watch our arrival, as we hurriedly donned such of our clothes as could be found in the confusion. Still carrying the Cretan wine, we stepped gingerly ashore and felt our way along a little path lapped by the ripples, finally seating ourselves at a trestle table beneath one of the trees.

  Around us were other long tables; and at them other parties of holiday-makers, now perhaps feeling the effects of the day’s drinking; women in cotton dresses; men, swarthy and burned, with black moustaches and black felt hats. From the lower branches of the trees depended receptacles like milk-cans, on either side of which protruded little pipes. These gave forth flares of lighted acetylene, which cast bright gleams of light and long deep shadows as they swayed gently in the soft breeze. The door of the church was open and the amber light of invisible candles glowed faintly out of the darkness. At the back another lighted doorway betokened the inn. After calling for some beer, Komera rose and went inside. We were all tired after such a day in the water, and sat with our heads on our hands, half asleep. The Greeks chattered gently, or hummed a tune in floating, quavering voices, that seemed like the pipes of Pan borne down the ages. And through all, the sea murmured faintly against the earthen shore. Suddenly at one of the tables, the merriest, there was a combined straightening of shoulders and an in-taking of breaths; silence; a man’s finger raised; then dropped; and there burst upon the listeners, like reed music over a valley, the delicate lilt of mashers and dundrearies: ‘Ta ra ra ra boom de ray; Ta ra ra ra boom de ray; Ta ra ra ra boom de ray; Ta ra ra ra boom…’

  Our trance was disturbed by the reappearance of Komara, bearing a dish of scrambled eggs and chopped bacon, cooked with his own hands. What other dish could have added such superlative ecstasy to a night already perfect? Eventually, scarcely able to keep awake, we sought the refuge of the car, whence we gazed at the stars and the acetylene flares silhouetting the olives and the shadowy revellers beneath them. At last we drove off back to Athens. The voices seemed to wail farewell, the sea to murmur softly, ‘Come again’. Writing now, three months later, with the wind in the branches of the forest and a paraffin lamp illumining the snowflakes as they fall outside the window pane, it murmurs still, ‘Come again. Come back. Come again. Come back. Come.’

  CHAPTER XI

  THE LAST SATURDAY IN SEPTEMBER was imminent; and with it, the last boat. The prospect of four nights in the Orient Express, was, for reasons of temperature and expense, not sufficiently attractive to warrant a few days’ extra delay. I decided to leave midday on Saturday. The morning arrived. Simon said that he was coming too. I walked across Constitution Square and reserved two berths at Ghiolmamn’s travel bureau. On my returning to pack, Simon decided not to come and went to his bath instead. Eventually the moment of departure materialised.

  First appeared Michael’s servant. For him we hired a car, in which, accompanied by my trunk, valise, and the deck chair that we had bought at Brindisi, he set off to Piraeus. Escorted by Michael, I went round and said goodbye to Howe in his office behind the Legation; and also to Atchley, who for thirty years has been the mainspring of Anglo-Greek relationships. In the midst of these farewells the Charge d’Affaires, named Rathbone, suddenly entered the room bearing a bronze cat that he had purchased at a booth in Shoe Lane – would I, if passing through Paris, convey it to an Armenian dealer in the Rue de la Paix, so that he, Rathbone, might learn whether it was genuine before paying for it? Naturally delighted to render any service to our diplomatic body, I wedged the animal into my overcoat pocket; and Michael and I, now joined by David, proceeded to the underground. The train was filled to bursting with the lunch-hour rush. When we reached Piraeus, the luggage had not yet arrived. We waited disconsolately about, then struggled through the customs and into a little boat – myself, Michael, Michael’s servant, the ov
ercoat, the luggage and the two boatmen. David, having no diplomatic pass, was forced to remain behind the railings with which the quay was surrounded. It was with feelings of despair that I bade him goodbye.

  The boat pushed her way among her fellows like an angry bee in an angrier hive. Forty yards out, the Andros, of the Byron line, a drab and insignificant vessel, was pointed out as my homeward barque. The contemplation of four days and nights in her confined bosom left me stunned. We climbed up the side. Michael introduced me to a junior officer named Joannides. His French was scarcely better than mine, so that for the rest of the voyage we avoided one another like rival plagues. Then Michael said goodbye and went. The utter desolation of finding myself prisoner on a very small boat, in company with a cargo of strange Greeks, seemed almost insupportable. Tears welled to my eyes, as slowly we steamed out of harbour, and beyond the masts and funnels appeared the brown hills; the far-distant white-pillared Parthenon; Lykabettus; Hymettus and the mountains. I went below and stifled my grief in a plate of cold ham.

  My cabin was next the dining room. It contained berths for four arranged in the form of two Ls. I appropriated the one immediately beneath the porthole, so that my dormitory-mate, whose name appeared from the passenger list to be Kalomati, should have no chance of regulating the supply of air. Suspecting, as was the case, that this berth had been allotted to him, I hastily unpacked my bag all over it. No sooner was this accomplished than there entered a small, stocky man with a bristling grey moustache, a ponderous, grizzled head, black tie, pearl pin, double-breasted coat, white flannels and parti-coloured shoes