Authors: Gerald Durrell
With this mysterious remark, he departed, loping off like a hound.
‘Bridge? What bridge?’ asked Mother, bewildered.
‘Oh, it’s part of the show,’ said Leslie. ‘Among other things, they build a pontoon bridge over an imaginary river, cross it, and then blow it up to prevent the enemy following.’
‘I always thought Boy Scouts were peaceful,’ said Mother.
‘Not the Corfiote ones,’ said Leslie. ‘They’re probably the most war-like inhabitants of Corfu.’
At that moment Theodore and Kralefsky, who were to share the car with us, arrived.
‘There has been… er… you know… a slight hiatus over the salute,’ Theodore reported to Leslie.
‘I knew it!’ said Leslie angrily. ‘That fool of a Commandant! He was too airy-fairy when I spoke to him. I told him those Venetian cannons would burst.’
‘No, no… er… the cannons haven’t burst. Er… um… at least, not
yet
,’ said Theodore. ‘No, it is a problem of timing. The Commandant was very insistent that the salute should be fired the moment the King’s foot touches Greek soil. The… er… um… difficulty was apparently to arrange a signal from the docks that could be seen by the… gunners in the… er… you know… the fort.’
‘So what have they arranged?’ asked Leslie.
‘They have sent a corporal down to the docks with a forty-five,’ said Theodore. ‘He is to fire it the moment
before
the King sets foot on the shore.’
‘Does he know how to fire it?’ asked Leslie sceptically.
‘Well… er…’ said Theodore, ‘I had to spend quite some time trying to make him see that it was dangerous to put it… um… you know… loaded
and
cocked into his holster.’
‘Silly fool, he’ll shoot himself through the foot like that,’ said Leslie.
‘Never mind,’ said Larry, ‘there’s bound to be some bloodletting before the day is out. I hope you brought your first aid kit, Theodore.’
‘Don’t say things like that, Larry,’ begged Mother. ‘You make me feel quite nervous.’
‘Ifs you’re readys, Mrs Durrells, we oughts to gets going,’ said Spiro, who had appeared, brown, scowling, looking like a
gargoyle on holiday from Notre Dame. ‘The crowd’s getting very tense.’
‘Dense, Spiro,
dense
,’ said Margo.
‘That’s what I says, Misses Margo,’ said Spiro. ‘But don’ts you worry. I’ll fix ’em. I’ll scarce them out of the way with my horn.’
‘Spiro really ought to write a dictionary,’ said Larry as we climbed into the Dodge and wedged ourselves on to the capacious leather seats.
Since early morning the white dusty roads had been jammed with carts and donkeys bringing peasants into the capital for the great event, and a great pall of dust covered the countryside, turning the plants and trees by the roadside white, hanging in the air like microscopic flakes of snow. The town was now as full or fuller than it was on St Spiridion’s day and great bevies of people were eddying across the Platia in their best clothes like clouds of wind-swept blossoms. Every back street was jammed with humanity mixed with donkeys, the whole moving at a glacier pace, and the air was full of excited chatter and laughter, the pungent smell of garlic, and the all-pervading smell of mothballs, the sign of special clothes carefully extracted from their places of safe-keeping. On every side you could hear brass bands tuning up, donkeys braying, the cries of the street vendors, and the excited screams of children. The town quivered and throbbed like a great, multi-coloured, redolent beehive.
Driving at a snail’s pace, honking his great, rubber-bulbed horn to ‘scarce’ the uncaring populace out of the way, Spiro drove us down to the docks. Here all was bustle and what passed for efficiency; a band was lined up, its instruments sparkling, its uniforms immaculate, its air of respectability only slightly marred by the fact that two of its members had black eyes. Next to it was a battalion of local soldiery, looking remarkably clean and neat. Church dignitaries, with their carefully combed, white, silver, and iron-grey beards, bright and gay as a flock of parrots in their robes, chatted animatedly to each other, stomachs bulging,
beards wagging, plump, well-manicured hands moving in the most delicate of gestures. Near the dockside where the King would come ashore stood a forlorn-looking corporal; obviously his responsibilities were weighing heavily on him for he kept fingering his revolver holster nervously and biting his nails.
Presently, there was a surge of excitement and everyone was saying, ‘The King! The King! The King is coming!’ The corporal adjusted his hat and stood a little straighter. What had given rise to this rumour was the sight of Marko Paniotissa’s yacht putting out into the bay and lumbering to and fro while Marko, in the stern, could be seen unloading bundle after bundle of Greek flags.
‘I didn’t see the rocket, did you?’ asked Margo.
‘No, but you can’t see the headland from here,’ said Leslie.
‘Well, I think Marko’s doing splendidly,’ said Margo.
‘It’s certainly a very pretty effect,’ said Mother.
And indeed it was, for several acres of the smooth sea were covered with a carpet of tiny flags which looked most impressive. Unfortunately, as we were to learn within the next hour and a half, Marko’s timing had been at fault. The man he had stationed up in the north of the island to fire the signal rocket was most reliable but his identification of ships left a lot to be desired and so what eventually appeared was not the ship conveying the King but a rather grubby little tanker on its way to Athens. This in itself would not have been such a grave error but Marko, carried away as so many Corfiotes were that day, had failed to check on the glue with which the flags were stuck to the little wooden pieces that allowed them to float. As we waited for the King we were treated to the sight of the glue disintegrating under the influence of sea water and several thousand Greek flags sinking ignominiously to the bottom of the bay.
‘Oh, poor Marko, I feel so sorry for him,’ said Margo, almost in tears.
‘Never mind,’ said Larry consolingly, ‘perhaps the King likes little bits of wood.’
‘Um… I don’t… you know… think so,’ said Theodore. ‘You see how they’re all shaped like a little cross. That in Greece is considered a very bad omen.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Mother. ‘I do hope the King won’t realize that Marko did it.’
‘If Marko is wise, he’ll go into voluntary exile,’ contributed Larry.
‘Ah, here he comes at last,’ said Leslie as the King’s ship sailed majestically across several acres of little wooden crosses, as though ploughing its way through a marine war cemetery.
The gang-plank was lowered, the band struck up blaringly, the Army came to attention, and the crowd of church dignitaries moved forward like a suddenly uprooted flower bed. They reached the bottom of the gang-plank, the band stopped playing, and to a chorus of delighted ‘Ah’s’ the King made his appearance, paused briefly to salute, and then made his way slowly down the gangway. It was the little corporal’s great moment. Sweating profusely, he had moved as close to the gang-plank as he could and he had his gaze riveted on the King’s feet. His instructions had been explicit; three paces before the King stepped off the gangway and on to Greek soil he was to give the signal. This would give the fort enough time to fire the cannon as the King stepped ashore.
The King descended slowly. The atmosphere was tense with emotion. The corporal fumbled with his holster and then, at the crucial moment, drew his forty-five and fired five rounds approximately two yards away from the King’s right ear. It immediately became obvious that the fort had not thought to tell the Welcoming Committee about its signal and so the Committee, to say the least, was taken aback, as was the King and, indeed, as were we all.
‘My God, they’ve amputated him,’ screamed Margo, who always lost both her head and her command over English in moments of crisis.
‘Don’t be a fool, it’s the signal,’ snapped Leslie, training his field glasses on the fort.
But it was obvious that the Welcoming Committee thought much the same as my sister. As one man, they fell on the unfortunate corporal. He, white-faced and protesting, was pummelled and thumped and kicked, his revolver was torn from his grasp and he was hit smartly on the head with it. It is probable that he would have come to some serious harm if at that moment the cannons had not blared out in an impressive cumulus cloud of smoke from the ramparts of the fort and vindicated his action.
After this all was smiles and laughter, for the Corfiotes had a keen sense of humour. Only the King looked a trifle pensive. He climbed into the official open car and a snag made its appearance; for some reason the door would not lock. The chauffeur slammed it, the sergeant in charge of the troops slammed it, the band leader slammed it, and a passing priest slammed it but it refused to stay shut. The chauffeur, not to be defeated, backed up, and took a run and kicked it violently. The car shuddered but the door remained obdurate. They tried string, but there was nothing to tie it to. Eventually, since there could be no further delay, they were forced to drive off with the Nomarch’s secretary hanging over the back of the seat and holding the door shut with one hand.
Their first stop was at St Spiridion’s Church so that the King could make his obeisances to the mummified remains of the saint. Surrounded by a forest of ecclesiastical beards, he disappeared into the dark depths of the church, where a thousand candles bloomed like a riot of primroses. It was a hot day and the chauffeur of the King’s car was feeling a bit exhausted after his fight with the door so, without telling anyone, he left the car parked in front of the church and nipped round the corner for a drink. And who is to blame him? Who, on occasions such as this, has not felt the same? However, his estimation of the time the
King would take to visit the saint was inaccurate so when the King, surrounded by the cream of the Greek church, suddenly emerged from the church and took his place in the car, the chauffeur was conspicuous by his absence. As was usual in Corfu when a crisis was reached, everyone blamed everyone else for the chauffeur’s disappearance. A quarter of an hour passed while accusations were hurled, fists were shaken, and runners were sent in all directions in search of the chauffeur. There was some delay because no one knew which café he was honouring with his presence, but eventually he was tracked down and a stream of vituperation was poured on his head as he was dragged ignominiously away in the middle of his second ouzo.
The next stop was the Platia, where the King was to see the march past of troops and bands and the exhibition by the Scouts. By driving cacophonously through the narrow back streets, Spiro got us to the Platia long before the King’s car.
‘Surely they can’t do anything else wrong,’ said Mother worriedly.
‘The island has surpassed itself,’ said Larry. ‘I had hoped they might get a puncture between the docks and the church, but that was asking too much, I suppose.’
‘Well, I’m not so sure,’ said Theodore, his eyes twinkling. ‘Remember, this is Corfu. They might well have something more in store for us.’
‘I do hope not,’ said Kralefsky. ‘Really! Such organization! It makes one blush.’
‘They can’t think up anything more, Theo, surely,’ Larry protested.
‘I wouldn’t like to be… er… um… bank on it… you know…’ said Theodore.
As it turned out, he was perfectly right.
The King arrived and took his place on the dais. The troops marched past with great vigour and all of them managed to be more or less in step. Corfu was rather a remote garrison in those
days and the recruits did not get much practice but, nevertheless, they acquitted themselves creditably. Next came the mass bands – bands from every village in the island, their variously coloured uniforms glowing, their instruments so polished that the gleam of them hurt the eyes. If their delivery quavered a little and was slightly off-key, it was more than made up for by the volume and force of their playing.
Then it was the turn of the Scouts and we all clapped and cheered as Colonel Velvit, looking like an extremely nervous and attenuated Old Testament prophet in Scout’s uniform, led his diminutive troops onto the dusty Platia. They saluted the King and then, obeying a rather strangled falsetto order from the colonel, shuffled to and fro and formed the Greek flag. Such a wave of clapping and cheering broke out that it must surely have been heard in the remotest vastnesses of the Albanian mountains. After a short display of gymnastics the troop then went over to where two white lines represented the two banks of a river. Here half the troop hurried away and reappeared with planks necessary for making a pontoon bridge while the other half were busy getting a line across the treacherous waters. So fascinated were the crowd by the mechanics of this that they drifted closer and closer to the ‘river’, accompanied by the policemen who were supposed to be keeping them back.
In record time, the Scouts, none of whom were more than eight-years-old, created their pontoon across the imaginary river and then led by one small boy blowing vociferously and inaccurately on a trumpet, jog-trotted across the bridge and stood to attention on the opposite side. The crowd were enchanted; they clapped, cheered, whistled and stamped. Colonel Velvit allowed himself a small, tight, military smile and cast a proud look in our direction. Then he barked out a word of command. Three small fat Scouts detached themselves from the troop and made their way to the bridge, carrying fuses, a plunger and other demolition equipment. They fixed everything up and then rejoined the troop,
unwinding the fuse wire as they came. They stood at attention and waited. Colonel Velvit savoured his big moment; he glanced round to make sure he had everyone’s undivided attention. The silence was complete.
‘Demolish bridge!’ roared Colonel Velvit, and one of the Scouts crouched and pressed the plunger home.
The next few minutes were confused, to say the least. There was a colossal explosion; a cloud of dust, gravel and bits of bridge was thrown into the air, to descend like hail upon the population. The first three rows of the crowd, all the policemen and Colonel Velvit, were thrown flat on their backs. The blast, carrying with it gravel and splinters of wood, reached the car where we were sitting, battered against the coachwork like machine-gun fire and blew Mother’s hat off.