25

In which I Journey to Greece

It was not easy, in the unrest and turmoil of the year 1921, for any young man to settle down to a definite occupation. There was a great outpouring from Oxford in that year, mainly consisting of those who had been to the war, had returned to the University to finish their studies, and had taken the shortened course. Men of that type, prematurely matured, seemed indeed to many of us, quite middle-aged, though most of them were not twenty-eight. And naturally having already lived many lives and died many deaths, the prospect of beginning all over again and being treated like children was not altogether pleasing.

Everybody who has done much public speaking at the University is always told that he ought to go to the Bar. It seems destined for him, as something almost inevitable—why, I could never quite understand, because mere eloquence is not nearly so great an asset at the Bar as the capacity to spurn delights, to live laborious days, and to make up your mind that for several years at least you must be content to be a very dull dog indeed.

I, too, was caught in this spirit of unrest. I went to London in search of a job, had no idea how to set about it, wrote odd articles, spent all my money, and returned home. Something had to be done, so I sat down and occupied the next four months in writing Patchwork, a novel of the new Oxford. It was published in the autumn, had a certain succès d’estime, and brought me in about enough money to pay my tailor’s bill.

And then one day, there came a letter which set my heart beating quickly and filled me with a sense of adventure which made life seem more than worth living again. It was from my publishers, and it told me the following story:

A new revolution, it seemed, was on the point of breaking out in Greece. That unfortunate country was in the direst distress, being ruled by a monarch (the late King Constantine) who was not recognized by the Allies, who had already been exiled once, and who, unless drastic measures were taken, would be exiled again. The national exchequer was empty, the national spirit almost broken, and the national manhood practically exhausted by the war against Turkey, which had already lasted, on and off, for seven years.

The only way in which Greece could be saved was by the recognition of King Constantine by the Allies. Such an event was, at the moment, out of the question, since ‘Tino’ was regarded in France and England and America as an Arch-Traitor, a sort of miniature Kaiser, who by his treachery and his double dealing had imperilled our cause throughout the whole of the Near East.

But that legend of Tino, it was now alleged, was false. It had been carefully built up, during the war, by interested agents, on a fabric of complete falsehoods. The astounding nature of these falsehoods was contained in a collection of documents which was being carefully guarded. In those documents was material for a book which would cause a sensation throughout Europe as soon as it was published.

Would I go to Athens and write that book? I should be given immediate access to the documents, I should be under the special protection of the Greek Government, I should have, as a matter of course, the entrée to every circle of Greek Society which I might desire to investigate, from the Court downwards. And all my expenses would be paid.

Would I go to Athens? Would I go to heaven? Just imagine if you had just come down from Oxford, were still at heart an undergraduate, and were suddenly given the opportunity of embarking on an adventure which gave every promise of situations as fantastic as ever occurred to the peppery imagination of William le Queux! For, naturally, one guessed that, in an undertaking of this sort, there would be a certain element of danger. The Balkan countries have never been exactly a health resort for political adventurers, and what should I be but a political adventurer, delving into secrets of which, at the moment, I knew nothing, in a distant and romantic capital which was alive with intrigue?

Would I go to Athens? Without a moment’s delay I sat down and wrote a telegram, saying that if necessary I would start to-morrow.

******

Let us get straight on to Greece, for it is easier to do that in a book than in the so-called train-de-luxe which totters across Europe, falling over bridges, blundering through ravines, and waiting for a whole day at deadly looking hamlets in strange countries. It is all right until you reach Fiume. Till then you have a comfortable dining-car with regular meals, and a sleeping compartment in which it is possible to sleep and not to freeze. But after that, God help you. They take off the dining-car, and you have to depend for sustenance on what you have got with you. And if you have got nothing, it means that you have to clamber out of bed in the middle of the night and go into some filthy little railway café, to bargain for black olives and dusty chocolate and sour bread. At least, that was how things were in the winter of 1921.

A word about Belgrade, the capital of Yugo-Slavia, because it is, of all the cities I have ever seen, the most sinister and the most melancholy. It would appeal to Poe. We arrived at about dawn, and I woke up to look out on a dreary, broken-down station, snow-bound, and to hear the monotonous echo of some soldiers singing round a little fire which they had built on the platform to keep them warm. I dressed and went outside with some Greeks, who spoke bad French. We were all terribly hungry and were determined to eat some breakfast or die in the attempt.

What a sight when we stepped outside the station. You must imagine a background of leaden skies, and long, almost empty streets along which an occasional bullock cart silently plodded. In the foreground, however, all was colour and noise and animation, for it was market day, and the peasants from the outlying districts had all come in to sell their cattle. Never can there have been such a picturesque crew of rascals—rather like a chorus in the Chauve-Souris. The men with black beards, and stockings brightly worked in blue and crimson wools, the women with green aprons and yellow jackets, and odd-looking belts that seemed to be made of dyed leather. And they were all stamping about in the snow, shouting out in that dark, stinging language which sounds like Russian spoken by a devil. At least three fights were in progress, and the way they treated their animals made me feel that, unless I went straight into Belgrade, there would be a fourth.

We pushed our way through this unsavoury collection, and walked down the silent, desolate street in a sort of dream. There were no motors (I did not see a single motor in the whole of Belgrade) and very few horse-carriages. Almost every man we met was a soldier. And such soldiers! Dreary, pale, half-starved-looking creatures, slouching along like tramps, with uniforms that hung about them in rags and boots that had long been unfit for any human beings. Then, suddenly, we saw three officers, swaggering down towards us. A greater contrast it would be impossible to imagine. They were not only smart, they were superb. They glittered and shone and sparkled, they strutted, and puffed, and posed. They were the complete musical-comedy officer of the Balkans, their uniforms a dream of delight. And as they passed, a group of ragged soldiers sprang to attention, and remained stiff as corpses for fully a minute after the said officers had gone by. Discipline, what crimes are committed in thy name!

And then the breakfast! It was quite as depressing as a Dostoievsky novel. We had it at the best hotel in the place, and it consisted of bitter coffee, white butter made with goats’ milk, and bread so sour that it was almost impossible to eat. There were no eggs, no meat, no sugar. One was back in war-time England again, with a difference.

Only one word more about Belgrade, and that must be to record the impression of amazement I had that this terrible hole of a place was the capital of one of the largest countries in Europe, of the country which, according to the economists, is going to be one of the most prosperous in the whole world. Make no doubt about it, Yugo-Slavia is a coming country. But if you could see its capital, the town which, by the august dispensation of the Peace-Makers, has been set in authority over many fair and cultured cities of the Austria that was, you would say it was a back slum of London, set on a hill, subjected to an earthquake, and then cursed by the Creator.

They don’t build houses to last in Belgrade, because they know that in ten years or so there will be another war, and the whole thing will be blown to pieces again. That is the sort of spirit one met the whole time. Nothing permanent. No trust. No faith. No hope. I looked into a photographer’s shop and saw a photograph of the Parliament in session. So pompous, so threadbare, so utterly, damnably sad.

All this may have been the effect of a bad breakfast and a cold morning. But I think that you will admit that it is borne out by the facts.

Let us hurry to Greece. The next scene in the journey was when, at dawn, the train, with a last despairing effort, arrived at the frontier town of Ghev-Gelli, and stopped, panting. And this was Greece! This land of crystal sunlight, with the brown mountains against skies of burning blue. Greece! I felt like Linnæus, who went down on his knees at the first sight of English gorse; or like Cortez, when his eagle eye first gazed upon the Pacific, through the medium of Keats’ Sonnet. Or like a great many other popular people who may all be found in The Children’s Encyclopædia.

I dressed quickly, and went into a little restaurant that lay just behind the station. A brown-eyed maiden bustled forward and showed me to one of the four small tables. There was a spotless cloth on the table, and a big earthen bowl of violets. And for breakfast there was a huge glass of fresh milk, a chunk of coarse bread, and the sweetest honey that even Greek bees can ever have distilled. One felt that on such a diet, and under such sunshine, anybody could write masterpieces.

I had just swallowed my last spoonful of honey, and lit a cigarette, when there was a sound of tramping feet outside, a shouted word of command, a moment’s silence, and then a babble of conversation. Soldiers! Greek soldiers! These must be inspected at once. I went to the door and saw, lined up, a small platoon of soldiers, clad in khaki, standing at ease. They were burnt almost black with the sunlight, were of rather under average height and were talking in a fierce and indigestible language. But what most attracted the eye was the superb young officer who was engaged in conversation with the conductor of the wagon-lit. He was the first (and almost the last) Greek I ever saw who gave one the impression of a statue come to life. And how smart he was! How his sword glistened in the sunlight, how his leather shone and his buttons sparkled!

Suddenly he turned, pointed in my direction, and started walking towards me. I hurriedly adjusted my tie, and wished that I had shaved. It didn’t seem to make much difference, but it made one feel somehow undressed. However, there was little time for regret. The officer was already by my side.

‘Monsieur Nichols?’

‘Oui.’

He saluted, turned, and shouted to the soldiers. They ceased talking. Shouting again. They sprang to attention. Shouted again. They sloped arms.

This was terrifying. I also endeavoured to put a few inches on my height, and frowned severely, which is reputed to have an effect of making one look older.

‘I come from the Military Commander of Macedonia,’ he informed me. ‘You are to be under his special protection.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, in as deep and resonant a voice as possible. ‘It is very gracious of him.’

‘I have also,’ he remarked, ‘to present you these documents.’ He handed me some papers decorated with heavy seals. I took them, glanced at them, and placed them inside my pocket.

‘You will have no difficulty,’ added this excellent young man, ‘in such things as customs. Athens has been informed of your arrival. Everything will be done to ensure your comfort.’

‘I am more than honoured,’ I said. I felt an awful fraud, and was thankful that the Military Commander himself was not present. If only one could have grown a beard, or have developed pouches under the eyes, or a cynical smile or something which would have concealed the fact that one was really only an undergraduate, and not the distinguished author that they were expecting. How marvellously Hall Caine would have suited an occasion like this. He would probably have emerged in a black coat, looking like a minor prophet, and have made some profound remark on the liberty of Greece. All I could do was to ask the young man to stand his soldiers at ease, which seemed an excellent suggestion and was promptly carried out.

We talked for a little longer, and then, in order to end a situation which was rapidly becoming unbearable, I informed him that I had business in the train which must be attended to. He sprang to attention, we shook hands, the soldiers clicked, sloped arms, right turned and stamped rhythmically out of the station. The last thing I saw was the glint of their rifles in the sun.

After waiting nearly the whole day at Ghev-Gelli, the train puffed out into the open country towards Athens at about five o’clock. I looked out on to the mountains and flower-filled valleys, dreaming in the late afternoon sunlight. The adventure had really begun.

******

And now, Athens.

We arrived at about seven o’clock in the evening, and all the things which my admirable and decorative soldier had foretold, came to pass. Various imposing people met me, my luggage slipped through the customs unopened, and I found myself outside the station while the other wretched people were still wrestling with officials.

Now, I am all for dramatizing the various episodes in one’s life in order to get the utmost emotion from them. This seemed to be an episode well worthy of such treatment. And so, for this night, I planned to drive through the streets to my hotel in an open cab, have a jolly good dinner, and then go up to the Acropolis by moonlight alone.

I achieved all these delectable things. By various subterfuges I managed to get rid of the people round about, and found myself in the desired open cab driving slowly towards the main streets.

The streets of Athens at night! Take, as a model, Paris, and set it in surroundings of incredible beauty, hills that soar proudly above, a sea that stretches below, lit with the lights of a thousand ships. Fill it with dark, swarthy people, with eyes like stars, who do not so much walk as sway. Plant along its streets rows of pepper trees, whose feathery branches dance beneath the lamp-light. Sprinkle among the crowd young giants in the most picturesque uniform of Europe—a white kilt that makes them look, in the distance, like ballet girls. Build your houses of white marble, scatter their gardens with flowers, breathe over it all a spirit of gaiety and love, light it with a moon so clear and clean that it might be carved from the marble of the Acropolis—and then, perhaps, you will have a faint idea of Athens. Unless, from sheer incapacity, I have inadvertently been describing a Lyceum pantomime.

And then, most important of all, one could dine like a king in this paradise, and still can, for less than half a crown. The drachma was not nearly as low then as it is now, but this was what my dinner cost:

Grand Total, including wine, 69 cents.

And that is in the best hotel in Athens. If you go to any of the other restaurants, you will dine equally well for a good deal less.

But I want to take you with me up to the Acropolis, before we part company on this most thrilling of all nights. For the Acropolis is the personification of all Greece, it is the Crown of Athens, the eternal symbol raised aloft which proclaims that Greece has no kith nor kin with the crowded barbarians to the North, or the massed savages to the East. Oh! I know perfectly well that the Turk is a fine fellow—a finer fellow than the average Greek, and that probably modern Greece has little in common with the Greece that first lit the lamp of civilization in Europe. But Turkey has no Acropolis. And as long as those matchless columns hover, like a benediction over Athens, Greece will be different from her neighbours.

It was the night of the full moon. As we rattled up the narrow streets, the roads grew bumpier and bumpier, the lights more and more dim. A wonderful place, one thought at each street corner, for a murder. It would be dreadful to be murdered before seeing the Acropolis. After seeing it, nothing would matter. That at least was how I thought, as the cab swung round the final bend in the hill, drawing up beneath the clustered buildings, dreaming on their narrow cleft of rock.

How can I describe it, this milk-white miracle of beauty? Its beauty does not come from its antiquity alone, for here, among the columns of dim silver, stained with shadows of violet, one is away from Time. The temples soar to the stars, like white flowers eternally born anew. The same moon that lit the face of Alcibiades falls on each fragment of glittering marble, gilding the stone arms of its warriors and the silent faces of its maidens, and only yesterday it seems that the voice of Socrates must have echoed here, carried by this breeze through the cool, cleft spaces.

At night-time even modern Athens seems to fit into the dream without disturbing it. One stands by some broken, lovely fragment, looking over the hills on to the sparkling city beneath. It is a box of jewels spilt as an offering to the gods. The streets are strung into darkness like glimmering necklaces, and from far below comes the muffled whir and murmur of modern life. And then one shuts one’s eyes again, and there is silence—the silence of eternal things....

I offer no apology for this sentimental outburst. I have no sympathy with the man who does not grow sentimental among the columns of the Acropolis. I have read about him in Freud, and he is a very dirty dog.