In the next few days the general picture of what was happening gradually came into focus. This was indeed a city at war. We had been deceived into thinking otherwise because the fighting during the last few months had gone almost uniformly in favour of Athens. Standing out above a number of minor victories, there had been a major success at Pylos, on the far side of the Peloponnesus. A Spartan peace offer had been refused, and the peace offer had been followed by the arrival in Athens of a couple of hundred Spartan prisoners. It was a pathetically minor affair compared to what had been happening in Europe, yet it accounted for the apparently carefree aspect of the city. Nobody had any doubt that the war with Sparta would soon be brought to a victorious conclusion, least of all the commanding officers. Yet we knew that if it were to follow its own course the war would last for another twenty years and would result in the defeat of Athens. But how was one to convince them of this?
Morgan, with the enthusiasm of a Welsh revivalist, made a shot at it. He made more progress than might have been supposed, partly because of his impressive height, partly because he knew from his historical studies more or less what the Spartan envoys had said when they had come to request peace earlier in the year. The coincidence between his arguments, the arguments of a complete foreigner, and the entirely reasonable point of view of the Spartans, made an impression. It accorded with one section of Athenian opinion. But it fell foul of the influential generals. After their recent success at Pylos, these men, Cleon and his friends, were riding the top of the wave. There was little Morgan could really do except make us thoroughly unpopular. Indeed our respective hosts began to find us something of an embarrassment. With some relief they seized on my suggestion that we acquire a house of our own. Everybody, friends and those not so friendly, made an effort to get us installed in congenial quarters. We were given half a dozen slaves and left to look after ourselves. So much for Morgan’s preachings.
I didn’t have much enthusiasm myself for this stop-the-war project. I was quite convinced that things would change drastically and catastrophically for the reasons I have already given. What I did have strong feelings about, however, were the slaves. I had no objection to hiring the middle-aged man and woman, the three girls, and the boy, as paid servants. So I conveyed to them that henceforward they were freed, although they could continue to work for a wage if they so pleased. All but the boy decided to stay.
This move increased our unpopularity, as I suppose it was bound to do, since it touched the whole Greek society at a sensitive point. The former owners took the point of view that we had spurned a generous gift. In answer to this there was nothing to be done but to pay for the slaves. I offered seven gold sovereigns for each of them. The money was taken with not very good grace.
There were some who were intellectually curious about our point of view, however. I remember in particular a man of the name of Protagoras. I gathered he was some kind of teacher, so perhaps he had a professional interest. Quite a crowd assembled when we started to argue. What none of them could understand, even the most reasonable ones, was how we got menial tasks performed in our country if we had no slaves. To the answer that we either did such tasks ourselves or paid some poorer but still free person to do them for us, they expressed frank disbelief. There was so much to be done they said, in the fields, the factories, and in the home. Surely we couldn’t do it all ourselves? The argument was pressed home quite skilfully and at considerable length. The gist of their point of view was that if you didn’t have slaves you’d have no leisure whatsoever. Plainly we were men of leisure. How else could I play the great lyre-in-the-box so skilfully?
There was really nothing for it except to explain that much of the manual work, which they found so necessary, was performed by machine in our society. This they couldn’t understand, so I was pressed into giving descriptions and details. The bog got deeper and ever more sticky. As they took me more and more for a foolish liar I became angry. I asked them if it was possible to propel a boat without sail and without oars. Of course not, they insisted.
So it came about that we made a journey to our yacht still anchored in the harbour at Piraeus. We had been in the habit of going over there two or three times a week, to make sure everything was all right, and gradually to transfer various articles of which we might have need. Lately we had managed to make the journey without too much in the way of an attendant retinue. Now however there was a huge procession as we walked the eight miles of the wall to the harbour. Quite a number of the foremost citizens turned out. There was my former host, Andocides, Cleon, the people’s leader, a sculptor of the name of Myron, and an old boy who turned out to be none other than Sophocles. Everybody apparently wanted to give the lie to these boastful strangers.
I said we could manage to take half a dozen of them. Cleon and half his retinue stepped forward, setting themselves immediately above the rest. I left Alex to sort out the job of who was going to go with us. Morgan and I went out to the yacht. We spent some time working at the engine, making sure there was adequate fuel in the tank. When the motor had spluttered a few times, and was clearly on the point of starting, I signalled to the party on shore to come aboard. Nothing ever seemed to put Alex out of humour. As if it was all a big joke he somehow managed to limit the number to the specified six. Somehow he kept the others back as the six climbed aboard, the politicians I noticed.
The engine sprang to life. We soon had the anchor up. Then we were out in the bay. Morgan took the wheel and immediately made the mistake of turning north, into the straits between the island of Salamis and the mainland. As a naval officer he obviously had a fancy to see these straits, where the great Persian fleet had been defeated less than fifty years earlier. The mistake was that we were headed towards the city of Megera, an enemy city, in some ways the cause of the war itself. To those on deck it must have seemed as if we were determined to hand them over to the enemy. Only by locking ourselves in the little cabin could they be prevented from taking over the boat. We put on speed to about ten knots, which astonished the natives. There were ships in the straits. We went quite close to them and swished past with contemptuous ease. The whole trip round the island took I suppose about five hours.
On the way back, when it was realized that we had no unpleasant intentions, the atmosphere thawed a good deal. Everybody seemed in good spirits as we made our way back to port. The crowd on shore had grown even larger. I expected something in the way of a great cheer, such as might greet a troopship coming into harbour. Instead there was a curious silence. We prepared to return to shore. This was not to be, however. The boat was invaded by determined men. They wanted to see exactly how the trick was done. What was it we had up our sleeves? Men swarmed everywhere. There was nothing for it but to show them the engines. We started them up again. We showed one group after another, in a seemingly endless sequence, the rotating propeller shaft. I think they realized how the boat came to be propelled through the water. What they couldn’t understand was what was going on inside the engine.
I knew exactly what was going to happen. We should never have control of our boat again. At any rate not until they had taken it entirely to pieces. Perhaps when they couldn’t put the engine together again, or if they ran out of fuel, they would call on us for help. Everybody was very pleasant and polite, but now it was they who wanted us back to shore.
We had in the cabin a transistor radio receiver and transmitter. It was obvious we should take them with us, to enable us still to contact our naval friends. Indeed we had agreed to make radio contact, since it was always possible the weather would turn out to be too bad for us to make our agreed rendezvous. So we returned to Athens carrying the radio equipment ourselves. Two days later we were told our boat had been commandeered by the city. I was not surprised. With so much speed its uses in the war would obviously be very great. All along I had realized it would be unreasonable not to expect something like this to happen. I blamed myself for not keeping my big mouth shut. In a way I had been just as foolish as Morgan.