‘Where are they going?’ people asked, fearful that there would be more mouths to feed, but the prisoners were not to stay in Greece. They were taken to the Piraeus and shipped to camps in the western desert.
No wonder there were some who smiled. They would eat better than the Greeks and a camp in the sun was more comfortable than the Albanian mountains where men bivouacked waist deep in the snow.
At the canteen started for British servicemen, Guy washed dishes and Harriet worked as a waitress. The men were mostly airmen, but a few sappers and members of the R.A.S.C. had arrived. Food and fuel were supplied by the Naafi and the civilians were thankful these winter nights not only for occupation, but for warmth.
The wives of the English diplomats organized the work and agreed among themselves that the food should be for the servicemen and only for them. They were honour bound not to touch a mouthful themselves. In the first throes of unaccustomed hunger, the women fried bacon, sausages, eggs and tomatoes and served men who accepted their plates casually and took it for granted that the civilians ate as much as they did.
One night, Harriet, carrying two fried sausages to a table, nearly burst into tears. A soldier, observing her with an experienced eye, said: ‘You look fair clemmed. Don’t she look clemmed?’ he asked his friends: ‘Ev’nt seen no one so clemmed since my old man mowed a grass-pitch for a tanner and lost his sick benefit.’
Harriet laughed, but the men were concerned for her and asked: ‘You get your grub here, don’t you?’
She explained the rules of the canteen and the first man said: ‘That’s fair silly. There’s lashings more where this comes from. Here,’ he pushed his plate at her, ‘have a good tuck-in.’
She laughed again and shook her head and made off for fear she might succumb. The rule had been made and no one had the courage to break it, least of all Harriet who was shy among the diplomatic set.
A few nights later the same group of sappers arrived with a parcel which they put into Harriet’s arms: ‘We won it,’ they said. ‘It’s for you.’
When she opened it in the kitchen, she found a leg of Canterbury lamb. The other women looked at it with some disapproval, and Harriet explained: ‘They won it.’
Only Mrs Brett, on duty at the gas-stove, had anything to say: ‘And I expect they did,’ she said. ‘There’s always a raffle or a draw or some game of that sort going on in these camps.’ Eyeing the meat, she remarked confidentially to Harriet: ‘That’s a nice piece of lamb.’
‘Yes, but what can I do with it?’
‘Not much use to you, is it? Where could you cook it? I should have been the one to get it.’
Presented with the meat, Mrs Brett parcelled it up in a businesslike way and put it with her outdoor clothing. When she came back, she nudged against Harriet and said with fiercely threatening sympathy: ‘So that Archie Callard’s the new Director? What’s he going to do for Guy?’
‘Very little. He says he promised Gracey he’d put Dubedat in charge.’
‘It’s sickening.’ Mrs Brett stared for some moments at Harriet, then seemed to come to a decision: ‘You want to get away from the hotel, don’t you? Well, I know a Greek couple who are thinking of letting their villa. It’s not much of a place, mind you, but you’ve got to be glad of anything these days.’
When Harriet began to thank her, Mrs Brett interrupted sternly: ‘Don’t thank me. You gave me the joint, didn’t you? You go and see about the villa before someone else gets wind of it.’
The villa was on the outskirts, between the Piraeus and Phaleron roads, and so likely to be cheap. Guy let himself be taken to see it but would make no comment on the two rooms and their bare functional furniture. The hotel was enough for him. Before he married he had lived for months at a time with no room of any sort, keeping his possessions in a rucksack and sleeping in the houses of friends, often on the floor. He resisted the extravagance of the villa, but resisted more the bus or metro journeys in which it would involve him.
The owner of the villa, Kyrios Dhiamandopoulos, was an artist – très moderne, said his wife – and had designed the villa himself. Kyria Dhiamandopoulou went up on to the roof-terrace and left the Pringles alone to make their decision.
‘Can we take it?’ Harriet asked.
‘Do you really want to take it?’
‘It’s the best we’re likely to get.’
‘Why not stay where we are?’
‘Because we can have a house of our own. A home. In fact, our first home.’
‘Our first home? What about the flat in Bucharest?’
‘That was different. A house is a home, a flat isn’t.’
‘Why?’
‘A house is good for the soul.’ She was excited by the thought of their own house, even this house, and Guy said: ‘Very well; take it.’ He accepted Harriet’s eccentricities as symptoms of immaturity. He usually ignored them but this was one he felt he must indulge.
13
As Christmas approached Guy said: ‘I’ve been unemployed for three months. I’m beginning to deteriorate.’ All unemployment, even unemployment with pay, seemed to him a rebuttal of a basic human right. In desperation, he called at the School library, hoping the sight of him would remind Archie Callard of his need for work. But Archie Callard was not at the School. The secretaries said they had never seen Mr Callard. The students had given up and gone away. The librarian, won to sympathy by Guy’s mildness of manner, admitted that it was ‘all very odd’. In fact, if things went on like this, there would be un scandale.
When another letter came for Guy, it was not from Archie Callard or Dubedat but from Professor Lord Pinkrose. Pinkrose, describing himself as Director of the English School, summoned Guy to appear at the Academy. Harriet telephoned Alan and asked: ‘What has happened now?’
He said: ‘All I know is: Archie’s out and Pinkrose is in. As to how it happened, I’d be glad if you could tell me.’
The Pringles were not cheered by the change. Archie had shown some goodwill but they could expect nothing from Pinkrose who, whenever he met them, behaved as though they did not exist.
They walked up to the Academy between the rain showers. As the Academy building appeared, flashing its ochre colour beneath the heavy sky, they saw a Greek soldier moving painfully towards them. His left foot was bandaged but fitted into an unlaced boot, the right was too heavily bandaged to wear anything. He had a crutch under his right arm and paused every few yards to rest with his free hand against the wall.
Everyone had heard of the glory of the Greek advance, but it was not all glory. The truth was coming out now. There were terrible stories of the suffering that had been caused by unpreparedness. Many of the men had been crippled by long marches in boots that did not fit, while others, who had no boots at all, fought barefoot in the snow. Struggling through the mountain blizzards, they were soaked for days. Their ragged uniforms froze upon them. Their hands and feet became frost-bitten and infected for lack of sulpha drugs. Their wounds were neglected. There were thousands of cases of gangrene and thousands of amputations.
The Pringles, as they approached the soldier, gazed at him with awe and compassion. He met their pity with indifference. His gaunt face was morose with pain. He was intent on nothing but making the next move.
On the other side of the road there was a hospital. Other wounded were making their way round the tarmac quadrangle.
As they looked across, Guy raged against the pro-German ministers who, knowing the war would come, had prevented the stock-piling of medical supplies, but Harriet said nothing, knowing if she tried to speak she would burst into tears.