Guy shook Clarence by the shoulder, trying to waken him: ‘We’re leaving,’ he said: ‘We want to say “good-bye”.’
Clarence shrugged Guy off and turning his face to the wall, mumbled: ‘What do I care?’
‘Isn’t there anything we can do for him?’
‘Nothing,’ said Harriet. ‘It’s another case of “Nobody loves poor Aussie”.’
The station-master warned them that the train was about to leave and Guy, suddenly upset, said: ‘We may not see him again.’
‘Never mind. We must regard that relationship as closed.’
But Guy could not regard any relationship as closed. All the way back to Monistiraki he spoke regretfully of Clarence, upset that he had seen so little of an old friend who held him in such high esteem.
‘I really liked Clarence,’ he said as though Clarence had departed from the world.
And, indeed, it seemed to Harriet that Clarence was someone who had disappeared a long time ago and was lost somewhere in the past.
23
March, as it moved into spring, was a time of marvels. The British troops were coming in force now, filling the streets with new voices, and the splendour of the new season came with them. The men were wonderful in their variety. As the lorries drove in from the Piraeus, bringing Australians, New Zealanders and Englishmen of different sorts, the Greeks shouted from the pavement: ‘The Wops are done for. When the snow melts, we’ll drive them into the sea.’
At mid-day the air was warm as summer. Every waste place had become green and the budding shoots almost at once became flowers. There were flowers everywhere. The old olive groves up the Ilissus Kifissias Road, the grey banks of the Ilissus, the stark, wet clay about the Pringles’ villa – all these places dazzled with the reds of anemones and poppies, with hyacinths and wild lupins, acanthus flowers and asphodels. The wastelands of Athens had become a garden.
The flower shops, packed to the doors with flowers, threw out such a scent the streets were filled with it. If there were nothing to eat, there were carnations. Wherever they went, the British soldiers were handed posies and in the bars they received gifts of wine.
People had feared the British expedition. Some had said the British would never fire a shot, that they had only to set foot on Greek soil and the wrath of Germany would descend; but here they were and nothing had been heard from Germany yet.
The snows were melting in Macedonia. The Greek forces, taking fresh heart, would advance again. Any day now there would be new gains and new victories. The fact the Germans had occupied Bulgaria meant nothing very much. At this festival of philoxenia, in the midst of spring, the old hopes had returned and people pointed out that Mussolini had made a fool of himself. ‘Why should the Germans start another front simply to save the Duce’s face?’ More likely the Germans were enjoying the situation as much as the Greeks. In Athens the promise was: ‘Victory by Easter; by summer, peace.’
The British troops went wherever they liked. The café-owners would not support regulations concerning officers and Other Ranks, and the military police could not keep the men within bounds.
The Greeks, for their part, made no complaints. They expected tumult and enjoyed it. As for the damage: that was also to be expected in a town crowded with foreign troops. They offered their losses up to the Greek cause. When the Australians were confined to barracks, the Greeks were indignant. And Mrs Brett was indignant. At the canteen she told Harriet how she had been stimulated by contact with men who were ‘wild in such a natural way’.
They had come into the English tea-room while she was taking tea with the padre. There were three of them, each carrying a potted plant which he had lifted from someone’s window-sill. The drinking must have started early for they were all unsteady on their feet and one of them, sighting Mrs Brett, invited her to dance with him. He swayed dangerously over the table and the padre, pointing out that there was no dance-floor and no music, suggested he should sit down. The Australian replied: ‘Shut up, you pommie bastard.’
‘Of course I know how to deal with men in that state,’ Mrs Brett said. ‘I’ve had experience of all sorts, and it pays to be agreeable. Talk to them, get them interested; so I said: “Sit down, there’s a good fellow, and I’ll you order you some tea.”’ The Australian had seated himself ‘like a lamb’ but unfortunately knocked over a chair. ‘That’s a crook chair,’ he said in a threatening way and he began blaming the waiters for the chair’s defect. Mrs Brett, afraid he might start trouble, tried to draw him into conversation: ‘How are you enjoying Athens?’ ‘What’s Athens?’ he asked. ‘Why this is Athens. Where you are now. Isn’t it a beautiful city?’ ‘I wouldn’t know, mem,’ he said. ‘I ain’t never seed a city till they brought the draft through Sydney and we was all drunk when we got there.’ ‘What do you think of that! That shows judgment – and honesty! He didn’t want any tea but I persuaded him to take a cup. “To oblige you, mem,” he said, “I’ll even drink the stuff.” We had a nice long chat and he showed me all the photographs in his wallet – Mum and Dad and Sis and so on. D’you know, he became quite attached to me. It was my evening at the canteen – but could I get away! No, I could not. Every time I stood up, he pulled me down again. “Don’t you go, mem,” he said. “You stay here and talk to me.” Really, you know, it was quite heart-warming, but the padre got restive. I said: “Don’t be alarmed, padre. I understand men; this poor boy’s missing his mother.” “You’re right, mem,” said my Australian: “I never had a mom like the other fellas.” “Now, now,” I said: “What about that snapshot you just showed me?” “That’s the old man’s second wife,” he said. “And a right cow she is!” What a fascinating language! At last I said, nicely but firmly: “I have to go now. You come tomorrow and have tea at my flat and you can tell me all your troubles.” “Anything you say, mem,” he said, and I wrote down the address. I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to seeing him again.’
But the next day there were no Australians in Athens and Mrs Brett’s new friend did not arrive for tea. When it was discovered later that the whole battalion had been condemned as a menace to the peace of Athens and hurried to camps up north, the Greeks protested: ‘We liked them like that. They’re human. They behaved as they wanted to behave. Not like you English.’
Still the fun went on. The English soldiers, their first awkwardness overcome, were found to be human enough. The homage due to the men-at-arms passed over on to the civilians, and in bars and restaurants the English, simply because they were English, received tribute of wine ceremonially laced with slices of apple or sections of orange. Harriet when out with Charles was accorded a special recognition for not only was she English but the companion of an English officer who, according to the Greeks, ‘had the face of a young Byron’.
One day the Athenians were amazed to see Highlanders in the street: men skirted like evzones and carrying bagpipes like the shepherds of Epirus. At the cellar café of Elatos two of them took the floor, placed their knives on the ground and danced, grave-faced, without music, the rhythm marked by the pleats of their kilts that closed and opened about them like fans. As the Scotsmen toed and heeled and turned in unison, the Greeks, intent and silent, understood that this was a ritual dance against the common enemy.