‘I can a tale unfold,’ he said. ‘Where do you think I went? Where did little Benny go, eh? Little Benny went to the Piraeus to have a looksee-see, and what did he see-see? He saw two ships astanding by, waiting to take Major Cookson and all Major Cookson’s friends and valuables to some nice safe place. And Benny wasn’t alone. Who did I meet down there but the old padre nosing around. He’d had the same idea. So we joined forces. We explored every avenue, we left no stone, we bloody well pushed our way into everything and everywhere. And there were these two old vessels tucked away in a corner: about the only things down there intact. We managed to find one of the stokers who said they’d been chartered by an English gentleman. He didn’t want to say more but we put the screws on him, the padre and me. And who was this English gentleman? None other than the bloody Major. A lot of his stuff was already on board. He’d been preparing for weeks. He and his friends were going to travel in comfort, with all their possessions. “Right!” said the padre, “we’ll see about this,” and back we went to the Legation. The padre, I’ll say it for him, was magnificent. He said: “I demand that every British subject and every Greek who is at risk as a result of working for the British, shall be given passage on those ships.” Our diplomatic friends were not at all happy about it. The Major had chartered the ships. What about his rights? – the rights of the moneyed man?’
‘Private property, eh?’ said Guy.
‘Private property – you’ve said it. But the padre, dyed in the wool old Tory though he is, was having none of it. He said human beings came first. He refused to move until our F.O. friends agreed that the ships would be held until every British subject was on board. As soon as the Major heard what was going on, he tried to speed up his departure. He meant to sail at daybreak, but when he got down to the Piraeus he found the ships were being held by the military.’
‘Is he coming with us?’
‘Oh, yes, he won’t be left behind; he’ll travel with the hoipolloi, but I’m told he’s hiding in his cabin. In fact the gallant Major’s already feeling sick.’
Guy shook hands with Ben, delighted by the Major’s defeat. ‘A victory for human decency, a victory for human rights,’ he said. Ben was eager in agreement but watching him dancing in vindictive triumph, Harriet wondered what would have happened had Ben Phipps not quarrelled with the Major. Supposing he had been among the privileged few invited to save themselves on the Major’s ship! Hatred, she saw, was a considerable force; and Ben was likely to go far.
She had once been ambitious for Guy, but saw now the truth of the proverb that the children of darkness were wiser than the children of light. Guy, with all his charity, would probably remain more or less where he had started.
The lorry returned and the last half-dozen fugitives climbed on board.
It was Good Friday. The town was in abeyance but already the inhabitants were abroad, wakeful and restless in their apprehension.
Ben Phipps said: ‘The pro-German elements are out in force,’ but the Greeks who waved to the lorry as it passed looked the same as the Greeks who had wandered about last evening in the despairing twilight. And there were soldiers among them.
Ben Phipps nodded at them furiously. ‘The whole Greek army’s been sent back on leave. It’s another act of sabotage. Papademas says it’s been done to save them from the futile slaughter of a last stand; but if they’d joined our troops at Marathon, they could have accounted for a good few Germans. Now, the bloody Hun’ll walk in.’
As they came on to the long straight Piraeus road which shone empty, in the morning sun, Harriet said: ‘I suppose Alan Frewen’s already on board?’
Ben Phipps shook his head: ‘Nope.’
‘No? Then where is he?’
‘On the way to Corinth, I imagine. He wanted a car, so I sold him mine. When he saw the evacuation all set, all ticketyboo, he shoved his dog into the back and drove off.’
‘But where is he going?’
‘Don’t ask me. He was in a hurry to get over the bridge before someone blew it up. That’s all I can tell you.’
‘So he intends to stay in Greece? Can he survive down there?’
‘Can he survive anywhere? He’s the sort that starts heading for the high jump the day they’re born.’
‘And the dog will starve,’ said Harriet.
‘Good God!’ Ben Phipps gave a yelp of laughter at her absurdity and she, turning on him angrily, said: ‘And you let him go! You even sold him a car …’
‘I suppose he can do what he likes?’ Ben Phipps blinked at her in injured astonishment. ‘If he wants to go, it’s not my job to stop him.’
‘No, you’re not your brother’s keeper, are you?’
Ben Phipps laughed, too angry to speak.
Harriet, thinking disconsolately of Alan, the lonely man who had loved Greece and the Greeks, and could not leave them, stood up to take a last look as they passed the villa and the Ilissus and the little wood, whispering: ‘My poor cat.’
A woman sitting behind her in the lorry said: ‘We left our dogs. We hadn’t time to do anything but turn the key in the lock. We took the dogs to a neighbour who promised to look after them. “They’ll be here when you come back,” he said.’
Her husband said: ‘Better to have shot them. At least we’d know what became of them.’
She said: ‘Oh, Denis!’ and her husband turned on her: ‘Don’t you realize what’s going to happen here?’ he said. ‘Can’t you see what’s in store for these people?’
No one said anything more till they stopped at the docks.
In the whole of the great basin there were no objects standing upright except the cargo boats Erebus and Nox.
The sky was a limpid blue; the water beneath it black with wood scraps. Out of this dense, black, viscous surface poked the masts and funnels of sunken ships, a tangle of wreck and wreckage, lying at all angles.
The harbour buildings, burnt or blasted, lay in fragments. Among the smoked rubble, broken glass and charred ravelment of wood, green things had taken root. The Piraeus already seemed an ancient ruin, reaching again towards the desolation that covered it for eighteen hundred years after the Peloponnesian Wars.
The Erebus and Nox alone had colour: they were red with rust. They had been used for the transport of Italian prisoners and, according to Ben Phipps, were ‘not only derelict, but filthy’.
Guy said in a cheerful voice: ‘Thalassa! You said you felt safe because the sea was near. Well, here we are!’ but Harriet could not even remember now why the sea had seemed a refuge.
English soldiers had been detailed to help the passengers on board. They had already hoisted the Major’s Delahaye and packing cases on to the deck, and carried up the baggage belonging to the Major’s guests. The single suitcases of the uninvited were treated as a joke.
‘That all you got?’ they said when the small pile of luggage came off the lorry. ‘Didn’t let you bring much, did they?’
Some of the recent arrivals were still on the quay. The Pluggets were getting out of a taxi. Mrs Brett and Miss Jay were watching for the Pringles and, catching sight of them, Mrs Brett came striding towards them in a fury of indignation, shouting: ‘What do you think! That Archie Callard is up there insulting everyone that comes on board!’
The Pringles had forgotten Archie Callard who, surprisingly enough, had not been flown off to join some daring desert group but had been loitering all the time, unoccupied, at Phaleron.