So threatening did he look, standing in the middle of the dance floor with clenched fist and bared golden teeth, that the waiters went scurrying in search of the Chief Officer, who presently appeared, looking faintly alarmed, presumably fearing that another hole in the bows had appeared.
“Papadopoulos,” snarled the Captain, “are not the songs of Greece one of the best things about our cultural heritage?”
“Of course,” said Papadopoulos, relaxing slightly, since it did not seem from the conversation that his job was in jeopardy. It was obvious, he thought, that he was on safe ground. Even an unreasonable Captain could not blame him for the brilliance or otherwise of the musical heritage of Greece .
“Why you never tell me, then,” said the Captain, glowering fiendishly, “that this band don’t know any Greek tunes, eh?”
“They do,” said the Chief Officer.
“They don’t,” said the Captain.
“But I’ve heard them,” protested the Chief Officer.
“Play what?” asked the Captain, ominously.
“ ‘Never on Sunday’,” said the Chief Officer triumphantly.
The word “excreta” in Greek is a splendid one for spitting out to soothe overwrought nerves.
“Scata! Scata! ” shouted the Captain. “My spittle on ‘Never on Sunday’! I ask you for the cultural heritage of Greece and you give me a song about a ‘poutana ’. Is that culture? Is that necessary?”
“Poutanas are necessary for the crew,” the Chief Officer pointed out. “For me, I’m a happily married man . . .”
“I don’t want to know about poutanas,” snarled the Captain. “Is there no one on this ship who can play any real Greek songs?”
“Well,” said the Chief Officer, “there’s the electrician, Taki, he has a bouzouki — and I think one of the engineers has a guitar.”
“Bring them!” roared the Captain. “Bring everyone who can play Greek songs.”
“Suppose they all play,” said the Chief Officer, who was of a literal turn of mind. “Who’d run the ship?”
“Get them, idiot,” snarled the Captain, and with such vehemence that the Chief Officer blanched and faded away.
Having shown his authority, the Captain’s good humour returned. Beaming twinklingly, he returned to the table and ordered more drinks. Presently, from the bowels of the ship, struggled a motley gang, most of them half dressed, carrying between them three bouzoukis, a flute and two guitars. There was even a man with a harmonica. The Captain was delighted, but dismissed the man with the harmonica, to the poor man’s obvious chagrin.
“But, Captain,” he protested, “I play well.”
“It is not a Greek instrument,” said the Captain austerely. “It is Italian. Do you think that when we built the Acropolis we went around playing Italian instruments?”
“But I play well,” the man persisted. “I can play ‘Never on Sunday’.”
Luckily the Purser hurried him out of the night-cloob before his Captain could get at him.
The rest of the evening went splendidly, with only minor accidents to mar the general air of cultural jollification. Leslie ricked his back while trying to leap in the air and slap his heels in the approved style during a strenuous Hosapiko, and Larry sprained his ankle by slipping on some melon pips that somebody had thoughtfully deposited on the dance floor. The same, but more painful, fate overtook the barman who, endeavouring to dance with what he thought was a glass of water on his head, slipped and crashed backwards. The glass tipped over his face. Unfortunately it did not contain water but ouzo — a liquid similar in appearance but more virulent in effect when splashed in your eyes. His sight was saved by the presence of mind of the Purser who seized a siphon of soda and directed into each eye of the unfortunate barman, a jet of such strength that it almost undid its therapeutic work by blowing out his eyeballs. He was led off to his cabin, moaning, and the dance continued. The dance went on until dawn, when, like a candle, it dwindled and flickered and went out. We crept tiredly to our beds as the sky was turning from opal to blue and the sea was striped with scarves of mist.
All was bustle and activity when we dragged ourselves out of bed and assembled, as we had been told, in the main saloon.
Presently, the Purser materialized, and bowed to Mother and Margo. The Captain’s compliments, he said, and would we all like to go on to the bridge and see the ship dock? Mother consented to attend this great moment with such graciousness that you would have thought that they had asked her to launch the ship. After a hurried and typical Greek breakfast (cold toast, cold bacon and eggs, served on iced plates, accompanied by lukewarm tea which turned out to be coffee in a teapot for some mysterious reason), we trooped up on to the bridge.
The Captain, looking slightly jowly but with no loss of charm after his hard night, greeted us with great joy, presented Mother and Margo with carnations, showed us round the wheelhouse with pride, and then took us out on what Larry insisted on calling the quarter-deck. Front here, we had a perfect view over both the bows and the stern of the vessel. The Chief Officer stood by the winch round which the anchor chain was coiled like a strange rusty necklace, and near hint stood at least three of the sailors who had made up last night’s band. They all waved and blew kisses to Margo.
“Margo, dear I do wish you wouldn’t be so familiar with those sailors,” complained Mother.
“Oh, Mother, don’t be so old-fashioned,” said Margo, blowing lavish kisses back. “After all, I’ve got an ex-husband and two children.”
“It’s by blowing kisses at strange sailors that you get ex-husbands and children,” remarked Mother, grimly.
“Now,” said the Captain, his teeth glittering in the sun, “you come, Miss Margo, and I show you our radar. Radar so we can avoid rocks, collisions, catastrophes at sea. If Ulysses had had this, he would have travelled farther, eh? Beyond the portals of Hercules, eh? Then we Greeks would have discovered America . . . Come.”
He led Margo into the wheelhouse and was busily showing her the radar. The ship was now pointing straight at the docks, travelling at the speed of an elderly man on a bicycle. The Chief Officer, his eyes fixed on the bridge like a retriever poised to fetch in the first grouse of the season, waited anxiously for instructions. Inside the bridge-house, the Captain was explaining to Margo how, with radar, the Greeks could have discovered Australia, as well as America . Leslie began to get worried, for we were now quite close to the docks.
“I say, Captain,” he called. “Shouldn’t we drop anchor?”
The Captain turned from beaming into Margo’s face and fixed Leslie with a frigid stare.
“Please not to worry, Mr Durrell,” he said. “Everything is under control.”
Then he turned and saw the dock looming ahead like an implacable cement iceberg.
“Mother of God help me!” he roared in Greek, and bounded out of the wheelhouse.
“Papadopoulos!” he screamed. “Let go the anchor!”
This was the signal the Chief Officer had been waiting for. There was a burst of activity, and a roar and clatter as the chain was pulled by the heavy anchor, the splash as the anchor hit the sea, and the rattle as the chain continued running out. The ship went inexorably on its way. More and more chain rattled out, and still the ship slid on. It was obvious that the anchor had been released too late to act in its normal capacity as a brake. The Captain, ready for any emergency as a good Captain should be, leapt into the wheelhouse, signalled full astern, and brought the wheel hard over, pushing the helmsman out of the way with great violence. Alas, his brilliant summation of the situation, his rapid thinking, his magnificent manoeuvre, could not save us.
With her bow still swinging round, the Poseidon hit the docks with a tremendous crash. At the speed we were travelling, I thought that we would only feel the merest shudder. I was wrong. It felt as though we had struck a mine. The entire family fell in a heap. The three fat ladies, who had been descending a companionway, were flung down it like an avalanche of bolsters. In fact, everyone, including the Captain, fell down. Larry received a nasty cut on the forehead, Mother bruised her ribs, Margo only laddered her stockings. The Captain with great agility, regained his feet, did various technical things at the wheel, signalled the engine room, and then — his face black with rage — strode out on to the bridge.