6


The Royal Occasion

Kings and Bears oft worry their keepers.

SCOTTISH PROVERB

In those halcyon days we spent in Corfu it could be said that every day was a special day, specially coloured, specially arranged, so that it differed completely from the other three hundred and sixty-four and was memorable because of this. But there is one day in particular which stands out in my mind, for it involved not only the family and their circle of acquaintances but the entire population of Corfu.

It was the day that King George returned to Greece and nothing like it for colour, excitement and intrigue had ever been experienced in the island. Even the difficulties of organizing St Spiridion’s procession paled into insignificance beside this event.

I first heard about the honour that was to fall on Corfu from my tutor, Mr Kralefsky. He was so overwhelmed with excitement that he took scant interest in the cock linnet I had been at considerable pains to procure for him.

‘Great news, dear boy, great news! Good morning, good morning,’ he greeted me, his large soulful eyes brimming with tears of emotion, his shapely hands flapping to and fro and his head bobbing with excitement below his hump-back. ‘A proud day for this island, by Jove! Yes indeed, a proud day for Greece, but an especially proud one for this, our island. Er… what? Oh, the linnet… Yes. Nice birdie… tweet, tweet. But, as I was saying, what a triumph for us here in this little realm set in a sea of blue, as Shakespeare has it, to have the King visit us.’

This, I thought, was more like it. I could raise a faint enthusiasm for a real king, if only for the fringe benefits that might accrue. Which king was it, I inquired, and would I have a holiday when he came?

‘Why, the King of Greece, King George,’ said Mr Kralefsky, shocked by my ignorance. ‘Didn’t you know?’

I pointed out that we did not have the dubious benefits of a wireless and so, for the most part, lived in a state of blissful ignorance.

‘Well,’ said Mr Kralefsky, gazing at me rather worriedly, as if blaming himself for my lack of knowledge, ‘well, we had Metaxas, as you know, and he was a dictator. Now, mercifully, they’ve got rid of him, odious man, so now His Majesty can come back.’

When, I inquired, had they got rid of Metaxas? Nobody had told me.

‘Why, you remember, surely!’ cried Kralefsky. ‘You must remember – when we had the revolution and that cake shop was so badly damaged by the machine-gun bullets. Such unsafe things, I always think, machine-guns.’

I did remember the revolution because it had given me three days’ blissful holiday from my lessons and the cake shop had been one of my favourite shops. But I had not connected this with Metaxas. Would there, I inquired hopefully, be another shop disembowelled by machine-gun fire when the King came?

‘No, no,’ said Kralefsky shocked. ‘No, it’ll be a most gay occasion. Everyone en fête, as they say. Well, it’s such exciting news that I think we might be forgiven if we take the morning off to celebrate. Come upstairs and help me feed the birds.’

So we made our way up to the huge attic in which Kralefsky kept his collection of wild birds and canaries and spent a satisfying morning feeding them, Kralefsky dancing about the room waving the watering-can, his feet scrunching on the fallen seed as if it were a shingle beach, singing snatches of the ‘Marseillaise’ to himself.

Over lunch I imparted the news of the King’s visit to the family. They each received it in their characteristic ways.

‘That’ll be nice,’ said Mother, ‘I’d better start working out menus.’

‘He’s not coming to stay here, thank God,’ Larry pointed out.

‘I know that, dear,’ said Mother, ‘but… er… there’ll be all sorts of parties and things I suppose.’

‘I don’t see why,’ said Larry.

‘Because they always do,’ said Mother. ‘When we were in India we always had parties during the durbar.’

‘This is not India,’ said Larry, ‘so I don’t intend to waste my time working out the stabling for elephants. The whole thing will have a disruptive enough effect on the even tenor of our ways as it is, mark my words.’

‘If we’re having parties, can I have some new clothes, Mother?’ asked Margo eagerly. ‘I really haven’t got a thing to wear.’

‘I wonder if they’ll fire a salute,’ mused Leslie. ‘They’ve only got those old Venetian cannons, but I should think they’d be damned dangerous. I wonder if I ought to pop in and see the Commandant of the Fort.’

‘You keep out of it,’ Larry advised. ‘They want to welcome the man, not assassinate him.’

‘I saw some lovely red silk the other day,’ said Margo, ‘in that little shop… you know, the one where you turn right by Theodore’s laboratory?’

‘Yes, dear, how nice,’ said Mother, not listening. ‘I wonder if Spiro can get me some turkeys?’

But the effect of the Royal Visit on the family paled into insignificance in comparison with the traumatic effect it had on Corfu as a whole. It was pointed out, by somebody who should have known better, that not only was the island going to be graced by a visit from the monarch but the whole episode would be particularly symbolic as when the King arrived in Corfu he would be setting foot on Greek soil for the first time since his exile. At this thought the Corfiotes lashed themselves into a fever of activity and before long so complicated and so acrimonious had the preparations become that we were forced to go into town each day to sit on the Platia with the rest of Corfu to learn the news of the latest scandal.

The Platia, laid out with its great arches to resemble the Rue de Rivoli by French architects in the early days of the French occupation of Corfu, was the hub of the island. Here you would sit at little tables under the arches or beneath the shimmering trees and, sooner or later, you would see everyone on the island and hear every facet of every scandal. One sat there drinking quietly and, sooner or later, all the protagonists in the drama were washed up at one’s table.

‘I am Corfu,’ said Countess Malinopoulos. ‘Therefore it is incumbent upon me to form the committee that works out how we are to welcome our gracious King.’

‘Yes, indeed, I do see that,’ Mother agreed nervously.

The Countess, who resembled a raddled black crow wearing an orange wig, was a formidable force, there was no doubt, but the matter was too important to allow her to ride roughshod over everyone. Within a very short time there were no less than six welcoming committees, all struggling to persuade the Nomarch that their plans ought to take preference over all others. It was rumoured that he had an armed guard and slept in a locked room after an attempt by one of the female committee members to sacrifice her virginity in order to get his approval to her committee’s schemes.

‘Disgusting!’ trumpeted Lena Mavrokondas, rolling her black eyes and smacking her red lips as she wished that she had thought of the idea herself. ‘Imagine, my dears, a woman of her age trying to break into the Nomarch’s room, naked!’

‘It does seem a curious way to try to get his ear,’ Larry agreed innocently.

‘No, no, it is too absurd,’ Lena went on, deftly popping olives into her scarlet mouth as though she were loading a gun. ‘I’ve seen the Nomarch and I am sure he will agree to my committee being the official one. It is such shame the British flit is not in port; we could then have arrange a guard of honour. Oh, those lovely sailors in their uniform, they always look so clean and so virulent.’

‘The incidence of infectious diseases in the Royal Navy…’ Larry began, when Mother hastily interrupted.

‘Do tell us what your plans are, Lena,’ she said, glaring at Larry, who was on his eighth ouzo and inclined to be somewhat unreliable.

‘Soch plans, my dears, soch plans ve ’ave! This whole Platia vill be decorate in blue and vite, but alvays ve ’ave troubles with that fool Marko Paniotissa.’ Lena’s eyes rolled in despair.

Marko, we knew, was a sort of inspired madman and we wondered how he had got on to the committee at all.

‘What does Marko want to do?’ asked Larry.

‘Donkeys!’ hissed Lena, as if it were an obscene word.

‘Donkeys?’ repeated Larry. ‘He wants to have donkeys? What does he think it is? An agricultural show?’

‘This I explain ’im,’ said Lena, ‘but alvays ’e wants to ’ave donkeys.’E says it is symbolic, like Christ’s ride into Jerusalem, so ’e vants blue and vite donkeys.’

‘Blue and white ones? You mean dyed?’ asked Mother. ‘Whatever for?’

‘To match the Greek flags,’ said Lena, rising to her feet and facing us grimly, shoulders back, hands clenched; ‘but I tell ’im, “Marko,” I say, “you ’ave donkeys over my dead corpse.” ’

She strode off down the Platia, every inch a daughter of Greece.

The next one to stop at our table was Colonel Velvit, a tall, rather beautiful old man with a Byronic profile and an angular body that twitched and moved like a windblown marionette. With his curling white hair and flashing dark eyes, he looked incongruous in his Scout’s uniform, but he carried it off with dignity. Since his retirement his one interest in life was the local Scout troop and, while there were those unkind enough to say that his interest in Scouts was not entirely altruistic, he worked hard and had certainly never yet been caught.

He accepted an ouzo and sat mopping his face with a lavender-scented handkerchief.

‘Those boys,’ he said plaintively, ‘those boys of mine will be the death of me. They are so high spirited.’

‘What they probably need is a bevy of nubile Girl Guides,’ said Larry. ‘Have you thought of that?’

‘It is no joke, my dear,’ said the Colonel, eyeing Larry morosely. ‘They are so full of high spirits I fear they will get up to some prank or other. I was simply horrified at what they did today and the Nomarch was most annoyed.’

‘The poor Nomarch appears to be getting it in the neck from every direction,’ said Leslie.

‘What did your Scouts do?’ asked Mother.

‘Well, as you know, my dear Mrs Durrell, I am training them to put on a special demonstration for His Majesty on the evening of his arrival.’ The Colonel sipped his drink delicately like a cat. ‘First, they march out, some dressed in blue and some in white, in front of the… how do you call it?… dais! Exactly so, the dais. And they form a square and salute the King. Then, at the word of command they change positions and form the Greek flag. It’s a very striking sight, though I say it myself.’

He paused, drained his glass and sat back.

‘Well, the Nomarch wanted to see how we were progressing so he came along and stood on the dais, representing the King, as it were. Then I gave the command and the troop marched out.’

He closed his eyes and a small shudder shook him.

‘Do you know what they did?’ he asked, in a small voice. ‘I have never felt so ashamed. They marched out, stopped in front of the Nomarch and gave the Fascist salute. Boy Scouts! The Fascist salute!’

‘Did they shout “ Heil Nomarch”?’ asked Larry.

‘Mercifully, no,’ said Colonel Velvit. ‘For a moment I was paralysed with shock and then, hoping that the Nomarch had not noticed, I gave the command to form the flag. They moved about and then, to my horror, the Nomarch was confronted by a blue and white swastika. He was furious. He almost cancelled our part in the proceedings. What a blow to the Scout movement that would have been!’

‘Yes, indeed,’ said Mother, ‘but they’re only children, after all.’

‘That’s true, my dear Mrs Durrell, but I cannot have people saying that I am training a group of Fascists,’ said Colonel Velvit earnestly. ‘They’ll be saying next that I plan to take over Corfu.’

During the ensuing days, as the time of the great event grew nearer, the island’s inhabitants became more and more frenzied and tempers grew shorter and shorter. Countess Malinopoulos was now no longer speaking to Lena Mavrokondas and she in her turn was not speaking to Colonel Velvit because his Boy Scouts had given her a gesture of unmistakably biological nature as they passed by her house. All the leaders of the village bands, who always took part in the St Spiridion’s procession, had quarrelled bitterly with each other over procedure in the march past, and one evening on the Platia we were treated to the sight of three incensed tuba players chasing a bass drummer, all in full uniform and carrying their instruments. The tuba players, obviously driven beyond endurance, cornered the drummer, tore his instrument from him and jumped on it. Immediately, the Platia was a seething mass of infuriated bandsmen locked in combat. Mr Kralefsky, who was an innocent bystander, received a nasty cut on the back of the head from a flying cymbal and old Mrs Kukudopoulos, who was exercising her two spaniels between the trees, had to pick up her skirts and run for it. This incident (everybody said, when she died the next year), took years off her life, but as she was ninety-five when she died this was scarcely credible. Soon nobody was on speaking terms with anybody, though they all talked to us for we kept strictly neutral. Captain Creech, whom no one suspected of possessing a patriotic streak of any sort, was wildly excited by the whole thing, and, to everyone’s annoyance, went from committee to committee spreading gossip, singing bawdy songs, pinching unsuspecting and unprotected bosoms and buttocks, and generally making a nuisance of himself.

‘Disgusting old creature!’ said Mother, her eyes flashing; ‘I do wish he’d behave himself. After all, he is meant to be British.’

‘He’s keeping the committees on their toes, if I may use the phrase,’ said Larry. ‘Lena tells me that her bottom was black and blue after the last meeting he attended.’

‘Filthy old brute,’ said Mother.

‘Don’t be so harsh, Mother,’ said Larry. ‘You know you’re only jealous.’

‘Jealous!’ squeaked Mother, bristling like a diminutive terrier. ‘Jealous!… of that… old… old… libertine! Don’t be so disgusting. I won’t have you say things like that, Larry, even in joke.’

‘But it’s unrequited love for you that makes him drown his sorrows in wine and women,’ Larry pointed out. ‘If you’d make an honest man of him, he’d reform.’

‘He was drowning his sorrows in wine and women long before he met me,’ said Mother, ‘and as far as I’m concerned, he can go on doing so. He’s one person I’m not interested in reforming.’

The captain, however, was oblivious to all criticism.

‘Darling girl!’ he said to Mother the next time he met her, ‘you haven’t by any chance a Union Jack in your bottom drawer?’

‘No, captain, I’m afraid I haven’t,’ said Mother with dignity. ‘Neither have I a bottom drawer.’

‘What? A fine wench like you? No bottom drawer? No nice collection of frilly black knickers to drive your next husband mad?’ asked Captain Creech, eyeing Mother with a lecherous and rheumy eye.

Mother blushed and stiffened.

‘I have no intention of driving anyone mad, with or without knickers!’ she said with great dignity.

‘That’s my wench,’ said the captain. ‘Game, that’s what you are, game. I like a little nudity myself, to tell the truth.’

‘What d’you want a Union Jack for?’ asked Mother, frigidly changing the subject.

‘To wave, of course,’ said the captain. ‘All these wogs will be waving their flag, so we must show ’em the good old Empire’s not to be overlooked.’

‘Have you tried the Consul?’ asked Mother.

‘Him?’ replied the captain scornfully. ‘He said there was only one on the island and that was only to be used for special occasions. If this is not a special occasion, what in the name of the testicles of St Vitus is? So I told him to use his flagpole as an enema.’

‘I do wish you wouldn’t encourage that dirty old man to come and sit with us, Larry,’ said Mother plaintively when the captain had staggered off in pursuit of the Union Jack. ‘His conversation is obscene and I don’t like him saying things like that in front of Gerry.’

‘It’s your fault, you encourage him,’ said Larry. ‘All this talk about removing your knickers.’

‘Larry! You know perfectly well what I meant. It was a slip of the tongue.’

‘But it gave him hope,’ went on Larry. ‘You’d better watch out or he’ll be into your bottom drawer like a truffle hound choosing nighties for the wedding night.’

‘Oh, do be quiet!’ said Mother crossly. ‘Really, Larry, you make me angry sometimes.’

The island became more and more tense. From the remote mountain villages where the older women were polishing up their cow’s-horn head-dresses and ironing their handkerchiefs, to the town where every tree was being pruned and every table and chair on the Platia repainted, all was a-seethe with acrimonious activity. In the old part of the town, where the streets were two-donkeys narrow and the air always redolent of freshly baked bread, fruit, sunshine and drains in equal quantities, was the tiny café belonging to a friend of mine, Costi Avgadrama.

The café was justly famous for producing the best ice-cream in Corfu, for Costi had been to Italy and had learned all the dark arts of ice-cream making. His confections were much in demand and there was scarcely a party worth calling a party given on the island that did not include one of Costi’s enormous, tottering, multi-coloured creations. Costi and I had a good working agreement; I would go to his café three times a week to collect all the cockroaches in his kitchen to feed my birds and animals, and in return for this service I was allowed to eat as many ice-creams as I could during my work. Determined that his shops should be clean for the Royal Visit, I went along to Costi’s café about three days before the King was due and found him in a mood of suicidal despair such as only a Greek, with the aid of ouzo, can acquire and sustain. I asked him what was the matter.

‘I am ruined,’ he said sepulchrally, setting before me a stone bottle of ginger beer and a gleaming white ice-cream big enough to sink the Titanic. ‘I am a ruined man, kyria Gerry. I am a laughing stock. No longer will people say “Ah, Corfu, that is where Costi’s ice-cream comes from.” No, they will say instead, “Corfu? That’s where that fool Costi’s ice-cream comes from.” I shall have to leave the island, there is no other course. I shall go to Zante or maybe Athens, or perhaps I shall join a monastery. My wife and children will starve, my poor old parents will feel burning shame as they beg for their bread…’

Interrupting these gloomy prophecies, I asked what had happened to bring about this state of despair.

‘I am a genius,’ said Costi simply and without boastfulness, seating himself at my table and absent-mindedly pouring himself out another ouzo. ‘No one in Corfu could produce ice-creams like mine, so succulent, so beautiful, so… so cold.’

I said this was true. I went further, for he obviously needed encouragement, and said that his ice-creams were famous throughout Greece, maybe even throughout Europe.

‘True,’ groaned Costi. ‘So it was natural that when the King was to visit Corfu the Nomarch wanted him to taste my ice-cream.’

I was greatly impressed and said so.

‘Yes,’ said Costi, ‘twelve kilos of ice-cream I was to deliver to the Palace at Mon Repos and one special ice-cream for the great banquet on the night His Majesty arrives. Aghh! it was this special ice that was my undoing. This is why my wife and children must starve. Ah, cruel and relentless fate!’

‘Why?’ I asked bluntly, through a mouthful of ice-cream. I was in no mood for the frills; I wanted to get to the core of the story.

‘I decided that this ice-cream must be something new, something unique, something never dreamed of before,’ said Costi, draining his ouzo. ‘All night I lay awake waiting for a sign.’

He closed his eyes and turned his head from side to side on a hot, unyielding, imaginary pillow.

‘I did not sleep, I was in a fever. Then, just as the first cocks crowed, “Ku-ka-ra-ka, koo,” I was blinded by a flash of inspiration.’

He smote himself so hard on the forehead he almost fell out of his chair. Shakily, he poured out another ouzo.

‘I saw before my hot and tired eyes the vision of a flag, a flag of Greece, the flag for which we have all suffered and died, but the flag made in my best superior, quality, full cream ice-cream,’ he said triumphantly, and sat back to see its effect on me.

I said I thought the idea was the most brilliant I had ever heard of. Costi beamed, and then, remembering, his expression became one of despair again.

‘I leaped out of bed,’ he continued dolefully, ‘and ran into my kitchen. There I discovered that I had not the ingredients to carry out my plan. I had chocolate to colour the cream brown, I had dyes to make it red or green or even yellow, but I had nothing, nothing at all, to make the blue stripes in the flag.’ He paused, drank deeply, and then drew himself up proudly.

‘A lesser man… a Turk or an Albanian… would have abandoned the plan. But not Costi Avgadrama. You know what I did?’

I shook my head and took a swig of ginger beer.

‘I went to see my cousin Michaeli. You know, he works for the chemist’s down by the docks. Well, Michaeli – may St Spiridion’s curse fall upon him and his offspring – gave me some stuff to make the stripes blue. Look!’

Costi went to his cold room and disappeared inside; then he came staggering out bearing a mammoth dish and laid it in front of me. It was full of ice-cream with blue and white stripes and did look remarkably like the Greek flag, even if the blue was a little on the purple side. I said I thought it was magnificent.

‘Deadly!’ hissed Costi. ‘Deadly as a bomb.’

He sat down and stared malevolently at the huge dish. I could see nothing wrong with it except that the blue was more the colour of methylated spirits than true blue.

‘Disgraced! By my own cousin, by that son of an unmarried father!’ said Costi. ‘He gave me the powder, he said it would be fine; he promised me, the viper tongue, that it would work.’

But it had worked, I pointed out, so what was the trouble?

‘By God and St Spiridion’s mercy,’ said Costi piously, ‘I had the idea of making a small flag for my family, just so they could celebrate their father’s triumph. I cannot bear to think what would have happened if I had not done this.’

He rose to his feet and opened the door leading from the café to his private quarters.

‘I will show you what that monster, my cousin, has done,’ he said, and called up the stairs, ‘Katarina! Petra! Spiro! Come!’

Costi’s wife and his two sons came slowly and reluctantly down the stairs and stood in front of me. To my astonishment I saw that they all had bright purple mouths, the rich, royal purple of a summer beetle’s wing case.

‘Put out your tongue,’ Costi commanded.

The family opened their mouths and poked out tongues the colour of a Roman’s robe. They looked like macabre orchids, or a species of mandrake, perhaps. I could see Costi’s problem. In the helpful, unthinking way that Corfiotes have, his cousin had given him a packet of gentian violet. I had once had to paint a sore on my leg with this substance and I knew that, among its many properties, it was an extremely tenacious dye. Costi would have a purple wife and children for some weeks to come.

‘Just imagine,’ he said to me in a hushed whisper, having sent his discoloured wife and brood back upstairs, ‘just imagine if I’d sent this to the Palace. Imagine all those church dignitaries, their beards purple! A purple Nomarch and a purple King! I would have been shot.’

I said I thought it would have been rather funny. Costi was greatly shocked. When I grew up, he said severely, I would realize that some things in life were very serious, not comical.

‘Imagine the reputation of the island… imagine my reputation if I had turned the King purple,’ he said, as he gave me another ice-cream to show that there was no ill-feeling. ‘Imagine how the foreigners would have laughed if the Greek King had turned purple. Po! po! po! po! St Spiridion save us!’

And how about the cousin, I inquired; how had he taken the news?

‘He doesn’t know yet,’ said Costi, grinning evilly, ‘but he will soon. I’ve just sent him an ice-cream shaped like the Greek flag.’

So the island was wound up to a pitch of unbearable excitement when the great day dawned. Spiro had organized his huge and ancient Dodge with the hood down as a sort of combination grandstand and battering ram, determined that the family at any rate were going to get a good view of the proceedings. In a festive mood, we drove into town and had a drink on the Platia to pick up news of the final preparations. Lena, resplendent in green and purple, told us that Marko had finally, if reluctantly, given up his idea of blue and white donkeys but now had another plan only slightly less bizarre.

‘You know g’e’as’is father’s printing works, huh?’ said Lena. ‘Vell, ’e say’e is to print thousands and thousands of Greek flags and take them out in ’is yacht and then scatter them over the vater so that the King’s ship ’as a carpet of Greek flags to sail on, no?’

Marko’s yacht was the joke of Corfu; a once rather lush cabin cruiser, Marko had added so much superstructure to it that, as Leslie rightly said, it looked like a sort of sea-going Crystal Palace with a heavy list to starboard. Every time Marko set sail in it bets were laid as to when and if he would return.

‘So,’ continued Lena, ‘first ’e’ave the flags print, then ’e finds they don’t float – they sink. So ’e makes little crosses of vood and sticks the flags on them so that they vill float.’

‘It sounds rather a nice idea,’ said Mother.

‘If it works,’ said Larry. ‘You know Marko’s genius for organization. Remember Constantine’s birthday.’

In the summer Marko had organized a sumptuous picnic for his nephew Constantine’s birthday. It would have been a splendid event, with everything from roast suckling pig to watermelons filled with champagne. The élite of Corfu were invited. The only snag was that Marko had got his beaches muddled and while he sat in solitary splendour surrounded by enough food to feed an army on a beach far down south, the élite of Corfu, hot and hungry, waited on a beach in the far north of the island.

‘Vell,’ said Lena, with an expressive shrug, ‘ve cannot stop him. All the flags are loaded on his boat. He has sent a man with a rocket to Coloura.’

‘A man with a rocket?’ asked Leslie. ‘What for?’

Lena rolled her eyes expressively.

‘When the man sees the King’s ship he fires the rocket,’ she said. ‘Marko sees the rocket and this gives him time to rush out and cover the sea with flags.’

‘Well, I hope he succeeds,’ said Margo. ‘I like Marko.’

‘My dear, so do ve all,’ said Lena. ‘In my village where I ’ave my villa ve have a village idiot. He is charming, très sympathique, but ve do not want to make him the mayor.’

With this waspish parting shot, she left us. The next one to arrive was Colonel Velvit in an agitated state.

‘You haven’t by any chance seen three small, fat Boy Scouts?’ he asked. ‘No, I didn’t think you would have. Little brutes! They went off into the country in their uniforms, the little savages, and came back looking like pigs! I sent them off to the cleaners to get their uniforms cleaned and they’ve disappeared.’

‘If I see them, I’ll send them to you,’ said Mother soothingly. ‘Don’t worry.’

‘Thank you, my dear Mrs Durrell. I would not worry, but the little devils are an important part of the proceedings,’ said Colonel Velvit, preparing to go in search of the missing Scouts. ‘You see, not only do they form part of the stripe in the flag but they have to demolish the bridge as well.’

With this mysterious remark, he departed, loping off like a hound.

‘Bridge? What bridge?’ asked Mother, bewildered.

‘Oh, it’s part of the show,’ said Leslie. ‘Among other things, they build a pontoon bridge over an imaginary river, cross it, and then blow it up to prevent the enemy following.’

‘I always thought Boy Scouts were peaceful,’ said Mother.

‘Not the Corfiote ones,’ said Leslie. ‘They’re probably the most war-like inhabitants of Corfu.’

At that moment Theodore and Kralefsky, who were to share the car with us, arrived.

‘There has been… er… you know… a slight hiatus over the salute,’ Theodore reported to Leslie.

‘I knew it!’ said Leslie angrily. ‘That fool of a Commandant! He was too airy-fairy when I spoke to him. I told him those Venetian cannons would burst.’

‘No, no… er… the cannons haven’t burst. Er… um… at least, not yet,’ said Theodore. ‘No, it is a problem of timing. The Commandant was very insistent that the salute should be fired the moment the King’s foot touches Greek soil. The… er… um… difficulty was apparently to arrange a signal from the docks that could be seen by the… gunners in the… er… you know… the fort.’

‘So what have they arranged?’ asked Leslie.

‘They have sent a corporal down to the docks with a forty-five,’ said Theodore. ‘He is to fire it the moment before the King sets foot on the shore.’

‘Does he know how to fire it?’ asked Leslie sceptically.

‘Well… er…’ said Theodore, ‘I had to spend quite some time trying to make him see that it was dangerous to put it… um… you know… loaded and cocked into his holster.’

‘Silly fool, he’ll shoot himself through the foot like that,’ said Leslie.

‘Never mind,’ said Larry, ‘there’s bound to be some bloodletting before the day is out. I hope you brought your first aid kit, Theodore.’

‘Don’t say things like that, Larry,’ begged Mother. ‘You make me feel quite nervous.’

‘Ifs you’re readys, Mrs Durrells, we oughts to gets going,’ said Spiro, who had appeared, brown, scowling, looking like a gargoyle on holiday from Notre Dame. ‘The crowd’s getting very tense.’

‘Dense, Spiro, dense,’ said Margo.

‘That’s what I says, Misses Margo,’ said Spiro. ‘But don’ts you worry. I’ll fix ’em. I’ll scarce them out of the way with my horn.’

‘Spiro really ought to write a dictionary,’ said Larry as we climbed into the Dodge and wedged ourselves on to the capacious leather seats.

Since early morning the white dusty roads had been jammed with carts and donkeys bringing peasants into the capital for the great event, and a great pall of dust covered the countryside, turning the plants and trees by the roadside white, hanging in the air like microscopic flakes of snow. The town was now as full or fuller than it was on St Spiridion’s day and great bevies of people were eddying across the Platia in their best clothes like clouds of wind-swept blossoms. Every back street was jammed with humanity mixed with donkeys, the whole moving at a glacier pace, and the air was full of excited chatter and laughter, the pungent smell of garlic, and the all-pervading smell of mothballs, the sign of special clothes carefully extracted from their places of safe-keeping. On every side you could hear brass bands tuning up, donkeys braying, the cries of the street vendors, and the excited screams of children. The town quivered and throbbed like a great, multi-coloured, redolent beehive.

Driving at a snail’s pace, honking his great, rubber-bulbed horn to ‘scarce’ the uncaring populace out of the way, Spiro drove us down to the docks. Here all was bustle and what passed for efficiency; a band was lined up, its instruments sparkling, its uniforms immaculate, its air of respectability only slightly marred by the fact that two of its members had black eyes. Next to it was a battalion of local soldiery, looking remarkably clean and neat. Church dignitaries, with their carefully combed, white, silver, and iron-grey beards, bright and gay as a flock of parrots in their robes, chatted animatedly to each other, stomachs bulging, beards wagging, plump, well-manicured hands moving in the most delicate of gestures. Near the dockside where the King would come ashore stood a forlorn-looking corporal; obviously his responsibilities were weighing heavily on him for he kept fingering his revolver holster nervously and biting his nails.

Presently, there was a surge of excitement and everyone was saying, ‘The King! The King! The King is coming!’ The corporal adjusted his hat and stood a little straighter. What had given rise to this rumour was the sight of Marko Paniotissa’s yacht putting out into the bay and lumbering to and fro while Marko, in the stern, could be seen unloading bundle after bundle of Greek flags.

‘I didn’t see the rocket, did you?’ asked Margo.

‘No, but you can’t see the headland from here,’ said Leslie.

‘Well, I think Marko’s doing splendidly,’ said Margo.

‘It’s certainly a very pretty effect,’ said Mother.

And indeed it was, for several acres of the smooth sea were covered with a carpet of tiny flags which looked most impressive. Unfortunately, as we were to learn within the next hour and a half, Marko’s timing had been at fault. The man he had stationed up in the north of the island to fire the signal rocket was most reliable but his identification of ships left a lot to be desired and so what eventually appeared was not the ship conveying the King but a rather grubby little tanker on its way to Athens. This in itself would not have been such a grave error but Marko, carried away as so many Corfiotes were that day, had failed to check on the glue with which the flags were stuck to the little wooden pieces that allowed them to float. As we waited for the King we were treated to the sight of the glue disintegrating under the influence of sea water and several thousand Greek flags sinking ignominiously to the bottom of the bay.

‘Oh, poor Marko, I feel so sorry for him,’ said Margo, almost in tears.

‘Never mind,’ said Larry consolingly, ‘perhaps the King likes little bits of wood.’

‘Um… I don’t… you know… think so,’ said Theodore. ‘You see how they’re all shaped like a little cross. That in Greece is considered a very bad omen.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Mother. ‘I do hope the King won’t realize that Marko did it.’

‘If Marko is wise, he’ll go into voluntary exile,’ contributed Larry.

‘Ah, here he comes at last,’ said Leslie as the King’s ship sailed majestically across several acres of little wooden crosses, as though ploughing its way through a marine war cemetery.

The gang-plank was lowered, the band struck up blaringly, the Army came to attention, and the crowd of church dignitaries moved forward like a suddenly uprooted flower bed. They reached the bottom of the gang-plank, the band stopped playing, and to a chorus of delighted ‘Ah’s’ the King made his appearance, paused briefly to salute, and then made his way slowly down the gangway. It was the little corporal’s great moment. Sweating profusely, he had moved as close to the gang-plank as he could and he had his gaze riveted on the King’s feet. His instructions had been explicit; three paces before the King stepped off the gangway and on to Greek soil he was to give the signal. This would give the fort enough time to fire the cannon as the King stepped ashore.

The King descended slowly. The atmosphere was tense with emotion. The corporal fumbled with his holster and then, at the crucial moment, drew his forty-five and fired five rounds approximately two yards away from the King’s right ear. It immediately became obvious that the fort had not thought to tell the Welcoming Committee about its signal and so the Committee, to say the least, was taken aback, as was the King and, indeed, as were we all.

‘My God, they’ve amputated him,’ screamed Margo, who always lost both her head and her command over English in moments of crisis.

‘Don’t be a fool, it’s the signal,’ snapped Leslie, training his field glasses on the fort.

But it was obvious that the Welcoming Committee thought much the same as my sister. As one man, they fell on the unfortunate corporal. He, white-faced and protesting, was pummelled and thumped and kicked, his revolver was torn from his grasp and he was hit smartly on the head with it. It is probable that he would have come to some serious harm if at that moment the cannons had not blared out in an impressive cumulus cloud of smoke from the ramparts of the fort and vindicated his action.

After this all was smiles and laughter, for the Corfiotes had a keen sense of humour. Only the King looked a trifle pensive. He climbed into the official open car and a snag made its appearance; for some reason the door would not lock. The chauffeur slammed it, the sergeant in charge of the troops slammed it, the band leader slammed it, and a passing priest slammed it but it refused to stay shut. The chauffeur, not to be defeated, backed up, and took a run and kicked it violently. The car shuddered but the door remained obdurate. They tried string, but there was nothing to tie it to. Eventually, since there could be no further delay, they were forced to drive off with the Nomarch’s secretary hanging over the back of the seat and holding the door shut with one hand.

Their first stop was at St Spiridion’s Church so that the King could make his obeisances to the mummified remains of the saint. Surrounded by a forest of ecclesiastical beards, he disappeared into the dark depths of the church, where a thousand candles bloomed like a riot of primroses. It was a hot day and the chauffeur of the King’s car was feeling a bit exhausted after his fight with the door so, without telling anyone, he left the car parked in front of the church and nipped round the corner for a drink. And who is to blame him? Who, on occasions such as this, has not felt the same? However, his estimation of the time the King would take to visit the saint was inaccurate so when the King, surrounded by the cream of the Greek church, suddenly emerged from the church and took his place in the car, the chauffeur was conspicuous by his absence. As was usual in Corfu when a crisis was reached, everyone blamed everyone else for the chauffeur’s disappearance. A quarter of an hour passed while accusations were hurled, fists were shaken, and runners were sent in all directions in search of the chauffeur. There was some delay because no one knew which café he was honouring with his presence, but eventually he was tracked down and a stream of vituperation was poured on his head as he was dragged ignominiously away in the middle of his second ouzo.

The next stop was the Platia, where the King was to see the march past of troops and bands and the exhibition by the Scouts. By driving cacophonously through the narrow back streets, Spiro got us to the Platia long before the King’s car.

‘Surely they can’t do anything else wrong,’ said Mother worriedly.

‘The island has surpassed itself,’ said Larry. ‘I had hoped they might get a puncture between the docks and the church, but that was asking too much, I suppose.’

‘Well, I’m not so sure,’ said Theodore, his eyes twinkling. ‘Remember, this is Corfu. They might well have something more in store for us.’

‘I do hope not,’ said Kralefsky. ‘Really! Such organization! It makes one blush.’

‘They can’t think up anything more, Theo, surely,’ Larry protested.

‘I wouldn’t like to be… er… um… bank on it… you know…’ said Theodore.

As it turned out, he was perfectly right.

The King arrived and took his place on the dais. The troops marched past with great vigour and all of them managed to be more or less in step. Corfu was rather a remote garrison in those days and the recruits did not get much practice but, nevertheless, they acquitted themselves creditably. Next came the mass bands – bands from every village in the island, their variously coloured uniforms glowing, their instruments so polished that the gleam of them hurt the eyes. If their delivery quavered a little and was slightly off-key, it was more than made up for by the volume and force of their playing.

Then it was the turn of the Scouts and we all clapped and cheered as Colonel Velvit, looking like an extremely nervous and attenuated Old Testament prophet in Scout’s uniform, led his diminutive troops onto the dusty Platia. They saluted the King and then, obeying a rather strangled falsetto order from the colonel, shuffled to and fro and formed the Greek flag. Such a wave of clapping and cheering broke out that it must surely have been heard in the remotest vastnesses of the Albanian mountains. After a short display of gymnastics the troop then went over to where two white lines represented the two banks of a river. Here half the troop hurried away and reappeared with planks necessary for making a pontoon bridge while the other half were busy getting a line across the treacherous waters. So fascinated were the crowd by the mechanics of this that they drifted closer and closer to the ‘river’, accompanied by the policemen who were supposed to be keeping them back.

In record time, the Scouts, none of whom were more than eight-years-old, created their pontoon across the imaginary river and then led by one small boy blowing vociferously and inaccurately on a trumpet, jog-trotted across the bridge and stood to attention on the opposite side. The crowd were enchanted; they clapped, cheered, whistled and stamped. Colonel Velvit allowed himself a small, tight, military smile and cast a proud look in our direction. Then he barked out a word of command. Three small fat Scouts detached themselves from the troop and made their way to the bridge, carrying fuses, a plunger and other demolition equipment. They fixed everything up and then rejoined the troop, unwinding the fuse wire as they came. They stood at attention and waited. Colonel Velvit savoured his big moment; he glanced round to make sure he had everyone’s undivided attention. The silence was complete.

‘Demolish bridge!’ roared Colonel Velvit, and one of the Scouts crouched and pressed the plunger home.

The next few minutes were confused, to say the least. There was a colossal explosion; a cloud of dust, gravel and bits of bridge was thrown into the air, to descend like hail upon the population. The first three rows of the crowd, all the policemen and Colonel Velvit, were thrown flat on their backs. The blast, carrying with it gravel and splinters of wood, reached the car where we were sitting, battered against the coachwork like machine-gun fire and blew Mother’s hat off.

‘Christ Almighty!’ said Larry. ‘What the hell’s that fool Velvit playing at?’

‘My hat,’ panted Mother. ‘Somebody get my hat!’

‘I’ll gets it, Mrs Durrells, don’ts you worrys,’ roared Spiro.

‘Most unnerving, most unnerving,’ said Kralefsky, his eyes closed, mopping his brow with his handkerchief. ‘Far too militant for small boys.’

‘Small boys! Bloody little fiends,’ cried Larry angrily, shaking gravel out of his hair.

‘I felt sure something else would happen,’ added Theodore with satisfaction, happy now that Corfu’s reputation for calamities was secure.

‘They must have had some sort of explosive,’ said Leslie. ‘I can’t think what Colonel Velvit was playing at. Damned dangerous.’

It became obvious a little later that it was not the colonel’s fault. Having rather shakily lined up his troop and marched them away, he returned to the scene of the carnage to apologize to Mother.

‘I cannot tell you how mortified I am, Mrs Durrell,’ he said, tears in his eyes. ‘Those little brutes got some dynamite from some fishermen. I assure you, I knew absolutely nothing about it, nothing.’

In his dust-stained uniform and battered hat, he looked very pathetic.

‘Oh, don’t worry, Colonel,’ said Mother, shakily lifting a brandy and soda to her lips. ‘It’s the sort of thing that could happen to anyone.’

‘Happens all the time in England,’ said Larry. ‘Never a day passes…’

‘Do come and have dinner with us,’ interrupted Mother, giving Larry a quelling look.

‘Thank you, dear lady, you are too kind,’ said the colonel. ‘I must go and change.’

‘I was very interested in the reaction of the spectators,’ said Theodore, with scientific relish. ‘You know… er… the ones who were blown down.’

‘I should think they were damned annoyed,’ said Leslie.

‘No,’ went on Theodore proudly, ‘this is Corfu. They all… you know… helped each other up, brushed each other down, and remarked on how good the whole thing was… er… how realistic. It didn’t seem to occur to them that there was anything strange in Boy Scouts having dynamite.’

‘Well, if you live long enough in Corfu, you cease to be surprised at anything,’ said Mother with conviction.

Eventually, after a prolonged and delicious meal in town, during which we tried to convince Colonel Velvit that his bridge demolition had been the high spot of the day, Spiro drove us home through the cool, velvety night. The scops owls called ‘toink toink’ to each other, chiming like strange bells among the trees; the white dust billowed behind the car and remained suspended like a summer’s cloud in the still air; the dark cathedral groves of the olives were pricked out with the pulsing green lights of fireflies. It had been a good, if exhausting, day, and we were glad to be home.

‘Well,’ said Mother, stifling a yawn as she picked up her lamp and made her way to the stairs, ‘King or no King, I’m staying in bed until twelve tomorrow.’

‘Oh…’ said Larry contritely, ‘didn’t I tell you?’

Mother paused halfway up the stairs and looked at Larry, the wavering lamplight making her shadow quiver and leap on the white wall.

‘Tell me what?’ she asked suspiciously.

‘About the King,’ said Larry. ‘I’m sorry I should have told you before.’

‘Told me what?’ said Mother, now seriously alarmed.

‘I’ve asked him to lunch,’ said Larry.

‘Larry! You haven’t! Really, you are thoughtless…’ Mother began, and then realized that she was having her leg pulled.

She drew herself up to her full five foot.

‘I don’t think that’s funny,’ she said frigidly. ‘Anyway, the laugh would have been on him for I’ve only got eggs in the house.’

With great dignity, ignoring our laughter, she made her way to bed.