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‘What’s he a prince of ?’ asked Leslie.

‘Well, I don’t really know,’ said Mother. ‘One of those small states the maharajas have, I expect.’

‘It’s a very odd name, Jeejeebuoy,’ said Margo, ‘are you sure it’s real?’

‘Of course it’s real, dear,’ said Mother. ‘There are lots of Jeejeebuoys in India. It’s a very old family, like… um… like…’

‘Smith?’ suggested Leslie.

‘No, no, not nearly as common as that. No, the Jeejeebuoys go right back in history. There must have been Jeejeebuoys long before my grandparents went to India.’

‘His ancestors probably organized the Mutiny,’ suggested Leslie with relish. ‘Let’s ask him if his grandfather invented the Black Hole of Calcutta.’

‘Oh, yes, let’s,’ said Margo. ‘D’you think he did? What was it?’

‘Leslie, dear, you shouldn’t say things like that,’ said Mother. ‘After all, we must forgive and forget.’

‘Forgive and forget what?’ asked Leslie, bewildered, not having followed Mother’s train of thought.

‘Everything,’ said Mother firmly, adding, rather obscurely, ‘I’m sure they meant well.’

Before Leslie could investigate this further, the car roared up the drive and drew up below the veranda with an impressive squeal of brakes. Sitting in the back, dressed in black, and with a beautifully arranged turban as white as a snowdrop bud, sat a slender, diminutive Indian with enormous, glittering almond‑shaped eyes that were like pools of liquid agate fringed with eyelashes as thick as a carpet. He opened the door deftly and leaped out of the car. His smile of welcome was like a lightning flash of white in his brown face.

‘Vell, vell, here ve are at last,’ he cried excitedly, spreading his slender brown hands like butterfly wings and dancing up onto the veranda. ‘You must be Mrs Durrell, of course. Such charm. And you are the hunter of the family… Leslie. And Margo, the beauty of the island, vitout doubt… And Gerry the savant, the naturalist par excellence . I can’t tell you how hot it makes me to meet you all.’

‘Oh… well… er… er… yes, we’re delighted to meet you, Your Highness,’ Mother began.

Jeejeebuoy uttered a yelp and slapped his forehead.

‘Desh and demnation!’ he said. ‘My foolish name again! My dear Mrs Durrell, how can I apologize? Prince is my Christian name. A vhim on my mother’s part to make our humble family royal, you understand? A mother’s love, hm? Dream son vill aspire to golden heights, huh? No, no, poor voman, ve must forgive her, uh? I am plain Prince Jeejeebuoy, at your service.’

‘Oh,’ said Mother, who having geared herself to cope with royalty, felt somewhat let‑down. ‘Well, what do we call you?’

‘My friends, of which I have an inordinate number,’ said the new arrival earnestly, ‘call me Jeejee. I do hope that you vill call me the same.’

So Jeejee took up residence and during the short time he was there created greater havoc and endeared himself more to us than any other guest we had had. With his pedantic English, his earnest, gentle air, he took such a deep and genuine interest in everything and everyone that he was irresistible. For Lugaretzia he had various pots of evil‑smelling sticky substances with which to anoint her numerous imaginary aches and pains; with Leslie he would discuss in grave detail the state of hunting in the world and give graphic and probably untrue stories of tiger and wild boar hunts he had been on. For Margo he procured some lengths of cloth and made them into saris and taught her how to wear them; Spiro he would enthral with tales of the riches and mysteriousness of the East, of bejewelled elephants wrestling with each other and maharajas worth their weight in precious stones. He was proficient with his pencil and as well as taking a deep and genuine interest in all my pets completely won me over by doing delicate little sketches of them for me to stick in my natural history diary, a document which was, to my mind, considerably more important than a combination of the Magna Carta , The Book of Kells and the Gutenberg Bible , and was treated as such by our discerning guest. But it was Mother that Jeejee really charmed into submission, for not only did he have endless mouth‑watering recipes for her to write down and a fund of folklore and ghost stories, but his visit enabled Mother to talk endlessly about India, where she had been born and bred and which she considered her real home.

In the evening we would sit long over our meal at the big, creaking dining table, the clusters of oil lamps in the corners of the great room blooming in pools of primrose yellow light, the drifts of small moths fluttering against them like snow; the dogs lying in the doorway – now their numbers had risen to four they were never allowed into the dining‑room – would yawn and sigh at our tardiness, but we would be oblivious to them. Outside the ringing cries of the crickets and the crackle of tree frogs would make the velvety night alive. In the lamplight Jeejee’s eyes would seem to grow bigger and blacker like an owl’s, with a strange liquid fire in them.

‘Of course, in your day, Mrs Durrell, things vere different. You could not intermingle. No, no, strict segregation, vasn’t it? But now things are better. First the maharajas got their toes in the doors and nowadays even some of us humbler Indians are allowed to intermingle and thus accrue some of the advantages of civilization,’ said Jeejee one evening.

‘In my day,’ said Mother, ‘it was the Eurasians that they felt most strongly about. We wouldn’t be allowed even to play with them by my grandmother. Of course we always did.’

‘Children are singularly insensitive to the correct civilized behaviour,’ said Jeejee smiling. ‘Still there vere some difficulties at first, you know. Rome, however, vas not built in a day. Did you hear about the Babu in my town who vas invited to the ball?’

‘No, what happened?’

‘Vell, he saw that after the gentlemen had finished dancing with the ladies they escorted them back to their chairs and fanned them with the ladies’ fan. So, having conducted a sprightly valtz with a European lady of some eminence he conducted her safely back to her seat, took her fan, and said, “Madam, may I make vind in your face?” ’

‘That sounds the sort of thing Spiro would say,’ said Leslie.

‘I remember once,’ said Mother throwing herself into reminiscence with pleasure, ‘when my husband was Chief Engineer in Rourki. We had the most terrible cyclone. Larry was only a baby. The house was a long, low one and I remember we ran from room to room trying to hold the doors shut against the wind. As we ran from room to room, the house simply collapsed behind us. We eventually ended up in the butler’s pantry. But when we had the house repaired the Babu contractor sent in a bill which was headed “For repairs to Chief Engineer’s backside”.’

‘India must have been fascinating then,’ said Jeejee, ‘because, unlike most Europeans, you vere part of the country.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Mother, ‘even my grandmother was born there. When most people talked of home and meant England, when we said home we meant India.’

‘You must have travelled extensively,’ said Jeejee enviously. ‘I suppose you’ve seen more of my country than I have.’

‘Practically every nook and cranny,’ said Mother. ‘My husband being a civil engineer, of course, he had to travel. I always used to go with him. If he had to build a bridge or a railway right out in the jungle, I’d go with him and we’d camp.’

‘That must have been fun,’ said Leslie enthusiastically, ‘a primitive life under canvas.’

‘Oh it was. I loved the simple life in camp. I remember the elephants used to go ahead with the marquees, the carpets and the furniture, and then the servants would follow in the ox‑carts with the linen and silver…’

‘You call that camping?’ interrupted Leslie incredulously. ‘With marquees?’

‘We only had three,’ said Mother defensively. ‘A bedroom, dining‑room and a drawing‑room. And they were built with fitted carpets anyway.’

‘Well, I don’t call that camping,’ said Leslie.

‘It was,’ said Mother. ‘It was right out in the jungle. We could hear tigers and all the servants were terrified. Once they killed a cobra under the dining table.’

‘And that was before Gerry was born,’ said Margo.

‘You should write your memoirs, Mrs Durrell,’ said Jeejee gravely.

‘Oh no,’ laughed Mother, ‘I couldn’t possibly write. Besides, what would I call it?’

‘How about “It Took Fourteen Elephants”?’ suggested Leslie.

‘Or, “Through the Forest on a Fitted Carpet”,’ suggested Jeejee.

‘The trouble with you boys is you never take anything seriously,’ said Mother severely.

‘Yes,’ said Margo, ‘I think it was jolly brave of Mother to camp with only three marquees and cobras and things.’

‘Camping!’ snorted Leslie derisively.

‘Well, it was camping dear. I remember once one of the elephants went astray and we had no clean sheets for three days. Your father was most annoyed.’

‘I never knew anything as big as an elephant could go astray,’ said Jeejee, surprised.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Leslie, ‘easily mislaid, elephants.’

‘Well, anyway, you wouldn’t like it if you were without clean sheets,’ said Mother with dignity.

‘Of course they wouldn’t,’ put in Margo, ‘and I think it’s fun hearing about ancient India, even if they don’t.’

‘But I do find it most educational,’ Jeejee protested.

‘You’re always making fun of Mother,’ said Margo. ‘I don’t see why you should be so superior just because your father invented the Black Hole or whatever it was.’

It says much for Jeejee that he almost fell under the table laughing, and all the dogs started barking vociferously at his mirth.

But probably the most endearing thing about Jeejee was his intense enthusiasm for anything he happened to take up, even when it was demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that he could not achieve success in that sphere of activity. When Larry had first met him he had decided to be one of India’s greatest poets and with the aid of a compatriot who spoke little English (‘he vas my compositor,’ Jeejee explained) he started a magazine called Poetry for the People , or Potry for the Peeple or Potery for the Peopeople , depending on whether Jeejee was supervising his compositor or not. This little magazine was published once a month, with contributions from everyone that Jeejee knew, and some of them made strange reading, as we discovered, for Jeejee’s luggage was full of blurred copies of his magazine which he would hand out to anyone who displayed interest.

Perusing them we discovered such interesting items as ‘The Potry of Stiffen Splendour – a creetical evaluation’. Jeejee’s compositor friend apparently believed in printing words as they sounded, or, rather, as they sounded to him at that moment. Thus there was a long and eulogistic article by Jeejee on ‘Tees Ellyot, Pot Supreme’. The compositor’s novel spelling combined with the misprints naturally to be found in such a work, made reading it a pleasurable though puzzling occupation. ‘Whye Notte a Black Pot Lorat?’, for example, posed an almost unanswerable question, written apparently in Chaucerian English; while the article entitled ‘Roy Cambill, Ball Fighter and Pot’, made one wonder what poetry was coming to. However, Jeejee was undaunted by the difficulties, including the fact that his compositor never pronounced the letter ‘h’ and so never used it. His latest enthusiasm was to start a second magazine (printed on the same hand‑press with the same carefree compositor), devoted to his newly evolved study of what he called ‘Fakyo’, which was described in the first copy of Fakyo for All as ‘an amalgum of the misterious East, bringing together the best of Yoga and Fakirism, giving details and tiching people ow’.

Mother was greatly intrigued by Fakyo, until Jeejee started to practise it. Clad in a loincloth and covered in ashes, he meditated for hours on the veranda or else walked in a well‑simulated trance through the house, leaving a trail of ashes behind him. He fasted religiously for four days, and on the fifth day worried Mother to death by fainting and falling down the stairs.

‘Really, Jeejee,’ said Mother crossly, ‘this has got to stop. There’s not enough of you to fast.’

Putting him to bed, Mother concocted huge strength‑giving curries, only to have Jeejee complain that there was no Bombay duck, the dried fish which was such a pungent and attractive addition to any curry.

‘But you can’t get it here, Jeejee; I’ve tried,’ Mother protested.

Jeejee waved his hands like pale bronze moths against the white of the sheet.

‘Fakyo tells that in life there is a substitute for everything,’ he said firmly.

When he recovered sufficiently, he paid a visit to the fish market in the town and purchased a vast quantity of fresh sardines. We came back from a pleasant morning’s shopping in the town to find the kitchen and its environs untenable. Jeejee, brandishing a knife with which he was gutting the fish before laying them out in the sun to dry outside the back door, was doing battle with what appeared to be every fly, bluebottle and wasp in the Ionian Islands. He had been stung about five times and one eye was swollen and partially closed. The smell of rapidly decomposing sardines was overwhelming and the kitchen floor and table were covered in snowdrifts of silver fish skin and bits of entrails. It was only when Mother showed him the article on Bombay duck in the Encyclopaedia Britannica that he reluctantly gave up the idea of sardines as a substitute. It took Mother two days, with buckets of hot water and disinfectant, to rid the kitchen of the smell, and even then there was still the odd wasp blundering in hopefully through the windows.

‘Perhaps I’d better find you a substitute in Athens or Istanbul,’ said Jeejee hopefully. ‘I vas thinking that lobster baked and crushed to a powder…’

‘I wouldn’t worry about it, Jeejee dear,’ said Mother hurriedly. ‘We’ve done without it for some time now and it hasn’t hurt us.’

Jeejee was en route for Persia via Turkey in order to visit an Indian fakir practising there.

‘From him I shall learn many things to add to Fakyo,’ said Jeejee. ‘He is a great man. In particular, he is a great exponent of holding his breath and going into a trance. He vas vunce buried for a hundred and twenty days.’

‘Extraordinary,’ said Mother, deeply interested.

‘You mean buried alive?’ asked Margo. ‘Buried alive for a hundred and twenty days? How horrible! It doesn’t seem natural somehow.’

‘But he’s in a trance, dear Margo; he feels nothing,’ explained Jeejee.

‘I’m not so sure,’ said Mother musingly. ‘That’s why I want to be cremated, you know. Just in case I happen to slip into a trance and no one notices.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Mother,’ said Leslie.

‘It’s not ridiculous,’ replied Mother firmly. ‘People are so careless nowadays.’

‘And what else does a fakir do?’ asked Margo. ‘Can he make mango trees grow from seeds? You know, straight away? I saw them do that in Simla once.’

‘That is simple conjuring,’ said Jeejee. ‘Vhat Andrawathi does is much more complex. He is an expert in levitation, for example, and it is vun of the things I vant to see him about.’

‘But I thought levitation was card tricks,’ said Margo.

‘No,’ said Leslie, ‘it’s floating about, sort of flying, isn’t it, Jeejee?’

‘Yes,’ said Jeejee. ‘A vonderful ability. A lot of the early Christian saints could do it. I myself have not yet reached that stage of proficiency; that is vhy I vant to study under Andrawathi.’

‘How lovely to be able to float like a bird,’ said Margo delightedly. ‘What fun you could have.’

‘I believe it to be a truly tremendous experience,’ said Jeejee, his eyes shining. ‘You feel as if you are being lifted tovards heaven.’

The following day, just before lunch, Margo came rushing into the drawing‑room in a state of panic.

‘Come quickly! Come quickly!’ she screamed. ‘Jeejee’s committing suicide!’

We hurried outside and there, perched on the window‑sill of his room, was Jeejee, clad in nothing but a loincloth.

‘He’s got one of those trances again,’ said Margo, as if it were an infectious disease.

Mother straightened her glasses and stared upwards. Jeejee started to sway gently.

‘Go upstairs and grab him, Les,’ said Mother. ‘Quickly. I’ll keep him talking.’

The fact that Jeejee was raptly silent did not occur to her. Leslie rushed into the house. Mother cleared her throat.

‘Jeejee, dear,’ she fluted, ‘I don’t think it’s very wise of you to be up there. Why don’t you come down and have lunch?’

Jeejee did come down, but not quite as Mother intended. He stepped gaily out into space and, accompanied by horrified cries from Mother and Margo, fell earthwards. He crashed into the grapevine some ten feet beneath his window, sending a shower of grapes on to the flagstones. Fortunately, the vine was an old and sinewy one and it held Jeejee’s slight weight.

‘My God!’ he shouted. ‘Vere am I?’

‘In the grapevine,’ screamed Margo excitedly. ‘You agitated yourself there.’

‘Don’t move till we get a ladder,’ said Mother faintly.

We got a ladder and extricated the tousled Jeejee from the depths of the vine. He was bruised and scratched but otherwise unhurt. Everyone’s nerves were soothed with brandy and we sat down to a late lunch. By the time evening came, Jeejee had convinced himself that he had in fact succeeded in levitating himself.

‘If my toes had not become entangled in the pernicious vine, I vould have gone sailing around the house,’ he said, lying bandaged but happy on the sofa. ‘Vhat an achievement!’

‘Yes, well, I’ll be happier if you don’t practise while you are staying here,’ said Mother. ‘My nerves won’t stand it.’

‘I vill come back from Persia and spend my birthday with you, my dear Mrs Durrell,’ said Jeejee, ‘and I vill then report progress.’

‘Well, I don’t want a repetition of today,’ said Mother severely. ‘You might have killed yourself.’

Two days later Jeejeebuoy, still covered with sticking plaster but undaunted, left for Persia.

‘I wonder if he will come back for his birthday,’ said Margo. ‘If he does, let’s have a special party for him.’

‘Yes, that’s a good idea,’ said Mother. ‘He’s such a sweet boy, but so… erratic, so… unsafe .’

‘Well, he’s the only guest we’ve had who could really be described as having paid a flying visit,’ said Leslie.

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.’

Date: 2015-01-02; view: 847