The Cornhill Magazine (vol. XLII, no. 250 new series, April 1917)Various
History
The Cornhill Magazine (vol. XLII, no. 250 new series, April 1917)
Various
England -- Periodicals; English literature -- Periodicals; Short stories, English -- Periodicals
The life of the seaport was going on much as usual, except that the quay
in front had rather an empty look. But as we turned up a side street,
to avoid the press of the Rue Venizelos, we ran into a big crowd. What
it was all about was difficult to discover, but it surged round a
bewildered-looking Serbian soldier who was being dragged away with some
difficulty by a patrol of Greek police. We flattened ourselves against
the wall while the angry waves swept past.
In their back-wash we came on the Official Photographer hard at work,
charmed to have something to take at last. We questioned him eagerly,
but he had only the vaguest notion as to what was on foot. Anyway, here
was copy, when the photographs appeared in the London papers the editors
could christen them what they liked. And he rushed on in the wake of the
ebb-tide, snapshotting as he went.
The Bureau des Postes was our objective. There had been brave doings
there, so we had been told. But the spot, when we reached it, appeared
fairly peaceful. In a corner of the square a little knot of people had
collected round a tall Serbian officer, while a weedy-looking Greek youth
explained with some courage, as it seemed to us from the looks of the
bystanders, what proved to be the true story of the arrest we had just
witnessed.
He had been sitting quietly in that café there up the street, everyone
round him busy discussing the King’s fête, when a Greek at the next table
had shouted out, suddenly: ‘À bas le Roi!’ and then instantly jumped up
and denounced the innocent Serbian as the ill-wisher of Greece’s idol,
and called loudly for the police—_lèse-majesté_ being as grave a crime in
Greece as in Germany. It was a put-up job.
The tall officer listened attentively, taking notes as he did so. Then
mounting his horse, he vanished after the photographer and his prey.
We turned to the post-office at last to try and send a telegram
necessitated by my enforced change of plans. But for all its peaceful air
it was closely guarded. The imposing French ‘dragon’ at the entrance much
regretted, but it was impossible for Madame to do any such thing. ‘Why,
what had happened?’ Ah, how should he know? Those were his orders. A
British Tommy at another door proved equally correct, but less unbending.
He knew nothing officially, of course. ‘Oh, yes, the post-office had been
collared this morning—about time, too.’
‘There had been trouble, hadn’t there?’
‘Oh, bless you, no, Mum. They looked very fierce-like at first, fired
a few shots and all that, but when they saw we meant it, came out as
tame as a Macedonian tortoise.’ As to what was happening inside, he knew
no more than we did, but he ventured to guess ‘The Frenchmen are going
through Tino’s billets-doux to the Bulgars all right.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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