‘No, sir, I’m afraid I can’t recall anything that might help. You see, at the time I took it for granted that they were discussing a straightforward deal. It was only later that I became a bit puzzled. It struck me as queer that if oil were to be had in Greece Mr. Onassis should not have bothered to develop it. And now you both say there isn’t any. That being the case, the whole thing looks pretty fishy to me, but I expect in a few days you will have found out what they’re up to.’
‘How do you propose that I should set about it?’
‘Well—er—isn’t that what the Secret Service is for?’
Euan gave a sudden, sharp laugh. ‘The Secret Service! D’you think they’ve nothing better to do than to investigate wildly improbable yarns brought in by nit-wits like you?’
‘Oh, Euan! Why are you so beastly?’ Robbie protested. ‘After all, if there is something sinister behind this business, it ought to be investigated.’
Sir Finsterhorn coughed. ‘Of course, Robbie; of course. But Euan is right about our Intelligence people being kept pretty busy with one thing and another; and in this matter I cannot feel that there is sufficient justification for calling them in. You must remember that there is no basis of probability for such a deal having taken place, and no supporting evidence of any kind for your story. It may quite well be that since these men were talking in a foreign language you put a completely wrong interpretation on what they said.’
‘I did not, Uncle! I did not!’ Robbie insisted. ‘I didn’t miss a word, and I couldn’t be more certain about what they said.’ Suddenly a bold, utterly revolutionary idea entered his mind. ‘I know,’ he went on swiftly. ‘If you don’t want to call the Secret Service people in, why shouldn’t I have a cut at it? You are always badgering me to do a job, and this is one I’d like. I understand Czech and can talk it fairly fluently. Let me try my hand at finding out about this business for you.’
The other two stared at him in astonishment. For a moment there was dead silence at the table. Then Euan said with a grin, ‘Well, this should beat any comic strip ever printed. Just think of it! Our Robbie, gun in hand, chasing his tail in circles while imagining himself to be Bulldog Drummond.’
Sir Finsterhorn shook his head. ‘Really, Robbie, you should try to keep that romantic imagination of yours within bounds. The very idea of a young man who, at the age of twenty-three, is still incapable of qualifying for his G.C.E. undertaking such a mission is fantastic. You wouldn’t even know how to make a start. Forget it, my dear boy, and stick to that little book you are writing. If it proves reasonably readable I’ll have a few hundred copies privately printed for you and we can send them out as presents to the children of our friends next Christmas.’
By his offer to get Robbie’s book published the Ambassador had intended to soften his previous low rating of his nephew’s intelligence. But from beginning to end his words were like whiplashes on the big, awkward young man sitting beside him.
Thrusting back his chair, Robbie stood up and, without a word, almost ran from the room. Outside in the hall he could no longer hold back the tears that had started to his big, brown eyes. Weeping as though his heart would break, he lurched from side to side up the stairs, muttering fiercely:
‘They think I’m a moron. But I’m not. I’ll show them! I’ll show them!’
2
The Budding Author
Lady Grenn had arranged for Robbie a pleasant bed-sitting room on the third floor, where he could read and, if so inclined, work without being disturbed. On reaching it, he flung himself on to his bed and, for some ten minutes, wept bitterly.
In spite of all he had been told about the aircraft crash in which he had so narrowly escaped death, and the effect of the injuries inflicted on himself as a result of it, he had never fully accepted the fact that he differed from other people. All his life, until quite recently, he had been hedged about with love and, even during the past year, everyone he had met, with the one exception of Euan, had appeared to like him and had treated him as a normal person.
Yet his uncle had spurned with contempt his offer to try to find out for him what lay at the bottom of the Czech deal with the Greek Government. Still worse, he had, without even seeing it, stigmatised the book upon which Robbie had been working so laboriously for the past two months as being at best fit only for children.
Gradually, the sobs that shook Robbie’s big frame grew more infrequent. When they had ceased altogether he dried his eyes, sat up and went over to his desk. From it he took his manuscript. So far he had filled one thick exercise book and nearly half another with his large, round, childish writing. Feeling now an urgent need to reassure himself about the quality of his work, he switched on the desk light and began to re-read the first chapter, which went as follows:
CHAPTER I
ZEUS AND HIS FAMILY
The beginning of things seems to be a bit confused, but I suppose that’s hardly to be wondered at as there could have been no one there to set down exactly what did happen.
Anyhow, the first divinities we have any record of are Uranus, the Sky, and his wife Gaea, the Earth. Between them they had an enormous brood of most horrible children. Among them were the six boy and six girl Titans, the three Cyclopes who each had only one eye in the middle of his forehead, and three Monsters each of whom had one hundred arms and fifty heads.
Uranus was not at all happy about the sort of children his wife had produced. In fact, he disliked them so much that he shut them all up in a huge cave. Naturally their mother, Gaea, was pretty upset about that, and she made up her mind to get even with him. She managed to smuggle her youngest Titan son, Cronos, out of the cave, armed him with a sickle and set him on his father. Cronos must have caught his papa napping, as he inflicted a terrible wound on him, I suppose the worst that can be inflicted on a man. History does not relate if it actually killed him. Perhaps nothing could, as he was a god. If so, it must have been jolly hard on him, because afterwards there was no longer any point in his going to bed with a girl, and the gods were tremendously keen on that sort of thing.
All we know is that Uranus’ blood gushed out and formed lots more monsters, which showed that he was just as much to blame for the horrid brood Gaea had produced as she was. Anyhow, we hear no more of him, and Cronos became top god in his place.
Cronos married his sister, Rhea, who afterwards became known as the Mother of the Gods, because it was she who gave birth to the Royal Family of Olympus. But for quite a time, it didn’t look as though she were going to get any pleasure out of her children. Cronos proved an even more unpleasant person than his father. I suppose he was afraid that, when his sons grew up, one for them might spoil his fun for life, just as he had his poor papa’s. Anyway, every time Rhea gave birth to a baby, he grabbed and swallowed it.
One after the other, he pushed three girl children, Hestia, Demeter and Hera, down his mighty throat, then two boys, Hades and Poseidon. By that time, Rhea was getting pretty fed up, so when she was about to have her sixth child she consulted her mother, Gaea, who said: ‘You go and have your baby in Crete, ducks, and between us we’ll pull a fast one over your old man,’ or words to that effect. Rhea went off to Crete and had Zeus in a cave, then Gaea took the infant and had him brought up in secret by two nymphs on Mount Ida. Meanwhile, Rhea had hurried back to her hubby and presented him with a big stone wrapped in swaddling clothes. The great mutt swallowed it, believing it to be her baby. In due course Zeus reached manhood and dethroned his horrible father, then he gave him something very nasty to drink, which caused him to sick up the five children he had swallowed.
Having become top god, Zeus was very touchy about his rights, and he never thought twice before chucking a thunderbolt at anyone who upset him. But he was a much pleasanter character than either his father or grandfather, and really rather easy-going. When appealed to by the others, his judgments were usually just, although he didn’t like being bothered by such matters, because his mind was always occupied with thinking up the
quickest way to seduce either a goddess or some lovely mortal maiden. In fact, he doesn’t seem to have taken much interest in anything else.
His first act was one of clemency, and it cost him dear. He released his uncles, the Titans, from their prison, but instead of being grateful they ganged up against him and supported their brother, Cronos, in an attempt to regain the throne. There followed a ten-year war and Rhea’s children might have got the worst of it if Zeus had not also released from prison the three Cyclopes and the three Monsters, who took his side. Even then it must have been one hell of a battle. Zeus with his brothers, sisters and friends occupied Mount Olympus, in the north-east of Greece, and the Titans Mount Othrys, a hundred miles further south. For weapons they used great rocks and even small mountains, hurling them through the air at one another. But the Monsters, each with a hundred hands, must have made awfully useful allies in that sort of war; so in the end Zeus won and drove all the Titans down to Tartarus, the lowest region of the Underworld.
After the defeat of the Titans, another rebellion broke out, and this time Olympus was attacked by a race of half-human half-reptile Giants. They had sprung up from the blood that had dripped from Grandpa Uranus when Cronos had mutilated him, so they were creatures of earth but absolutely enormous. Their leader Typhon had huge serpents wriggling out from every part of his body, and all the gods except Zeus were scared stiff at the sight of him. In fact they ran as far as Egypt. But Hercules came to their help and between them they succeeded in killing off these horrid monsters except for Typhon, and him Zeus imprisoned under the red-hot cauldron of a volcano in Sicily named Mount Etna.
After that there was peace on Mount Olympus and the gods were able to settle down to a jolly life of drinking nectar and making love.
Zeus behaved very decently to his brothers. To Hades, who is much better known by his Roman name of Pluto—and so dear reader I shall call him that—he gave the Kingdom of the Underworld. It was called Hades after him, and although in modern times that word has more or less taken on the same meaning as Hell, only a part of it, Tartarus, was the sort of Hell that until quite recently millions of unfortunate Christians were brought up to be terrified of.
The greater part of Hades was a dark gloomy region to which people were carried by Thanatos, as Pluto’s henchman, Death, was called, when they died. Once inside it their bodies became shades, most of whom wandered about there quite pointlessly and rather miserably for a very long time. All the same, it was regarded as very important to get into Hades, and to do so a dead person had to be ferried across an underground river called the Styx by a boatman named Charon. If the body had not been provided with a piece of money to give him, its ghost had to remain this side of the river in a more miserable state than ever.
The reason people were so anxious to get into Hades was because it did mean that, sooner or later, they would be able to return to earth in another body. There was also a sporting chance that they might be allowed to spend their time of waiting in a special part of the Underworld called the Elysian Fields, which was lit up and a sort of glorified Country Club. But only the ghosts of the best people, and those who had put up a jolly good show during their lives, were allowed to potter about in there.
On the other hand, if the gods took a dim view of you, your body might be pitched down the chute to Tartarus, and there suffer the most appalling tortures, some of which I will tell you about later on.
To his other brother Poseidon, the Neptune of the Romans, Zeus gave dominion over the oceans, seas, lakes and rivers. He was also known as the Earth-shaker and, if the number of earthquakes that occur in Greece and the Aegean are anything to go by, he is still very active.
For himself, Zeus kept Heaven and Earth. That is why he was afterwards always known as King of Gods and Men. But to each of his sisters he also gave special powers.
The eldest, Hestia, he made goddess of the family hearth. She was a pleasant woman but very stand-offish. In fact it seems that she had a thing against men. She couldn’t even be induced to marry, and turned down both Apollo and Poseidon. It is probably because she was such a prude that we don’t hear much about her, but later on she came into her own. The Romans worshipped her as Vesta and made all their most beautiful debs into Vestal Virgins to tend the sacred fires in her temple.
Demeter figured much more prominently in people’s minds, because she was given the job of looking after agriculture. In those days nearly everyone was dependent on the crops they could raise so naturally there were a great many temples to her, and on her feast days everyone queued up to pay homage to her.
Hera, Zeus’s youngest sister, he took as his wife, or I should say principal wife. He made her Queen of Heaven but he had several other wives, among them Demeter, and, in addition, he tricked any number of young women into providing him with a night or two of fun during his frequent visits to his earthly Kingdom.
His first wife was Metis, the personification of Wisdom, but his Grandma, Gaea, put him wise to it that if he had a son by her he would bump him off. So, improving on his father’s idea, as soon as he had put her in the family way he swallowed her, baby and all.
Next he married his aunt, Themis, one of the lady Titans. She was a very good sort and did him proud by producing as his children not only Law, Justice and Peace, but also the Seasons and the Fates. About this time, as a side line, he spent nine nights with her sister, Mnemosyne, who gave birth to the nine Muses.
Why he should have made Hera, instead of Themis, Queen of Heaven, history does not relate. I suppose the answer is that Hera was darned good-looking and that was her price. Anyhow, although he is supposed to have acquired unlimited wisdom by swallowing Metis, he certainly did not show it by making Hera his Queen. She was the patroness of marriage and conjugal fidelity, and as Zeus was one hundred per cent sold on free love she naturally made his life hell.
As he was always giving her cause for jealousy one can’t altogether blame her for behaving like a shrew to him, but she was not content with that. She showed the most extraordinary cunning and vindictiveness in bringing misery to his girl friends, who really weren’t to blame; and personally I don’t think being virtuous oneself justifies anyone in making lots of other people desperately unhappy.
At one time Hera got so mad with Zeus that she conspired against him with Poseidon, Apollo and Athene, and they managed to tie him up. But the Monster Briareus came to his rescue. Themis evidently bore no grudge against Hera for supplanting her. She, even acted as Hera’s dresser on State occasions and provided her with beauty-aids and wise counsel. In addition she was Mistress of Ceremonies at the Olympian Court and in the role of ‘universal aunt’ was beloved by all.
Ares, or Mars as the Romans called him, was the only child who owed his birth to both Zeus and Hera, but perhaps that is to be accounted for by the Royal couple’s strained relations. As they were always quarrelling, it seems logical that Ares should become the god of War. He was ill-tempered, sullen, brutal, stupid and altogether a most unattractive type. None of his family had any time for him at all and one day his father said to him: ‘Of all my children I dislike you most. You take after your Mother and enjoy nothing but bickering. For two pins I’d kick you off the Mount’—or words to that effect. Surprisingly enough, too, he was not even a great champion in combat. He had several cracks at Athene, because she set herself up as a sort of female Minister of Defence for the cities in which she was worshipped; but she always got the better of him, and Hercules and one or two other Heroes gave him quite a beating up.
Two of Zeus’s other children who played a very prominent part in the lives of gods and men were the twins, Apollo and Artemis. Their mother, Leto, was the beautiful daughter of a Titan, and when it got around that Zeus had made her preg. Hera became hopping mad. She threatened any country that sheltered Leto with every sort of calamity, so the poor girl traipsed all round the eastern Med. begging to be taken in, until Poseidon took pity on her and provided her with a floating island on which to have her
babies. Later he anchored it to the sea-bottom; it was called Delos and became, after Delphi, Apollo’s most famous shrine, because he was born there.
Finding the equivalent of a bed in a maternity ward was by no means the end of Leto’s troubles. When her time came she could not do her stuff because that bitch Hera had forbidden Ilithyia, the goddess of Childbirth, to leave Olympus. All the other gods and goddesses hurried to Delos with fruit, flowers and sympathy, but their standing around holding hands didn’t do any good. For nine days and nights Leto suffered intolerable agony. Then kind auntie Themis came to the rescue and, somehow, got Ilithyia down from Olympus to Delos.
Even then Hera would not let up, and sent Python to destroy Leto and her twins. Fortunately for all concerned Themis had brought some ambrosia and nectar along in her mother’s-bag and she fed it to the new-born Apollo. Instantly he leapt from his swaddling clothes a full-grown man and chased the huge serpent to Delphi, where he slew it and set up a temple to himself. It was in connection with this event that the High Priestess who afterwards prophesied there was known as the Pythoness.
Apollo was the best-looking and most popular of all the gods. He was the Lord of Light, and Helios, who drove the chariot of the Sun, was only one of his henchmen. He caused the crops to ripen, protected the flocks and herds, and was the first god to go in for healing. He was the inventor of music and, as patron of the arts, was attended by the nine Muses. In addition he was willing to tell people’s fortunes at his Oracles. So you can see what a useful god he was to be on the right side of.
Artemis, known to the Romans as Diana the huntress, was a decidedly hearty type. Like her twin brother she shed light, but Selene, the Moon goddess, acted as stand-in for her. This enabled her to spend most of her time in the woods, where she went about dressed in a kilt and attended by a bevy of hockey-playing types known as the Pleiades. She was a fanatical prude and so strongly disapproved of parlour games that, when the great hunter Orion made a pass at her, she shot him with one of her deadly arrows. An unfortunate chap called Actaeon fared even worse. One hot day when he was out seeing what he could get for the pot, he happened to come upon her just as she had slipped off her kilt to take a dip in a pool. Before he could even take his eyes off her she had turned him into a stag and had him torn to pieces by his own hounds. She had no mercy either on her sport-loving hoydens, if any of them allowed themselves to be picked up and taken behind the bushes. To have bumped them off just because they had had a little fun seems to me very unfair because, however chaste you may be yourself, it’s not right to be beastly to other people who feel differently.
Mayhem in Greece Page 3
