Lawrence Durrell - Esprit de Corps - Sketches from Diplomatic Life

“We waded into the swamp to recover our colleague and his wife and after a bit of argument emptied them both into stretchers. I shall never forget her smile of sheer beatitude. Kawaguchi’s face expressed only a Great Peace. As they bore him off I heard him say, more to himself than anyone: ‘Oriental man different from White Man.’ I have always remembered and treasured that remark, old boy. Something like the same thing was said by the French chargé’s wife: ‘How your Keepling say: “Ist is Ist and Vest is Vest”?’ But I was sorry for the Kawaguchis. Magnificent as the whole thing was, here we were, with three minutes to go before midnight, simply covered in mud and confusion. Some of the women had tried to draw attention to themselves by rushing into the swamp after them. The Italian Ambassador had a sort of Plimsoll line in the middle of his dress trousers. The ballroom looked like an advance dressing-station on the Somme. It is impossible to pretend that the evening wasn’t ruined. And above all, the dreadful smell. Apparently all the drains flowed into this romantic little lake. It was all very well so long as it wasn’t disturbed. The French were definitely confused, and I for one was sorry for them. No Mission could carry off a thing like this lightly.”

Antrobus blew out his cheeks and lay back in his armchair, keeping a watchful eye on me to see that I had fully appreciated all the points in the drama. Then he went on in his usual churchwarden’s style: “The Kawaguchis left for Tokyo by air the next afternoon. His mission was a failure and he knew it. I must say that there were only two Colleagues at the airport to see him off — myself and the perfectly foul military attaché about whom I will never be persuaded to speak. He was deeply moved that we had troubled to find out the time of his departure from the Protocol. I wrung his hand. I knew he wasn’t to blame for the whole thing. I knew it was purely Inadvertent.”

“How do you mean?”

“The butler gave the whole thing away some weeks later. Apparently the normal case of saki had not come in that month. They were out of drink. There was nothing a responsible butler of any nationality could do. He took some of the saki bottles and filled them with … guess what?”

“Bad Scotch whisky.”

“Dead right! ‘White Man’s Milk’ he called it.”

“Awfully bad luck.”

“Of course. But we face these hazards in the Foreign Service, don’t we?”

“Of course we do.”

“And we outlive them. Kawaguchi is in Washington.”

“Bravo! I’m so glad.”

“Care for another whiff of Grape-Shot before we lunch?”

“Did I ever tell you about the time when Drage, the Embassy butler, began to suffer from visions? No? Well, it was dashed awkward for all concerned and Polk-Mowbray was almost forced to Take Steps at the end.

“You probably remember Drage quite well: a strange, craggy Welsh Baptist with long curving arms as hairy as a Black Widow. A moody sort of chap. He had a strange way of gnashing his dentures when he spoke on religious matters until flecks of foam appeared at the corners of his mouth. For many years he had been a fairly devout fellow and always took a prominent part in things like servants’ prayers. He also played the harmonium by ear at the English church — a performance to be carefully avoided on Sundays. For the rest one always found him hunched over a penny Bible in the buttery when he should have been cleaning the M. of W. silver. His lips moved and he made a deep purring sound in his throat as he read. We were all, frankly, rather scared of Drage.

“The awful thing about him was that he wore a wig so obvious that he gave one the impression of having just stepped off the stage after a successful performance as Caliban. It was an indeterminate badger-grey affair which left a startling pink line across his forehead. The gum-like colour of the integument simply didn’t match the rocky blueish skin of his face. Everyone knew it was a wig. Nobody ever dared to say so or allude to it.

“As for the visions, he confessed later that they had been gaining on him for some considerable time, and if he never mentioned them before it was because he felt that once we all recognized him as the Lord’s Anointed we might give him the sack, or at least ask him to step down in favour of Bertram the footman. As you see, there were flashes of reason in the man. But all this intense Bible-squeezing could not help but have an effect on him, and one night at a party given for the Dutch Ambassador he dropped his tray and pointed with shaking finger at the wall behind Polk-Mowbray’s head, crying in the parched voice of an early desert father: ‘Here they come, sor, in all their glory! Just behind you, sor, Elijah up, as sure as I’m standing here!’ He then covered his eyes as if blinded by the vision and fell mumbling to his knees.

“While in one sense one felt privileged to be present at Drage’s Ascension into Heaven by fiery chariot, nevertheless his timing seemed inconsiderate. First of all poor Polk-Mowbray sprang to his feet and overturned his chair. Our guests were startled. Then to make things worse the Naval Attaché who dabbled in the occult and who hated to be left out of anything pretended to share Drage’s vision. I think he had been drinking pink gins. He pointed his finger and echoed the butler. ‘There they go!’ he said in cavernous tones. ‘Behind you!’

“‘What the deuce is it?’ said Polk-Mowbray nervously, seating himself once more, but gingerly.

“Benbow slowly moved his pointing finger as he traced the course of the Heavenly Host round the dining-room table. ‘So clear I can actually touch them,’ he said. He was now pointing at De Mandeville who had changed colour. He leaned forward and touched the Third Secretary’s ear-lobe. De Mandeville gave a squeak.

“As you can imagine the whole atmosphere of our dinner party was subtly strained after this. Bertram led Drage off into the wings in a rather jumbled state and bathed his brow from a champagne bucket. Benbow was sent to Coventry by common consent. Nevertheless, he spent the rest of the evening in high good humour, occasionally pointing his finger and saying indistinctly: ‘Here they come again.’ He kept the Dutch looking over their shoulders.

“Naturally, one could not tolerate visions during meals and when Drage recovered Polk-Mowbray told him to cut it out or leave. The poor butler was deeply troubled. Apparently he had discovered that he had never been baptized and this was preying on his mind. ‘Well,’ said Polk-Mowbray, ‘if you think baptism will cure you of visions I can easily arrange with Bishop Toft to give you a sprinkle. He arrives next week.’

“Twice a year the Bishop of Malta came in for a couple of days to marry, baptize or excommunicate the members of the Embassy living in exile amidst the pagan Yugoslavs. He was, as you remember, a genial and worldly bishop, but hopelessly absent-minded. He brought in with him a sort of acolyte called Wagstaffe who was spotty and adenoidal and did the washing-up of thuribles or whatever acolytes have to do. He was simply Not There as far as the Things Of This World are concerned. He was a Harrovian. It stuck out a mile. Well, this year the bishop’s visit coincided with that of Brigadier Dilke-Parrot. In fact they came in the same car and stood being noisily genial in the hall as their bags were unstrapped. The brigadier, who was large and red and had moustaches like antlers, also came every year on some mysterious mission which enabled him to have two days’ shooting on the snipe-marshes outside the town. He always brought what he was pleased to call his ‘Bundook’ with him — a twelve-bore by Purdy. This year there appeared to be two gun-cases — pay attention to this — and the second one belonged to the bishop. It contained a magnificent episcopal crook, taller when all the bits were screwed together than the bishop himself. These two very similar cases lay side by side in the hall. Thereby hangs my tale.