Gerald Durrell - The Donkey Rustlers

“Quick,” hissed David, “let’s get the donkeys out.”

Suddenly Yani saw Philimona Kouzos, clad in his thick woollen vest and underpants, carrying a lantern and a shot-gun, appear framed in the doorway of his house.

“Who’s that?” he quavered. “Stand still, or I’ll fire.”

As Kouzos was as notorious for his bad marksmanship as he was for his cowardice, this made Yani chuckle. He uttered a couple of loud moans, and assumed a screeching, quavering voice.

“I am Vyraclos, Kouzos,” he screeched, “and I have come to suck your blood and steal your soul.”

Kouzos, who had always felt inside himself that something like this would happen one day, dropped his lantern with fright and it promptly went out.

“Saint Polycarpos preserve me!” he shouted loudly, “Dear God be with me.”

“It is no good,” said Yani, giving a hideous cackle, “I have come for your soul.”

In the meantime, Amanda and David had gone into the stable and were endeavouring to extract Kouzos’s two donkeys. The animals had had an extremely hard day’s work and so were not, understandably, terribly enthusiastic about the idea of being removed from a warm, comfortable stable, with every prospect of having to do a night shift. So the children had the utmost difficulty in getting them out, but Yani, round the front of the house, was giving such an excellent imitation of Vyraclos that he was keeping Kouzos invoking every saint on the calendar. So the slight noise that the children made in pushing and pulling and tugging to get the donkeys out went unnoticed. As soon as Yani saw them disappear into the trees with the donkeys he uttered a few final moans to keep Kouzos happy and followed them swiftly.

So by the time that the eastern horizon was starting to pale into the great dawn, they had assembled on the beach all but four of the donkeys in the village. The four that were missing belonged to Papa Nikos. It was these four donkeys that had particularly worried David for, because of the position of the stable, it was impossible to steal them from Papa Nilcos’s house. However, Yani had said, somewhat mysteriously, that he had worked out a method of obtaining them.

“I think we’ve done wonders,” said Amanda, looking with satisfaction at the line of fourteen depressed donkeys and the horse.

“We haven’t finished yet.” David pointed out.

“Don’t you think we ought to get this lot across to Hesperides?” asked Amanda, “and then we have only got Papa Nikos’s ones to worry about.”

“Yes,” said Yani. “That would be sensible.”

All the donkeys had been reluctant enough to go out at night in the first place. However, since fate had decreed they should be removed from their comfortable stables and led down to the beach in the middle of the night and forced to stand there, they accepted it with their usual humility. But when they discovered they were expected to enter the water and swim, their disapproval was unanimous. They kicked and bucked and one of them even broke loose and took the unprecedented step of actually cantering down the beach with the children in hot pursuit. They finally caught him and re-tethered him with the rest. The donkey’s disapproval of sea bathing at dawn was so great that it took the children over an hour to get their catch to Hesperides. Once they had arrived there, the donkeys hauled themselves ashore and shook themselves vigorously and sighed deep, lugubrious sighs to indicate their irritation and their disapproval of the whole venture. Carefully the children led them, one at a time, up the steps to the little terraced area round the church. Here they tethered them and provided each donkey with a large enough quantity of food to keep its mind occupied. They then swam back to the shore for their final bit of rustling.

“Now,” whispered Yani, when they were close to the fields concealed behind a clump of bamboos, “Papa Nikos is working those two fields over there. He generally tethers his donkeys under that fig tree. When he arrives, I’ll slip round behind the bamboos over there and create a disturbance.”

“What sort of disturbance?” asked Amanda.

“Wait and see,” said Yani mysteriously, grinning at her.

“I assure you it will keep their attention off the donkeys — but you and David and Coocos must move fast because I won’t be able to keep them occupied for very long.”

“You managed to keep Kouzos occupied,” said Amanda giggling.

“Bah!” said Yani, “that was easy. He’s a fool, that one; but Papa Nikos is not a fool and so we’ll have to take great care.”

Patiently the children waited and presently, as it grew light and the sun started to rise, they heard the sound of Papa Nikos and his family coming down to the fields. The only flaw that there could be in their plan was that Papa Nikos might not bring down his full complement of donkeys, but to their relief they saw that he had brought all four of them with him. He and his wife and two sons came down to the fields, chattering gaily, tethered the donkeys under the fig tree and then, getting out their hoes, they started to work, turning the soil over.

“Now is the time,” said Yani.

To Amanda’s amazement, Yani suddenly produced a large penknife from his pocket and before the children could stop him, he had stabbed himself twice in his bare foot so that the blood ran down between his toes.

“What are you doing?” asked Amanda, horrified.

Yani grinned at her.

“We’ve got to make it realistic,” he said, “otherwise it won’t fool Papa Nikos. Now, once you’ve got the donkeys take them over to Hesperides and then come up to the village. I shall be up there.”

He put his knife away and then disappeared through the bamboos.

“What do you think he’s going to do?” asked David.

Amanda shrugged.

“I don’t know,” she said, “but he’s no fool, so let’s leave it to him. Come on, we’d better move closer to the fig tree so that we’re ready.”

They crept round the field and concealed themselves in the bushes near the fig tree. Presently, to their astonishment and alarm, they saw Yani come out of the bamboos into full view of Papa Nikos and his family. As if this was not bad enough, he actually called out a good morning to Papa Nikos, who replied cheerfully. Asking intelligent questions about the crops. Yani made his way along the edge of the field and through the grass towards the spot where Papa Nikos was working. Suddenly, so suddenly that it made Amanda jump, Yani uttered a piercing scream and then fell to the ground.

“A snake! A snake!” he screamed. “I’ve been bitten by a snake.”

Instantly Papa Nikos and his entire family dropped their hoes and rushed across the field to where Yani was writhing realistically in the grass. They gathered round him and lifted his head and examined the wound in his foot, chattering excitedly and commiserating and suggesting any number of antidotes, well-known to be useful in the case of snake bite. Yani’s screams were so deafening that Papa Nikos and his family had to shout at each other to make themselves heard. This cacophony successfully covered up the noise that Amanda, David and Coocos made in untethering the donkeys and leading them away.

“A hot iron,” bellowed Papa Nikos. “That’s what we need. A hot iron.”

“No, no,” shrieked Mama Nikos. “Garlic and olive oil. My mother always used to use garlic and olive oil.”

“I’m dying,” screamed Yani. Since he had seen (through his half-closed lids) that the donkeys had been successfully removed, he was rather enjoying the sensation that he was causing.