Gerald Durrell - Fillets of Plaice

We got Pious to examine the huge table and the chairs with great care. We both sat on each one of them and tested the table by standing on it and doing a sort of tango, but it was as firm and solid as rock.

“Now,” I said to Martin, “I want to put Pious in charge of your staff because by and large they seem a very inefficient lot whereas Pious is highly efficient.”

“Anything you say, dear boy, anything at all,” said Martin, “just mention it.”

“Pious,” I said.

“Sah,” he said.

“We have three days to get ready. During that time you go be half my steward and half the D.O.’s steward. You hear?”

“I hear, sah,” he said.

We went out onto the veranda and sat down.

“Now,” I said to Pious, “go tell the D.O.’s steward to pass us a drink. By the way, Martin, what is the name of your steward?” I asked.

“Amos,” he replied.

“Yes,” I said, “he looks like an Amos. Well, Pious, go tell Amos to pass drink and then you go bring the cook, the steward and the small boy here so we look ’um and have palava.”

“Yes, sah,” said Pious and with an almost military strut disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.

“I think the question of the food can be safely left to Mary,” I said. “The others might have some suggestions of use, too, so what I think would be a good thing is to call a council of war this evening. If you send chits round to all of them they can come up and have drinks and we can discuss the whole matter.”

“You’re really proving my salvation,” said Martin,

“Nonsense,” I said, “I am just orientating you a bit. You obviously aren’t cut out for social life.”

Pious came in bearing a tray with beer, followed by Amos, who in his brown shorts and jacket looked like an amiable but mentally defective monkey; the small boy, who looked quite bright but was obviously completely untrained and — if Amos was supposed to be his trainer — never would learn a thing; and then, to my astonishment, an enormous, tall, thin Hausa who looked as though he was 110 years old, wearing a white coat and shorts and a huge chef’s hat, on the front of which was embroidered in rather uneven lettering “BC”.

“Now,” I said in my firmest voice, “the D.O. is having the D.C. here in three days’ time. The D.O. he want my steward to watch you all and make sure that everything is proper. If it is not proper, D.C. will be very angry with D.O. and D.O. and I will be very angry with you and we will kick you for larse.”

In spite of the sternness with which I spoke, they all grinned at me happily. They knew the importance of the visitor and they knew that my threat was quite genuine. But it was put in a joking form that they could understand.

“Now,” I said, pointing to Martin’s steward, “you’re named Amos.”

“Yes, sah,” he said, standing to attention.

“Now, what’ee your name?” I asked the small boy.

“John, sah,” he said.

“The cook,” said Martin apologetically, interrupting my dragooning, “is called Jesus.”

“Dear fellow,” I said, “you’re in luck. With Pious and Jesus with us we can’t go far wrong. By the way what is that extraordinary piece of embroidery on the front of his hat?”

Martin looked acutely embarrassed.

“He happened to cook a very good meal one day by pure accident,” said Martin, “and I had a magazine which had a picture of a chef in a London hotel and so to encourage him I told him that the next time I went on leave I would buy him one of those hats that only expert cooks wore.”

“It was a very kind thought,” I said, “but what’s the embroidery in the front, the ‘BC’?”

Martin looked very shamefaced.

“He got his wife to embroider that on for him,” he said, “and he’s very proud of it.”

“But what does it mean?” I insisted.

Martin looked even more embarrassed.

“It means Bugler’s Cook,” he said.

“Does he realise the terrible confusion he could cause in some people’s mind by being called Jesus and having BC on his hat?” I inquired.

“No, I’ve never tried to explain it to him,” said Martin. “I felt it would only worry him and he’s quite worried enough as it is.”

I took a long soothing draught of beer. The whole thing appeared to be getting so religious one would have thought it was the Pope who was arriving instead of the D.C.

“Now, Pious,” I said, “you go get some furniture oil, you hear?”

“Yes, sah,” he said.

“And,” I said, “you go make sure that the dining-room is cleaned out and the chairs and table are polished proper. You hear?”

“I hear, sah,” he said.

“I want the table top to look like a mirror. And if you don’t make sure that it does, I’ll kick your larse.”

“Yes, sah,” he said.

“And then the day before the D.C. arrives, all the floors have to be scrubbed and made clean and all the other furniture polished too. You hear?”

“Yes, sah,” said Pious.

I could see by the proud look on his face that he was going to look forward immensely to overseeing this very important occasion and also having the opportunity of dominating some of his compatriots.

Martin leant forward and whispered in my ear.

“The small boy is an Ibo,” he said.

Now, the Ibos are an extremely clever tribe and were constantly wandering over from Nigeria, swindling the Cameroonians and wandering back again. So they were regarded by the Cameroonians with great loathing and distrust.

“Pious,” I said, “the small boy is Ibo.”

“I know, sah,” said Pious.

“So you go make him work hard but you no go make him work too hard because he is an Ibo. You hear?”

“Yes, sah,” said Pious.

“Alright,” I said as though I owned Martin’s house, “pass more beer.”

The staff trooped off into the kitchen.

“I say,” said Martin in admiration, “you are good at this sort of thing, aren’t you?”

“I’ve never done it before,” I said, “but it doesn’t require much imagination.”

“No, I’m afraid I’m rather lacking in that,” said Martin.

“I don’t think you are lacking in imagination,” I said. “Anybody who would have the brilliance to bring back a chef’s hat for his cook cannot be completely insensitive.”

So we drank some more beer and I tried to think of any other calamity that could possibly happen.

“Does the lavatory work?” I asked suspiciously.

“It’s working perfectly.”

“Well, don’t, for God’s sake, let the small boy drop a pawpaw down it,” I said, “because we don’t want a repetition of the last episode you told me about. Now, you send the chits round to everybody and I’ll come up here about six o’clock and we’ll have a conference of war.”

“Wonderful,” said Martin. He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed it affectionately. “I don’t know what I’d do without you,” he said. “Even Standish couldn’t have organised things so beautifully.”

Standish was the Assistant D.O. and was at that moment sweating his way through the mountains north of Mamfe sorting out the problems of the remoter villages.

I hurried back to my marquee and my vociferous family. Having to help Martin had set me back in my routine work so the baby chimps were yelling for their food, porcupines were champing at the bars, and the bushbabies with enormous eyes, glared at me indignantly because, having roused themselves from their slumbers, they had found no pots of delicately chopped fruit in their cages.

At six o’clock I presented myself at the D.O.”s residence and found that Mary Standish, the A.D.O.’s wife, had already arrived.

She was a young and pretty woman, inclined to plumpness and had a great placidity of nature. She had been whisked by Standish from some obscure place like Surbiton or Penge and had been plonked down in the middle of Mamfe. She had only been there six months but so gentle and sweet was her nature that she accepted everything and everybody with such calmness and good nature that you felt that if you had a raging headache and she placed one of her plump little hands on your forehead, it would have the same effect as an eau de cologne-soaked handkerchief