King Constantine’s fête seemed to be off.
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.’