The Replacement Rhino
by
Simon Darragh
Neither Frobisher nor I were keen to set out on what would
prove to be the most quixotic expedition of our careers, but little Matilda had
been heartbroken by the mysterious disappearance of her pet rhinoceros. Had it
simply escaped during the night there would surely have been sightings about
the streets of the city. Theft too seemed improbable as it was not the sort of
thing that, like a gold watch, could easily be concealed about the person.
No; reasoning
that a rhinoceros could be considered fungible I decided replacement was the
best option and sent Scrotum round to Frobisher with the message ‘Leaving for
the continent tomorrow’.
There
occurred a minor setback before we had even left London: at Victoria the worthy
employees of the London, Chatham and Dover Railway, with many a sharp indrawing
of breath and shake of the head, declared it quite out of the question to load
the stout crate I had proleptically provided against our successful return. Irritatingly,
Frobisher chose this moment to display his inappropriate sympathy for the lower
orders, with a concomitant lapse into coarseness of expression: ‘Dammit, Caruthers,
να τους συμπαθάς: the thing’s the size of a
wooden shithouse that’s been blown on its side in a gale.’ (Following a
disgraceful episode in the Northern Sporades he tends in moments of stress to
pepper his speech with odd phrases in Demotic Greek.) Clearly I should have to
deal with the matter alone, so I drew the head porter aside and pressed a crisp
white fiver into his grubby paw, whereupon a flat-bed wagon was hitched with an
unaccustomed alacrity to the rear of the train, and we were at last able to set
off.
I had as
usual engaged two adjoining first-class sleeping compartments but my
preparations for bed were interrupted as, in spite of my strict instructions to
use the communicating door only in emergency, Frobisher burst through with a
silly grin on his face: ‘I say, Caruthers, come and look at this!’ Giggling
like a schoolgirl he drew my attention to the ingenious lead-lined hinged
chute, giving straight on to the tracks, through which one emptied one’s
chamber-pot. He was especially taken with the engraved notice ‘Not intended for
solid matter’. ‘Very droll, Frobisher,’ I muttered icily, and on returning to
my compartment ensured a good night’s sleep by tying up the handle of the
communicating door with my sock suspenders and taking a generous draught of
laudanum.
Thus I
slept through the transfer of the train to the ‘Lord Warden’ ferry at Dover
Marine station. The procedure there is that the train is broken into three or
four sections which are then shunted — as gently as possible in the case of the
first-class carriages so as not to disturb the passengers — onto the tracks in
the aptly-named bowels of the ship. It was therefore not until our arrival at
the Gare du Nord that I became aware of the absence of the flat-bed wagon onto
which our crate had been loaded. I sent at once for the station master, a
self-important fellow who showed a high-handed indifference. Frobisher was as
usual unhelpful, merely remarking with a silly titter that the chap had ideas
‘Au dessus de son gare’.
I decided
to call on the British Consulate, but first in view of Frobisher’s levity I
sent him away to amuse himself however he saw fit. We arranged to meet at some
place called I think ‘Le Cheval Rouge’ in the dubious area of Montmartre, where
he claimed to have friends.
The
Consulate was equipped with telephone apparatus and I was eventually able to
establish that the crate was now in the Goods Depôt not at Dover Marine but at
Dover Priory, where it was being used by junior boys from the adjacent
barbarous minor public school as a refuge from the unwelcome attentions of the
prefects. It seemed my fiver had been sufficient only for inland transport, and
an exorbitant sum was being asked for bringing the crate to the continent.
My cab
driver winked and sniggered impertinently when I asked for ‘Le Cheval Rouge à
Montmartre’, and there I found Frobisher deep in conversation and a
vile-smelling greenish-yellow drink with a funny little fellow in bowler hat,
pince-nez, frock coat and very short legs. I mentioned the sum required to
Frobisher. (I tolerate his company on expeditions as it is his aunt Bertha who acts
both as chaperone to my ward Matilda and funder of our travels.) The little Frog
eavesdropped shamelessly and on hearing the figure exclaimed ‘Sacred Blue! You
propose to pay zat simply to bring a wooden sheethouse from Douvres? Why, such
Monet here in la Belle France would buy…’ ‘Two loos!’ Frobisher burst in and
they collapsed in helpless laughter.
‘Look here,
Caruthers,’ he said when he had sufficiently recovered, ‘Why don’t we just
carry on anyway, and get the local wogs to knock us up a new crate when we get
to — er —wherever it is we’re going?’ ‘Splendid idea, old chap!’ (I am
punctilious in praise on the rare occasions Frobisher says anything
intelligent), ‘Let’s do just that. After all, as things stand here, we have
little to lose.’ During a further unaccountable outbreak of hilarity I went out
and engaged a cab before going back in
and extricating my companion from his pedally challenged little friend. ‘Gare
de Lyon, Empshi, empshi!’ I told the cabman. ‘Wrong lingo, Caruthers old bean.’
The journey
to Marseilles was mercifully free of incident, unless the asphyxiating wafts of
garlic each time the train stopped to admit further packs of Frog peasants
count as such. Frobisher, following his overindulgence in the oily
greenish-yellow drink served at the ‘Cheval Rouge’, slept stertorously, and I
was able to take stock and consider for the first time where indeed it was that
we were going. Foreign explorers tend to make preparations and decide on such
matters before setting out, but I am British — as, indeed, appearance and
behaviour notwithstanding, is Frobisher — and so considered that unsporting. I
fell asleep soothed by thoughts of the superiority of the English character,
which treats such trivial details as precise knowledge of what one is doing
with effortless patrician disdain.
We woke at
dawn as the train made its slow and insalubrious way through the northern
outskirts of the city. Marseilles is a noisy, dirty, smelly, indeed
irredeemably foreign place, so it came as no surprise to find that Frobisher
seemed quite at home as he led the way to what is always the noisiest,
dirtiest, smelliest and most foreign part of any harbour town, the dockyards.
As we wandered the narrow streets, looking in a desultory fashion for the
offices of the Peninsular and Orient Steam Navigation Company or a firm of
similar respectability, Frobisher suddenly clutched my arm: ‘I say, Caruthers,
over there! Can it be? No, surely…’ I followed his gaze across the road but
noticed nothing more remarkable than a shambling figure, rather short, with a
round, amiable face, balding head, jug ears and the distinctive rolling gait of
a seaman.
‘But it
is!’ cried Frobisher; ‘Ρέ φιλαράκο, που ήσουνα τόσο καιρό; Έλα ’δώ!’ The little man trotted over to us and was introduced to me as
one Niko, a Greek merchant seaman. In my experience all Greek sailors are
called Niko. At Niko’s insistence, seconded enthusiastically by Frobisher, we
repaired to a dark underground bar called, apparently, ‘L’Aveugle Caniche’, where
Niko ordered a bottle of really quite drinkable if immature claret. The
conversation, in which I took little part, seemed to be about the poet
Baudelaire and the French Impressionists, subjects about which as an Englishman
I knew almost nothing, but Niko seemed to know far more than could be
considered appropriate for a mere Greek sailor.
After the
second or third bottle — I really can’t remember — their talk, as far as I
could understand it, turned to the relative merits of houses of assignation in
Beirut and Alexandria. ‘I bid you good afternoon, gentlemen,’ I said, rising to
leave, ‘I have —‘ (here looking pointedly at Frobisher) ‘— important matters to
which to attend. Frobisher, I shall expect you later at the Hôtel des Anglais.’
I spent a
fruitless late afternoon and early evening trying to locate a company — any
company — that could be prevailed upon to take us across the Mediterranean to a
port — any port — on the North African coast. I was met with shrugs and
indifference everywhere I tried, no matter how loudly and clearly I spoke. They
even affected not to understand my French. This was admittedly meagre, because
of the belief held by our headmaster and all right-thinking people that the
advance of civilization would imminently cause all peoples to stop speaking in
their foreign tongues and learn proper English. Nevertheless I was confident
that I spoke what little French I knew with an impeccable accent, as our French
master was rumoured once to have spent an entire week on the wrong side of the
channel, the continent having been cut off from England by fog. The story went
that he had returned to civilization so transmogrified by his ordeal that he was
barely recognized at his club, and it was then that he had retired into the
decent obscurity of school-mastering. But that is by the by; I was getting
nowhere and possibly even creating enemies along the waterfront by displays of
exasperation I had difficulty containing. I returned to the Hôtel des Anglais
and lingered despondently over a foul dinner rendered acceptable only by a
quite decent ’98 Chateau Neuf du Ponce. I was unsure whether to be alarmed or
relieved by Frobisher’s failure to appear by the time I retired to bed.
—
¦¦ —
No comments:
Post a Comment