The crew that gathered the following dawn in the dim light of the terminal was the usual collection of anonymous beings that all groups are until joined by the mortar of common experience. The only familiar faces were those of two old Cretans who had been on the bus up, distinguished only for their unfailing bad humour. Surprisingly enough, January in England seemed to have mellowed them somewhat and they were positively affable as they recognized and greeted me.
We piled onto the chartered bus that would take us to Dover for the crossing by hovercraft to Boulogne, where we were to be met by our own bus coming up from Athens — according to the British dispatcher. In spite of a bumpy crossing, we arrived on schedule in Boulogne at 1:30 p.m. on a cold, blustery grey afternoon. Finding no trace of any bus, we all settled down to wait in the austere surroundings of the hoverport. As time passed, I had time to assess the general makeup of the group, about twenty-five in all.
Most were young, except for the Cretans and three elderly English ladies, and most were of mixed nationality: Greek, English, Canadian, Australian, and American. Eventually, the Cretans asked me what was up and I confessed my ignorance. Several of the other Greek-speakers drifted over to be told the same thing. Soon, several English-speakers, hearing but not understanding my learned discourse in Greek, asked to be told the news. Thus I gradually became an information centre with absolutely no information to impart. Around 6:00 p.m. the keepers of the hoverport began to grow restive. Bernard, the young man in charge, deciding I was responsible for the group, told me he would have to close the place in an hour. Outside darkness had fallen and the troops clearly had no interest in a night on the beach. Something had to be done. One of the elderly English ladies had the business card of our travel agency so I called the home office in Athens. No answer. Then the office in London, where they were aghast to learn of the bus’ failure to materialize and helpfully suggested that I call the French police to ask if they had any news of our missing bus. In the midst of this conversation, the bus called, or at least someone in communication with it called. It was in Calais, where it had broken some small part which prevented it from travelling faster than thirty miles an hour.
I suggested that I get the gang transported into Boulogne and bedded down for the night, at company expense. This was followed by a lengthy three-way conference resembling a Jerry Lewis scenario: first me and London in my left ear, then Calais in my right, and finally me holding the two receivers top to bottom together for the final decision to be made between London and Calais. Approval was given and Bernard, who had gotten into the spirit of things, and I set to work. We first summoned a bus and then secured thirteen double rooms in two inexpensive hotels in Boulogne. I went out to ask the group to pair up for room assignments. Five hours in the hoverport had clearly been enough to stifle any protest about our sleeping arrangements, but just how stiff the upper lip had to be only came clear when we reached the hotels. In the establishments in question, double room meant double bed. Still not a peep, which suggested either a collection of questionable sexual proclivities or a group determined to be cooperative. I prefer to think the latter. I spent the night in bed with a very-pleasant, young Englishman whose name was Colin.
Our hotel had a very cheery cafe on the ground floor, full of Frenchmen off-the-waterfront, food, drink, a pinball machine, and a juke-box. I was finishing a good dinner with Bernard when the bus from Athens pulled in, disgorging its two drivers, Yiorgo and Thanassi, and the owner-courier, John. While the drivers headed for the bar, John came over to confer with us. He was about forty, had spent several years in Australia, married an Australian girl, and then returned to Athens to found a small travel agency, whose chief business came from the bus trips to and from London. After thanking Bernard and me for our services, he relayed the latest good news. The part in question could not be repaired and would have to be replaced. Tomorrow being Sunday, we would not be able to leave before Monday. Having had several hours’ access to the bar, the group received the news with equanimity. With no early departure on the schedule, a large friendly card game started up, the details of which I forget, though we played until closing time.
When I descended for breakfast the next morning, I was greeted by the two English ladies, one of whom offered me a brandy in appreciation of my stalwart services on behalf of all the day before. Nine-thirty seemed a bit early, so I declined. She took it in stride and ordered one for herself, clearly not the first. Her companion sat next to her in the booth, muttering either to herself or to me, ‘Just look at her! Oh, is she going to catch it when we get to Athens and Τ tell her daughter!’ I finished breakfast somewhat faster than anticipated and went out to see what Boulogne had to offer on a beautiful, winter, Sunday morning.
The fishing boats were in, and I spent an hour or two watching the nets being cleaned of all sorts of marine life, with Jacqueline from North Carolina, John from Australia, and two Canadians who remained nameless throughout. When that paled, I climbed to the top of the city and wandered around the castle which crowns it. From the ramparts I could see a large crowd gathering at what was clearly a stadium, so I descended and went off to watch the soccer game being played. The play was indifferent and, finding myself unable to muster any enthusiasm for either side, I left shortly after halftime. Both cinemas in town were tried and found wanting and the rest of the day and evening was spent in the cafe at the pinball machine and the card table.
The bus was repaired on Monday morning but we did not leave until midday—after John had received some money wired from England to bail us out of the hotels. As we were getting aboard, John asked me if I would be willing to serve as courier. Normally he or his brother did, he said, but he had to go on to England to settle accounts with his agent there. There really wasn’t much to it, he explained, and there was vague mention of reimbursement once we arrived. Keeping in mind admonitions such as ‘faint heart ne’er won fair maiden’ I accepted, although I was not at that time in the market for a fair maiden, and hopped aboard. At 12:30 we left Boulogne, just about the time we should have been running through Thermopylae.
Belgium was uneventful. At the border the official did not want to let us through. I’m not clear why. Nor am I clear why he finally did after Yiorgo and I showed him every paper we had and importuned him in every language at our disposal (three and a half). At Brussels we dropped off John the Australian; the loss of two days did not fit in with the rest of his travel plans. At Lieges we got lost, though Yiorgo found his way out without much loss of time. There was a brief dinner stop at some gas station where Yiorgo had promised to drop off a package, and then we crossed into Germany.
At about 11:00 p.m. a police car flashed by and then slowed down immediately in front of us. It looked as though we were about to be arrested. We were, at the next rest area. It seems buses are not supposed to go as fast as cars in Germany. Yiorgo and I got out to negotiate. We got a very crisp salute and a request to see the twenty-four-hour speedometer that all buses in Europe are required to carry. The barometer like device contains a paper disc that is supposed to be changed once a day. A red line is drawn on the paper showing how fast the vehicle has been travelling in each of the last twenty-four hours.
Yiorgo pretended we didn’t have one. This drew a snort of derision and Yiorgo finally capitulated when it became clear that Herr Officer was quite prepared to remove the device himself. Yiorgo’s reluctance to hand over the disc became readily explicable when he removed it. It was a solid mass of red lines and clearly had not been changed in weeks — if ever. The officer became visibly upset at this untidiness and launched into a long lecture. Yiorgo, flustered by the turn of events, made a tactical erron Although his German was minimal, he managed to inquire if the officer would be interested in a little bribe. The temperature in the vicinity rose appreciably and the officer managed to convey that we were very likely to cool our heels in jail.
We managed to look very contrite during his lengthy tirade and eventually talk returned to the subject of a fine. A sum was quoted in deutsche marks and all was well until Thanassi decided it was his turn to enter the negotiations. Claiming that we had only enough German money to pay for gas while in Germany, he asked if we could pay in another currency. Explaining to us in Greek that perhaps we would get a better rate of exchange and thereby put one over on them, he made the officer go through dollars, French and Belgian francs, Yugoslav dinars, and drachmas, all of this requiring radio consultation with headquarters. At length we settled on Austrian schillings. We finally returned to the bus and proceeded, Thanassi terribly pleased with our savings of sixty-seven cents on a thirty dollar fine, and I frozen after our half-hour session standing in the cold.
It got colder as the night progressed and I don’t remember sleeping. We were about a half hour beyond Munich and it was about four a.m. when I heard a ‘pumph’ sound and the bus took a decided list to the left. Nevertheless, it managed to limp on to a deserted gas station where Yiorgo pulled it over, climbed out, examined it, and explained that its suspension system had given way. We got everybody out and into a sort of refreshment annex of the station: a bare room with a linoleum floor, neon lights, and walls lined with machines dispensing various edibles. While the others settled in as best they could, Yiorgos set about dissecting the bus with my help. Like most of his countrymen who drive, Yiorgo was a fabulous roadside mechanic.
Three hours later Yiorgo had extracted the wounded fragment from the bus, a task complicated by the fact that a heavy snow had begun to fall. The offender proved to be a large piece of rubber, shaped like a doughnut. If there was any comfort to be taken, it was in the fact that we were in a Deutz bus and the factory was in Munich.
We set off to hitchhike back to Munich, leaving the crowd at the station. The first car to pass us, a police car, stopped to arrest us for hitchhiking on an autobahn. When we explained the nature of our predicament, however, they were most helpful and gave us a lift in.
After the fine ot the night before, Yiorgo did not have the funds to pay for the new piece and at this point I slid gracefully from the role of courier to financier . After purchasing one large black rubber doughnut, which cost 50 dollars in Munich, we taxied back to the garage and found it empty, except for an irate and uncommunicative attendant who informed us that all twenty-five members had simply disappeared — with nothing around but snow-covered fields. The attendant’s surliness began to make some sense as I plied him for information concerning my missing flock. It seems that his vending machines were unable to distinguish between English shillings (at the time, twelve cents) and deutsche marks (thirty-five cents) and when he emptied them upon arrival that morning he found them all crammed with the former, at a considerable financial loss to himself. He therefore had suggested in no uncertain terms that the miscreants might like to wait somewhere other than his garage. The ‘somewhere’, he finally told me, was a small village about three kilometres away, over a low rise. Leaving Yiorgo to reassemble the bus, I set off to find them.
I found them all at the local Gasthaus, full of hot soup, beer, and good cheer. Rather pointlessly, for it was clear no one was about to move an inch, I suggested they all remain in situ and that I would go back and bring the bus to them. This I did, Yiorgo having repaired the damage in the interim. We set off again at about noon.
At half-past one we stopped again, this time with a broken gas pump. I passed a German exam once, but my predominantly archaeological vocabulary in the language did not extend to fuel pump, and it was a while before Yiorgo, I, and the German automobile club mechanic were able to reach an understanding, but by three we were off again. The Austrian border presented no problems except a head tax on the passengers, further depleting my roll. The Yugoslav border was slow, cold and uneventful.
At 3:00 a.m. we were stopped again, this time by a Yugoslav patrol car, because one of our headlights was not working. The language barrier had been difficult in Germany, but Serbo-Croatian was insurmountable. That, however, did not seem to faze our captor, who had much to say on the subject of improperly lit buses. When we finally reached hard figures, the fine was three and a half American dollars. Breathing a sigh of relief, I reached for my wallet, only to be stopped by Yiorgo and Thanassi. They were on another economy kick and indicated to the Serb that we couldn’t come up with the money. After twenty minutes in the cold night air he allowed himself to be persuaded that an entire busload of people between them could not scrape together the fine and we were on our way once more.
After an interesting breakfast stop we began a pleasant drive down the Axios river valley through lovely country towards Greece. With the end in sight, everyone became affable. Several of the young English girls displayed instamatic photos of the young men waiting for them in Greece, whom they had had met the year before while working as au pairs. Several of the Greeks began to sing, and so it went up to the border where we arrived at sunset. The Greek customs inspector swung aboard and asked if we had anything to declare, such as tape recorders, radios, bananas, and the like. There was a loud chorus of no’s and he asked everyone to get off so he could search the bus. He did, and found three tape recorders. I blamed my failure to translate his request properly to the foreigners, and lying like a fiend, said they all belonged to the foreigners on board, who weren’t subject to the import duty. He chose to believe me and we were off again.
A brief stop in Salonica to let off a couple of people, dinner at the Vale of Tempe, then a dark ride through mainland Greece, with the familiar shapes of friendly mountains rising out of the gloom, and so to Athens by 3:30 a.m. to be greeted by a motley crew of worried and tired relatives and friends. A scramble for luggage, hasty goodbyes to new-found friends, and off to bed, home again, some two and a half days late.
