It was arranged that I should go with Simon in one car, while David and Geoffrey Pratt should share the other. But three or four days afterwards Simon discovered that, for various reasons, he was unable to provide a car after all. I, therefore, realizing that all along the idea had been too good to be true, dropped out and decided to go to Ireland instead.

However, on Tuesday, the 28th of July, a wire arrived from David asking if I could leave for the Balkans on Saturday. Geoffrey Pratt, it appeared, had failed at the last minute, as his firm would only give him a fortnight’s holiday. It was to be David, Simon and myself.

The next day I spent between the Passport Office and Cook’s in Ludgate Circus; and the day after hurried home to pack, having a quarrel in the train with a woman in a white feather boa, who proved to be the sister of the local parson. On Friday I returned to London; and was poised on an island at the bottom of the Haymarket, when David emerged unexpectedly from between two ’buses and said that we were starting that night. The rest of the evening passed in a fever of excitement. At ten-fifteen, accompanied by Simon, he drew up at the front door. The tour had begun.

 

In appearance, the party, as a whole, was not undistinguished. The car, a large touring Sunbeam, was painted a dark, nearly black, blue-grey. She was named Diana. Her lines were impressive and her bonnet long, sloping scarcely at all from the level of the tops of the doors. The tank at the back hung low, and the clearance all round was small, so that the back light and exhaust did not survive the third day’s journey. On either side, resting on the front wings, were mounted two wire-spoked spare wheels to each of which was roped a spare outer cover.

The back was entirely filled with luggage. At the bottom, invisible to the policeman and undiscovered by successive customs officials, were a 30-gallon tank of petrol, a cylinder of oil, four spare springs, fifteen inner tubes in yellow cardboard boxes that all came to pieces within twenty-four hours, and an ever-increasing rubble of sticks, hats, books, magazines and stray tools. On top, resting on the seat without its cushion, stood the heavy luggage: a huge yellow cabin-trunk belonging to Simon, that protruded at least two feet above the hood; a very large brown one, the property of David; and a moderate black box of mine. In front were the lighter pieces: two suitcases, heavily fitted with coming-of-age bottles, in canvas overalls; and a very worn Gladstone bag capable of unlimited expansion. Finally, in front in a row, sat the three human units of the expedition.

As the interest, if any, of the following account must depend largely on the angles adopted towards places already familiar and adventures already commonplace, some description of the antecedents of the party may not be altogether superfluous. All three had been educated at the same school and at the same university. At the former, frequently described as ‘one of our leading public schools’, David had preceded Simon and myself; and even we were not contemporary. I retain a vision of him as an older boy, out beagling, running persistently and seriously across ploughed fields, with a rather prominent nose held well up in the air and light greenish blue eyes downcast.

‘That,’ said my informant, in whose house Simon was, ‘is O’Neill. He’s queer – he says he’s a communist. He’s very clever. Yes, I like him.’

It was 1921. ‘Communist’ in those days was but another word for Bolshevik, and at the time the streets of Moscow were running blood. It seemed strange, even as a pose.

The following Easter Simon left. I never knew him except by sight.

David had been taken away before the end of the war. His family had gone to Canada and he, as he was supposed to have bronchial trouble, had accompanied them. He attended a Canadian school and also MacGill University. Then he came home to Oxford.