Red in the Morning (Chapter 4 - Sofia, Bulgaria)

The road surface to Sofia was perfect. Some tarmac, some well-laid cobbles, but all smooth and in first-class condition. The cobbles in fact were so well fitted that not the slightest bump was transmitted through the scooter frame. We made very good time to the capital, exuberant at our release from the frontier guards and from the exhausting business of negotiating rough Yugoslav tracks. Rolling pastures flanked the empty road ahead. We saw three other vehicles between the border and the capital, two of them party-member cars flying hammer-and-sickle pennants, and the third an ancient open army staff car with disc wheels. The only people we passed in the whole sixty miles were a group of road menders, most of whom were women, buxom lasses, heaving picks and shovels under the eye of a male foreman. They paused, statue-like, in their labours to stare at the sight of our unfamiliar vehicle. We gave them a cheery wave and a pip-pip on the horn, sailing gracefully past at a steady forty miles an hour.

We had a lot more trouble in Sofia. We arrived just as the banks were closing, which was unfortunate, because we had only Yugoslav dinars in our pockets. However, I managed to squeeze my way inside one of the imposing buildings and to catch one of the tellers. So the trouble started. They could not give us leva for dinars. I argued, in English; they shook their Bulgarian heads and remained passive. The manager arrived. No, it was not possible; what good were Yugoslav dinars? In desperation I offered him one of our travellers' cheques. Still no good. He looked dispassionately at the cheque book, it was obvious he was not going to exchange good leva for a leaf of that worthless paper. More mumbling until I detected the words' British Legation' uttered in French. We made more signs, talked a lot of mutually unintelligible gibberish, then the harassed man was smitten with the bright idea. He picked up a 'phone directory, riffled through the pages, then rang a number. A ten-minute pause, then he handed the instrument over.

'Hullo,' I sighed wearily, 'is that the British Legation?'

'It is, and what sort of trouble are you in, old chap?'

Oh that glorious Anglo-Saxon voice. My morale soared.

'Money trouble and our plight is desperate; we can't change our Yugoslav dinars and the Lloyds Bank cheques are apparently not too popular.'

'Uh, huh,' said the friendly, dark-brown English voice. 'Where are you? No, that's silly of me, you probably haven't a clue.' I acknowledged that.

'Put me on to the manager again for a moment, will you?' More burblings and a lot of dobra's. I was handed the 'phone again.

'Wait outside the bank, one of our chaps will be along in about fifteen minutes, you can't miss the car - he'll guide you along here to the Legation - we'll see if we can arrange something.'

With another sigh, this time of contentment, I replaced the receiver.
Outside, Nita and the scooter had disappeared inside a vast crowd of people, who were milling around talking loudly and excitedly. I hastened through the crush, faintly alarmed at this unprecedented Sofia reception. In the centre of the milling throng, my wife was doing her best to stand upright. She looked very relieved as I forced myself inside the human barrier.

'Thank God you've come; this is quite an ordeal.'

'It's all fixed,' I gasped, 'the Legation are sending a car round to pilot us in.'

We were both by now pressed hard against the scooter by the pushing of late-comers on the fringe of the crowd. I felt slightly apprehensive. There were these hundreds of faces, serious, neutral of countenance, gazing unwinkingly at us, our clothes, the scooter, and the equipment. We could speak no Bulgarian and they no English. But it was very easy to understand their interest. We were something from 'the other side', and this cross-section of the population, men, women, and children of all ages, were obviously measuring up this practical example of capitalism against their theoretical knowledge. On that reception, we passed their critical examination with flying colours. For a start, our little scooter was something unusual, to say the least; they marvelled at the finish, the cleanliness of line, the complete absence of visible machinery, at the quietness of the engine; there were gasps of wonderment as I pressed the self-starter. They were obviously impressed with the dash-panel too, probably the first they'd seen on a two-wheeled machine.

But it was our own clothing and equipment which really fascinated them. Without embarrassment they fingered the sleeves of our skin jackets, admired our boots, and repeatedly touched the fabric of our rolled tent and sleeping-bags. Quality was plainly at a premium in this little country. Almost all the onlookers were clothed in drab, thin-looking, inferior garments. There was not one splash of bright colour. Beyond the crowd one or two cars passed by, but traffic-particularly for a capital city-was extremely light. We had no trouble in identifying the Legation car. Thankfully we started up, while a dozen faces within inches of our own continued to stare unblinking at our every move; it was hard to keep up a steady disinterested gaze into the middle distance. The car hooted, the crowd reluctantly made a lane, and we pulled out of the crush.

The British Legation in Sofia stood on a once-affluent tree-lined avenue. Opposite, an ostensibly empty house concealed a swarm of khaki-clad figures: a convenient site for military surveillance of the comings and goings in the British stronghold on the other side of the road. There were a number of faces pressed to the windows as we drew up and stopped.

Mr Constant and his charming wife at once made us at home with refreshments and that blessed thing, the English language. How pleasant to relax in comfortable leather armchairs, surrounded by familiar furnishings, with two people who could understand every word and inflection of our voices. Exactly six weeks after leaving England, we spent the night 'camping' on the floor of this English living-room in Sofia. We slept soundly on the carpeted boards, until about half past two in the morning, when suddenly our sleep was shattered by the most hideous metal rumbling from the street outside. I leaped out of my sleeping-bag and rushed to the windows and there twenty feet below, glistening under dim street lamps, were three tanks, line astern, rattling their inexorable way down the avenue. The noise those caterpillar tracks made over the cobblestones was deafening and quite frightening at such an hour. I could just make out the heads and shoulders of the tank commanders, featureless in large berets and goggles. It took a quarter of an hour for the clatter to die away in the distance, and we returned to our sleeping-bags, wondering.

Next morning we got an explanation from Mr Constant. It did not make us too happy. There had been an unofficial whisper of political trouble-an uprising of some sort-in Plovdiv, the next town on our route. He thought it unwise for us to leave the capital until something had been confirmed. The tanks that passed in the night had been on their way to the trouble spot. But, we learned, they often embarked on a night prowl from time to time even without an excuse-all part of the intimidation tactics. They knew full well the value of waking the populace in the dead of night with their palpitating clatter.