The magic carpet - Barcaly Baron

In this story, Barclay Baron tells us the adventure of the ‘magic carpet’, where a simple carpet delivery turns into a border-hopping comedy. Which should have been a quiet trip to Poperinghe, becomes a parade of customs inspections, puzzled officials and misunderstandings.

“Talbot House, Trinity Square, speaking. Would you like a second-hand carpet we have here for the Old House at Pop? All right, you’ll find it ready for you in the cloak-room at St. Pancras tomorrow night.” What could be simpler or more kindly? An outsize brown-paper parcel, on the shoulder of a railway porter, boarded the Tilbury boat-train, and was duly decanted on board s.s. Flamand, bound for Dunkerque. Cabins are small, but the big bundle found a place on the floor outside the purser’s office and served as a perch for a dwarf – a tiny tourist with a deep bass voice – when bunks had long since run out on the ship. Next morning a French porter, not without danger to passengers on the gangway, brandished our bundle ashore. And that is where the fun began.

Beside our suitcases on the customs counter the brown-paper bundle, neat and nameless, lay awaiting the douanier’s pleasure. At last he came, white cheeked and solemn, pink chalk in hand. “What is this?” he said. “Un vieux tapis,” I said casually, “très usé”.  “Open it.” I tore half a yard of brown paper off the end of the bundle. He went away to fetch his superior officer, who took a most gloomy view of the situation from the start: “We must see this carpet,” he said sternly.

We two were personally conducted behind the counter, bidden to cut the strings and spread out the treasure – 15 feet by 12 – on the extremely dirty floor of the customs house; that rather unattractive room has never looked so well furnished. But the “revelations” were frankly disappointing: our carpet was not lined with contraband lace nor festooned with packets of cocaine nor even used to drape a keg of whisky.

“Where is this carpet going?” said the senior officer, now supported by an ungilded staff of three. “To Belgium.” “Where in Belgium?” “To Poperinghe.” “Where’s that?” “Poperang” (I attempted in French) – “Po-peringa” (I strove in Flemish) “And what will you do with it there?” “Lay it on a floor.” “What floor?” “The floor of Talbot ‘ooze, de la Maison Tahl-bott.” “What is that maison?” I glanced through the window and saw the passengers hanging impatient heads out of the Hazebrouck train – at any moment the engine driver might pluck up courage for a start; this was clearly no occasion for the customary fifty-minutes talk on Toc H, its origin, aims and ideals. “A home of British officers,” I said brightly, “a house of the ancient combattants Britannic.” The Entente Cordiale has a weak link: cordiality does not run with customs. “Your papers,” said the officer abruptly. We produced, for the second time that morning, our passports. The officer glanced at the front page of Herbert’s. “Major?” he said, sharply “what sort of a major?” (for majeur in the French Army refers specially to the Medical Corps).

“A commandant of the British Army,” I said, “ancient combattant in the Great War.” 

He turned to page 2, where Herbert – to my dismay – is described by his peace-time profession as “Importer.” The officer’s sullen eye sparkled with a sudden splendour. “Ha!” he said, “importer of what? – of carpets?”

I hadn’t the slightest ideas, but the great thing is to keep the ball rolling in detective stories. “Oh no, monsieur,” I said, pas de tout de tout! Importer of eggs – millions of eggs to China and Sumatra and Scotland and –“

He needed ocular demonstration of the eggs and took swift steps. He called up two more reserves, one in a peaked cap, the other going so far as brass buttons and a bayonet. “Search these men,” he said.

Our situation began to be impressive. The little knot of blue-bloused porters round the custom-house counter grinned with delight, some of our fellow-passengers looked shocked and probably murmured “Moscow” under their breath, and all the officials who are awake, or half-awake, at Dunkerque station at 6 a.m. seemed to be on the spot to provide the firing party. Over the carpet which we had laid with our own hands we were escorted with proper ceremony. We both had a terrible temptation to be funny about it, and I remember wondering how often royal personages who are publicly escorted over red carpets by officials have to stifle their laughter.

A door labelled “Examination – Men” opened before us and closed behind us: our friend with the bayonet stood against it, while his colleague carried on the good work. The aspect of the tiny room was cheerless in the extreme. Its only furniture was a bed (or something of the same dimensions) covered with a most uninviting brown blanket. I wondered if the station staff took it in turn to have naps there, when it was not in the occupation of international crooks undergoing the “third degree.”

“Hands up!” We did. Our friend pawed me all down the front of the body, extracted two letters, a time-table and a packet of pipe-cleaners from my breast-pocket, grunted, put them back and passed on. He arrived at the knees of my plus-fours and found them specially entertaining – for a hole in my pocket had filled one knee with a handful of French nickel which played the “Old Hundredth” falsetto when shaken. The experienced searcher apparently sees mankind as an object in two dimensions. If our solemn friends had felt me down the back he could not have avoided the brandy flask which stuck out of my hip pocket. He ignored my back – probably he had never been in the United States.

The ”thorough search” over, we were led back to the desk where the firing party of officials still stood round our open passports in portentous solemnity. But they had not meanwhile been wasting the time of the French Government. Two of them were covering page after page in pencil in note-books; the rest were giving advice and encouragement wherever the muse failed. They were writing history – a faithful transcript of every entry on Herbert’s passport and mine. Fortunately neither of us are globe-trotters. Even so, we had to help in moments of doubt. “Valid for Spain and the Republic of Angorra,” wrote Monsieur industriously, in flattering imitation of the British Passport authorities to whom Andorra was an unknown land in 1922. “If desirous of leaving the precincts of Cologne Main Station” (wrote the patient copyist) “passengers must report to the military police” (he glanced at me darkly) “at Cologne Main Station.” “Vorbehaltlich der Aufenthaltsgenemigung  der zustaendigen…”: the copyist sighed, gave that one up, and turned to page 9, on which eight purple ovals declare that I landed in Dieppe on September 1, 1922, at Calais in October, 1923, at Dunkerque in March 1928, and so on ad nauseam (at least on one of those occasions). As each of these eight stamps had been put on a different angle, as every one touched at least two others and several were never really legible, page 9 had to be turned round and round many times before the copyist had filled that section of his note-book. Page 10 provided a word or two in Danish, and the portrait of an apoplectic eagle countersigned by the aerodrome police at Berlin, all of grave interest to the customs officers at Dunkerque. When it came to Italy the plot, so far, a bit thin, began slightly to thicken: the regrettable suspicion which exists between the sister Latin countries rose to the surface. A purple stamp said Venezia in small letters at the top, and at the bottom in much bolder type the word “Sbarcare, “ which being interpreted is nothing less than débarquement or “landed”. “Where is Sbacare?” said the officer severely.

“A small fishing village in the South of Italy,” I said gravely. Sbarcare, petit village en Italie, wrote the patient scribe in his note-book.

My passport, however, was plain sailing compared with Herbert’s. For his pages were decorated with purple stamps in Turkish and Greek characters. The Hazebrouck train whistled, and through the office window its passengers could be seen with their tongues hanging out. There would not be time to learn Turkish or Greek at the present sitting, it was unanimously felt. With the same mournful solemnity with which the whole ritual had been carried out, the officer closed his precious note-book and handed us our passports. We thanked him heartily and restrained a sincere impulse to shake him by the hand.

“And now for it!” said Herbert, striding towards the door. Our friend of the bayonet barred the way; we were given to understand that there was still much to be done. Imprisonment? Not for us, but for our baggage. An enormous green canvas sack, admirably suited as a shipping-bag for a giant of Neville Talbot’s measure, was produced. The carpet, loosely rolled up, slid easily into the bottom of it, and Herbert’s suitcase went in on top. Then it became clear that my own suitcase and two large parcels of framed pictures for the Old House must remain outside. Several officials tried to fit the pictures and I heard the broken glass tinkle pleasantly – though only six glasses were actually smashed, we afterwards found.

Our friend of the bayonet had retired and now returned, bearing in one hand a necklace of large silvery beads and in the other an enormous pair of iron pincers, with which he might have extracted any confession from us had he produced them, red hot, in the room marked “Examination – Men.” The mouth of the green sack, the suitcase and the parcels were now corded elaborately as for Asiatic travel, the silvery beads of lead were threaded laboriously on to all loose ends of the cord and the great pincers impressed upon them the seal of the French Republic. Thus was our baggage registered through to Godewaersvelde, which, as Pop. pilgrims know, is the last station on the French side of the border. Considering that eight Government officials assisted in this operation with great dignity, it was well worth 17 francs 50 centimes or 3s. 4d. Preceded by our green sack and followed by our glittering staff we made an imposing procession at last from the customs house to the waiting train and were firmly seen into a compartment. Not until the train moved and the solemn faces of our guard of honour faded away did we think it decent to sit back and laugh really loud.

At Godewaersvelde (or, if the ex-soldier still prefers it, “Gerty wears velvet”) the French customs again surveyed us but could not be persuaded to take any interest in our carpet. And the guard of the train made no bones about labelling it on to Poperinghe. At Abeele, the Belgian frontier station, the Flemish gendarme requested our presence in the luggage van: “All the fun,” I whispered to Herbert, “now starts again.”

The gendarme fixed his eye on the green sack, then kicked it contemptuously in passing, and pounced upon one of the paper parcels. “What is this, monsieur?” “Pictures,” I said, knowing from past experience at Abeele what the next move would be. “Ah, pictures! They must come to the office, please.” They went: we followed.

Now printed matter entering Belgium is dutiable, and Abeele does, and charges, its duty manfully. Higher mathematics are involved and the train has to wait for them. The scale of duty is beautifully graded in proportion as a picture is printed in one, two, three, four or more colours. And when the douanier has consulted his book and worked out the duty on a three-colour print to so many places of decimals, he dumps your picture on his scales and charges for the weight of frame and glass which are not dutiable at all. The best of this system is that it works.

The parcel was on the counter and I was fumbling at the knot in the string. “One colour,” I said, and added reverently “A portrait of His Majesty the King of the Belgians” (which, oddly enough, was true). The douanier’s right hand almost went to the peak of his cap. “Thank you, sir,” he said, “that will do.” Reigning sovereigns, even in effigy, enjoy the same immunity as diplomats – but they do not always take a carpet across the frontier when they travel.

The train rumbled at last into Poperinghe. Panting for coffee and omelettes, we dragged the great green sack out of the station into the cobbled street and M. Dumortier’s car. Ten minutes later we emptied out the magic carpet, which now embellishes the first-floor landing of Talbot House. Like almost every other piece of furniture in the Old House it is not without its story, however humble.
As for the great green sack, property of the French Republic, it awaits Neville Talbot’s next visit to Pop. Perhaps it will not be the first time that he will have slept in a “scrounged” sleeping bag.

By the time the carpet reaches Talbot House, it’s survived suspicion, seals, and more paperwork than a small war. Baron’s tale proves even the humblest errands can become unforgettable adventures—if you meet bureaucracy with good humour.

Bronnen:

Louagie, J. (2024), The Pilgrim’s Way - Talbot House in the interwar period