Soldier's Art

ONE

When, at the start of the whole business, I bought an army greatcoat, it was at one of those places in the neighbourhood of Shaftesbury Avenue, where, as well as officers’ kit and outfits for sport, they hire or sell theatrical costume. The atmosphere within, heavy with menace like an oriental bazaar, hinted at clandestine bargains, furtive even if not unlawful commerce, heightening the tension of an already novel undertaking. The deal was negotiated in an upper room, dark and mysterious, draped with skiing gear and riding-breeches, in the background of which, behind the glass windows of a high display case, two headless trunks stood rigidly at attention. One of these effigies wore Harlequin’s diagonally spangled tights; the other, scarlet full-dress uniform of some infantry regiment, allegorical figures, so it seemed, symbolising dualisms of the antithetical stock-in trade surrounding them … Civil and Military … Work and Play … Detachment and Involvement … Tragedy and Comedy … War and Peace … Life and Death …

An assistant, bent, elderly, bearded, with the congruous demeanour of a Levantine trader, bore the greatcoat out of a secret recess in the shadows and reverently invested me within its double-breasted, brass-buttoned, stiffly pleated khaki folds. He fastened the front with rapid bony fingers, doing up the laps to the throat; then stepped back a couple of paces to judge the effect. In a three-sided full-length looking-glass nearby I, too, critically examined the back view of the coat’s shot-at-dawn cut, aware at the same time that soon, like Alice, I was to pass, as it were by virtue of these habiliments, through its panes into a world no less enigmatic.

“How’s that, sir?”

“All right, I think.”

“Might be made for you.”

“Not a bad fit.”

Loosening now quite slowly the buttons, one by one, he paused as if considering some matter, and gazed intently.

“I believe I know your face,” he said.

“You do?”

“Was it The Middle Watch?”

“Was what the middle watch?”

“The show I saw you in.”

I have absolutely no histrionic talent, none at all, a constitutional handicap in almost all the undertakings of life; but then, after all, plenty of actors possess little enough. There was no reason why he should not suppose the Stage to be my profession as well as any other. Identification with something a shade more profound than a farce of yesteryear treating boisterously of gun-room life in the Royal Navy might have been more gratifying to self-esteem, but too much personal definition at such a point would have been ponderous, out of place. Accepting the classification, however sobering, I did no more than deny having played in that particular knockabout. He helped me out of the sleeves, gravely shaking straight their creases.

“What’s this one for?” he asked.

“Which one?”

“The overcoat — if I might make bold to enquire?”

“Just the war.”

“Ah,” he said attentively. “The War …”

It was clear he had remained unflustered by recent public events, at the age he had reached perhaps disillusioned with the commonplaces of life; too keen a theatre-goer to spare time for any but the columns of dramatic criticism, however indifferently written, permitting no international crises from the news pages to cloud the keenness of aesthetic consideration. That was an understandable outlook.

“I’ll bear the show in mind,” he said.

“Do, please.”

“And the address?”

“I’ll take it with me.”

Time was short. Now that the curtain had gone up once more on this old favourite — The War — in which, so it appeared, I had been cast for a walk on part, what days were left before joining my unit would be required for dress rehearsal. Cues must not be missed. The more one thought of it, the more apt seemed the metaphor. Besides, clothes, if not the whole man, are a large part of him, especially when it comes to uniform. In a minute or two the parcel, rather a bulky one, was in my hands.-

“Tried to make a neat job of it,” he said, “though I expect the theatre’s only round the corner from here.”

“The theatre of war?”

He looked puzzled for a second, then, recognising a mummer’s obscure quip, nodded several times in appreciation.

“And I’ll wish you a good run,” he said, clasping together his old lean hands, as if in applause.

“Thanks.”

“Good day, sir, and thank you.”

I left the shop, allowing a final glance to fall on the pair of flamboyantly liveried dummies presiding from their glass prison over the sombre vistas of coat-hangers suspending tweed and whipcord. On second thoughts, the headless figures were perhaps not antithetical at all, on the contrary, represented “Honour and Wit, fore-damned they sit,” to whom the Devil had referred in the poem. Here, it was true, they stood rather than sat, but precise posture was a minor matter. The point was that their clothes were just right; while headlessness — like depicting Love or Justice blindfold — might well signify the inexorable preordination of twin destinies that even war could not alter. Indeed, war, likely to offer both attributes unlimited range of expression, would also intensify, rather than abate, their ultimate fatality. Musing on this surmise in the pale, grudging sunshine of London in December, a light wan yet intimate, I recognised the off-licence ever memorable for the bottle of port — could the fluid be so designated — that Moreland and I, centuries before, had bought with such high hopes that Sunday afternoon, later so dismally failed to drink.

Looking back from a disturbed, though at the same time monotonous present, those Moreland days seemed positively Arcadian. Even the threatening arbitrament of war (the Prime Minister’s rather ornate phrase in his broadcast) had lent a certain macabre excitement to the weeks leading up to the purchase of the greatcoat. Now, some fourteen months later, that day seemed scarcely less remote than the immolation of the port bottle. The last heard of Moreland — from one of Isobel’s letters — was that a musical job had taken him to Edinburgh. Even that information had been sent long ago, soon after my own arrival at Division. Since then I had served a million years at these Headquarters, come to possess no life but the army, no master but Widmerpool, no table companions but Biggs and Soper.

Meanwhile, the war itself had passed through various phases, some of them uncomfortable enough: France in defeat: Europe overrun: invasion imminent: the blitz opened over London. In this last aspect — more specifically — Isobel reported, too, a direct hit on Barnby’s frescoes in the Donners-Brebner Building, a pictorial memory dim as Barnby himself, now Camouflage Officer on some distant R.A.F. station. Latterly, things had looked up a trifle, in the Western Desert, for example, but in general the situation remained capable of considerable improvement before being regarded as in the least satisfactory. F Mess — defined by Widmerpool as “low, though not the final dregs of the Divisional Staff” — did not at all alter a sense that much was wrong with the world.

After our first local blitz — when they killed a thousand people, at that stage of the war regarded as quite a large number for a provincial city in a single night — Major-General Liddament, the Divisional Commander, ordered the Defence Platoon (of which I had temporary charge) to mount brens within the billeting area between the sounding of Air-raid Warning and All Clear. This was just a drill, in practice no shooting envisaged, unless exceptional circumstances — dive-bombing, for example — were to arise; Command, of course, operating normal anti-aircraft batteries. Announced by the melancholy dirge of sirens, like ritual wailings at barbarous obsequies, the German planes used to arrive shortly before midnight — it was a long way to come — turning up in principle about half an hour after sleep had descended. They would fly across the town at comparatively high altitude, then, wheeling lower, hum fussily back on their tracks, sometimes dropping an incendiary or two, for luck, in the immediate neighbourhood of the Mess, before passing on to the more serious business of lodging high explosive on docks and shipyards. These circlings over the harbour lasted until it was time to return. On such nights, after weapons were back in the armoury, sections dismissed to the barrack-room, not much residue of sleep was to be recaptured.

The last jerky, strangled notes of the Warning, as it died away, always recalled some musical instrument inadequately mastered; General Conyers, for example, rendering Gounod or Saint-Saëns on his ’cello, or that favourite of Moreland’s (also inclined to play Saint-Saëns), the pirate-like man with an old-fashioned wooden leg and patch over one eye, who used to scrape away at a fiddle in one of the backstreets off Piccadilly Circus. Still sleepy, I began to dress in the dark, since switching on the light in the curtain-less bedroom would entail the trouble of rearranging the window’s blackout boards. Musical variations of different forms of Air-raid Warning might repay study. Where Isobel was living in the country, the vicar, as chief warden, issued the local Warning in person by telephone. Either to instil the seriousness of the notification, or because intoning came as second nature to one of his calling, he always enunciated the words imitatively, ululating his voice from high to low in paraphrase of a siren:

“… Air-raid Warning … Air-raid Warning … Air-raid Warning … Air-raid Warning … Air-raid Warning … Air-raid Warning …”

Such reveries floated out of the shadows of the room, together with the hope that the Luftwaffe, bearing in mind the duration of their return journey, would not protract with too much Teutonic conscientiousness the night’s activities. To-morrow, a Command three-day exercise opened, when, so far as the Defence Platoon was concerned, sleep might be equally hard to come by. Outside in the street the air was sharp, although by now meagre signs of the spring were appearing in the surrounding countryside, the hedgeless fields partitioned one from another by tumbledown stone walls. The moonlight had to compete with a rapidly increasing range of artificial illumination that made blackout nugatory. Section posts were to be inspected in turn. The guns were already setting up a good deal of noise. Once a minute fragment of shrapnel pattered with a tinny rattle, like attack from a pea-shooter, against the metal of my helmet. The bren section at the corner of the sports field, last to be visited, had their weapon mounted for aircraft action already and revealed, rather apologetically, they had just discharged a burst.

“Got tired of hanging about watching them drop those things,” said Corporal Mantle, “so we shot down a flare, for goodness’ sake.”

His spectacles gave him a learned, scholarly air, out of keeping with such impatience and violent action. He was a young, energetic N.C.O., whose name was to go in as candidate for a commission, unless the process were thwarted by Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson, recently showing signs of obstruction in that quarter.

“We’ll have to account for the rounds.”

“I’ll remember that, sir. Had a few in hand, as a matter of fact. Always just as well, in case there’s one of those snap inspections of ammo.”

A shapeless, dumpy figure in a mackintosh came towards us out of the night, the garment so long it reached almost to his heels. This turned out to be Bithel. It was impossible to guess why he should be wandering about at this hour of the night in the middle of a raid. As officer in charge of the Mobile Laundry, his duties could scarcely be required at this moment. He came close to us.

“You can’t sleep with this noise going on,” he said.

He spoke peevishly, as if remedy, easily applicable, had been for some reason disregarded by the authority responsible.

“I’ve run out of those pills of mine,” he went on. “Not even sure I’ll be able to get them any longer. Gone off the market, like so many other useful commodities these days. Thought it wiser to put on a helmet. Regulation about that anyway, I expect. I didn’t know you or any of the rest of Div. H.Q. were on duty on these occasions. Don’t Command organise the pom-poms? That’s what they’re called, I believe. Then there’s a Bofors gun. That’s ack-ack too, isn’t it? Swedish. I ought to know much more about the Royal Artillery and their functions. Don’t come your way as an infantryman, though I’ve picked up a bit since being at Div.”

He smiled uncomfortably, looking, as always, as if he expected a rebuff. Some months before, he had shaved off the untidy moustache worn when — from some forlorn hope of the Territorial Army Reserve — he had first joined our former Battalion. The physical change, more in keeping with his other natural characteristics, additionally emphasised, in a large moonlike face, the unbelievably inexpert adjustment of his false teeth. That Bithel had lasted so comparatively long in charge of the Mobile Laundry was little short of a miracle. Survival was chiefly due to the fact that this unit was attached only for purposes of administrative convenience, never officially part of the Divisional establishment, therefore liable to be removed at short notice. Accordingly, it never received quite the same disciplinary attention; and, in any case, he was lucky in having Sergeant Ablett as subordinate, who probably did most of the administration. Another reason, too, may have played a part in delaying Bithel’s dislodgement, ultimately inevitable. He was accustomed to speak enthusiastically of his own affiliations with the theatrical world, boasts reduced on closer examination to having worked as “front of House,” for a few months, at the theatre of the provincial capital where for a time he had existed precariously. The job had come to an end when that playhouse had been transformed into a cinema, but some shreds of Thespian prestige still clung to Bithel, anyway in his own eyes, so that when the officer in charge of the Mobile Bath Unit — traditional impresario of the Divisional Concert party — went sick in the middle of rehearsal, the enterprise was handed over to Bithel, who, as producer and director, mounted a very tolerable show.

All the same, ejection sooner or later could not be in doubt. Widmerpool, as D.A.A.G. conveniently placed for furthering this measure, was anxious to oust Bithel at the first opportunity; undoubtedly would have done so long before had the Laundry been of our own establishment. Widmerpool’s disapproval was not only on understandable general grounds; but, in addition, because he had — rather uncharacteristically, since usually well informed on such matters — swallowed Bithel’s intermittently propagated myth about being brother of an officer of the same name and regiment who had won a V.C. in the ’14-’18 war. There seemed no reason why even a V.C.’s younger brother should not fall short in commanding a Mobile Laundry, but for some reason, at an earlier stage, Widmerpool’s imagination had been temporarily captured by the legend, so that he felt bitterly about it when the story was shown to be patently untrue. Now, Bithel stood gazing at the bren with close attention, as if he had never before seen such a weapon.

“So far as Div. H.Q. are concerned, only the Defence Platoon stands-to when there’s a raid — one of the General’s ideas to keep everyone on their toes,” I said.

Bithel nodded gravely at this explanation of why we were on guard over the sports field. As it happened, he and I had hardly spoken since the night when, in his own phrase, he had “taken a glass too much” after traversing the gas-chamber at the Castlemallock School of Chemical Warfare. The peregrinations of the Laundry, by definition, kept its officer, a subaltern, in a state of almost permanent circuit throughout the formation’s area, while my own duties, however trivial, were too numerous and dispersed to offer much time for hobnobbing with other branches of H.Q. We had therefore done no more up to that moment than exchange an odd word together, usually as neighbours at periodical assemblies of all Headquarters officers to attend a lecture or listen to harangues delivered from time to time by the General. This was the first occasion we had met without a crowd of other people round about.

“Bit of a sweat to have to get up like this night after night,” he said. “Shall we take a turn up the field?”

His sympathy was not without a touch of despair. Few officers could have looked less on their toes than himself at that moment.

“Wait till I’ve checked this bren.”

The section was found correct. Bithel and I strolled across the grass towards a broken-down cricket pavilion or changing room, a small wooden structure, not much more than a hut. The place had been the cause of trouble lately, because Biggs, Staff Officer Physical Training, had mislaid the key just at the moment when the civilian owners of the requisitioned sports field wanted to store benches or garden seats there. Widmerpool had complained greatly of time wasted on this matter, and, with justice, had been very cross with Biggs, to whom the hut and its key had become almost an obsession. I tried the door to see if it had been properly locked again after the key had been found and the seats moved there. It would not open. Biggs must have seen to that.

The noise of the cannonade round about was deepening. An odour like smouldering rubber imposed a rank, unsavoury surface smell on lesser exhalations of soot and smoke. Towards the far side of the town — the direction of the harbour — thin greenish rays of searchlight beams rapidly described wide intersecting arcs backwards and forwards against the eastern horizon, their range ever reducing, ever extending, as they sliced purposefully across each other’s tracks. Then, all at once, these several zigzagging angles of light would form an apex on the same patch of sky, creating a small elliptical compartment through which, once in a way, rapidly darted a tiny object, moving like an insect confined in a bottle. As if reacting in deliberately regulated unison to the searchlights’ methodical fluctuations, shifting masses of cloudbank alternately glowed and faded, constantly redesigning by that means half-a-dozen intricately pastelled compositions of black and lilac, grey and saffron, pink and gold. Out of this resplendent firmament — which, transcendentally speaking, seemed to threaten imminent revelation from on high — slowly descended, like Japanese lanterns at a fete, a score or more of flares released by the raiding planes. Clustered together in twos and threes, they drifted at first aimlessly in the breeze, after a time scarcely losing height, only swaying a little this way and that, metamorphosed into all but stationary lamps, apparently suspended by immensely elongated wires attached to an invisible ceiling. Suddenly, as if at a prearranged signal for the climax of the spectacle — a set-piece at midnight — high swirling clouds of inky smoke rose from below to meet these flickering airborne torches. At ground level, too, irregular knots of flame began to blaze away like a nest of nocturnal forges in the Black Country. All the world was dipped in a livid, unearthly refulgence, theatrical yet sinister, a light neither of night nor day, the penumbra of Pluto’s frontiers. The reek of scorched rubber grew more than ever sickly. Bithel fidgeted with the belt of his mackintosh.

“There’s been a spot of bother about a cheque,” he said,

“Yours?”

“I think that’s what was really keeping me awake as much as lack of those pills. Things may work out all right because I’ve paid up — borrowed a trifle from the Postal Officer, as a matter of fact — but cheques are always a worry. They ought to be abolished.”

“Perhaps they will after the war.”

“That’ll be too late for me,” said Bithel.

He spoke quite seriously.

“Large sum?”

“Matter of a quid or two — but it did bounce.”

“Can’t you keep it quiet?”

“I don’t think the D.A.A.G. knows up to date.”

That was an important factor from Bithel’s point of view. Otherwise Widmerpool might find the opportunity for which he was waiting. I was about to commiserate further, when a deep, rending explosion, that seemed to split the earth, sounded above the regular thud-thud-thud of the guns, vibrations of its crash echoing back in throbbing, shuddering waves from the surrounding hills. Bithel shook his head, his attention distracted for the moment from his own troubles, no doubt worrying enough.

“That must have got home,” he said.

“Sounded like it.”

He began to speak again, then for some reason stopped, apparently changing his mind about the way he was going to put a question. Having evidently decided to frame it in a different form, he made the enquiry with conscious diffidence.

“Told me you were a reader — like me — didn’t you?”

“Yes, I am. I read quite a lot.”

I no longer attempted to conceal the habit, with all its undesirable implications. At least admitting to it put one in a recognisably odd category of persons from whom less need be expected than the normal run.

“I love a good book when I have the time,” said Bithel. “St. John Clarke’s Match Me Such Marvel, that sort of thing. Something serious that takes a long time to get through.”

“Never read that one, as it happens.”

Bithel seemed scarcely aware of my answer. St. John Clarke’s novel was evidently a side issue, not at all the goal at which these ranging shots were aimed. Though rarely possible to guess, when in a mood for intimate conversation, what he would say next, such pronouncements of Bithel’s were always worth attention. Something special was on his mind. When he put the next question, there was a kind of fervour in his voice.

“Ever buy magazines like Chums and the Boy’s Own Paper when you were a nipper?”

“Of course — used to read them in bound annuals as a rule. I’ve a brother-in-law who still does.”

It was Erry’s only vice, though one he tried to keep dark, as showing in himself a lack of earnestness and sense of social obligation. Bithel made some reply, but a sudden concentrated burst of ack-ack fire, as if discharged deliberately for that purpose, drowned his utterance.

“What was that you said?”

Bithel spoke again.

“Still can’t hear.”

He came closer.

“… hero…” he shouted.

“You feel a hero?”

“No … I…”

The noise lessened, but he still had to yell at the top of his voice to make himself heard.

“… always imagined myself the hero of those serials.”

The shouted words were just audible above the clatter of guns. He seemed to think they offered a piece of unparalleled psychological revelation on his own part.

“Every boy does,” I yelled back.

“Everyone?”

He was disappointed at that answer.

“I’m sure my brother-in-law does to this day.”

Bithel was not at all interested in my own, or anyone else’s, brother-in-law’s tendency to self-identification while reading fiction. That was reasonable, because he knew nothing of Erridge’s existence. Besides, he wanted only to talk about himself. Although wholly concentrated on that subject, he remained at the same time apologetic as well as intense.

“Only I was thinking the other night — when Jerry first came over — that I was having the very experience I used to read about as a lad.”

“How do you mean?”

“ ‘Coming under fire for the first time’ — that was always a great moment in the hero’s career. You must remember. Where he ‘showed his mettle,’ as the story usually put it.”

He laughed, as if trying to excuse such reckless flights of fancy, in doing so displaying the double row of Low Comedy teeth.

‘“The rattle of musketry from distant hills’ — ’a little shower of sand churned up by a bullet in front of the redoubt’?”

These conventional phrases from boys’ adventure stories might encourage Bithel to plunge further into observations about life. The clichés did indeed stir him.

“That’s it,” he said, speaking with much more animation than usual, “that’s just what I meant. Wonderful memory you’ve got. What you said brings those yarns right back. I was a great reader as a lad. One of those thoughtful little boys. Never kept it up as I should.”

This was all a shade reminiscent of Gwatkin, my former Company Commander, poring secretly in the Company office over the Hymn to Mithras; but, whereas Gwatkin had meditated such literary material as a consequence of his own infatuation with the mystique of a soldier’s life, Bithel’s ruminations were quite other. In Bithel, memory of his former partiality for tales of military prowess merely gave rise to a very natural surprise that he was not himself more personally frightened at this moment of comparative danger.

“Strictly speaking, one experienced raids — coming under fire, if you like — when still reading the Boy’s Own Paper. During the earlier war, I mean.”

“Oh, I didn’t,” said Bithel. “The Zeppelins never came near any of the places we lived when I was a kid. That’s just why I was surprised not to mind this sort of thing more. I’m the nervy type, you see. I once had to give evidence in court, rather a nasty case — nothing to do with me, I’m glad to say, just a witness — and I thought my legs were going to give way under me. But this business we’re listening to now really doesn’t worry me. Worst moment’s when the Warning goes, don’t you think?”

The question of fear inevitably propounds itself from time to time if a state of war exists. Will circumstances arise when its operation on the senses might become uncomfortably hard to control? Like Bithel, I, too, had thought a certain amount about that subject, reaching the very provisional conclusion that fear itself was less immediately related to unavoidable danger than might at first be supposed; although no doubt that danger, more or less indefinitely increased in motive power, might — indeed certainly would — cause the graph to rise steeply. In bed at night, months before the blitz struck the locality, I would occasionally feel something like abject fear, turning this way and that in my sleeping-bag, for no special reason except that life seemed so utterly out of joint. That was a kind of nervous condition — as Bithel had said of himself — perfectly imaginable in time of peace; perhaps even experienced then, now forgotten, like so much else of that lost world. In the same way, I would sometimes lie awake enduring torments of thwarted desire, depraved fantasies hovering about the camp-bed, reveries of concupiscence that seemed specifically generated by unprepossessing military surroundings. Indeed, it was often necessary to remind oneself that low spirits, disturbed moods, sense of persecution, were not necessarily the consequence of serving in the army, or being part of a nation at war, with which all-inclusive framework depressive mental states now seemed automatically linked.

The raid in progress at that moment was, as Bithel had indicated, more spectacular than alarming, even a trifle stimulating now one was fully awake and dressed; so long as the mind did not dwell on the tedium of a three-day exercise the following day, undertaken after a missed night’s sleep. On the other hand, if bombs began to fall in the sports field, such light-hearted impressions might easily deteriorate, especially if the bren were knocked out, removing chance of retaliation. (It might be added that all sense of excitement was to evaporate from air-raids three or four years later.) However, Bithel had ceased to require comment on his own meditations about “baptism of fire.” He now returned to those personal worries, predominantly financial, which were never far from his mind.

“I do hope things will be O.K. about that cheque,” he said. “It all started with the Pay Department being late that month in paying Field Allowance into my banking account.”

This situation did, indeed, arise from time to time, owing to absence of method, possibly downright incompetence, on the part of the Financial Branch of the War Office concerned; possibly due to economic ineptitudes, or ingrained malice, of what Pennistone used later to call the “cluster of highly educated apes” ultimately in charge of such matters at the Treasury. Whatever the cause, the army from time to time had to forego its wages; sometimes such individual disasters as Bithel’s resulting.

“I can see there’ll be a fuss,” he said, “but with any luck it won’t come to a court-martial.”

Two or three lesser reports, each thunderous enough, had followed the last big explosion. Now noise was diminishing, the barrage gradually, though appreciably, reducing its volume. Quite suddenly the guns fell entirely silent, like dogs in the night, which, after keeping you awake for hours by their barking, suddenly decide to fall asleep instead. There was a second or two of absolute stillness. Then in the far distance the bell of a fire-engine or ambulance clanged desperately for a time, until the echoes died sadly away on the wind. This discordant ringing was followed by a great clamour, shouts, starting-up of trucks, hooting … the sound of horns and motors, which shall, bring Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring…. Huge smuts, like giant moths exploring the night air, pervaded its twilight. The smell of burning rubber veered towards a scent more specifically chemical in character, in which the fumes of acetylene seemed recognisable. The consolatory, long-drawn out-drone came at last. At its first note, as if thus signalled, large drops of rain began to fall. In a minute or two the shower was coming down in buckets, the freshness of the newly wet grass soon obtruding on the other scents.

“Buck up and get that bren covered, Corporal.”

“Shall we pack it in now, sir?”

“Go ahead.”

“Think I’ll return to bed too,” said Bithel. “Doubt if I’ll get much sleep. Glad I brought a mac with me now. Need it more than a helmet really. Awful climate over here. Makes you swill down too much of that porter, as they call it. More than you can afford. Just to keep the damp out of your bones. Come and see us in G Mess some time. You’d like Barker-Shaw, the Field Security Officer. He’s a professor — philosophy, I think — at one of the ’varsities. Can’t remember which. Clever face. The bloke in charge of the Hygiene Section is a bright lad too. You should hear him chaffing the Dental Officer about sterility.”

Our several ways parted. Corporal Mantle marched off his men to the barrack-room. I completed the rounds of the other bren sections, dismissed them, made for bed.

F Mess was only a few minutes’ walk from the last of these posts. The Mess was situated in a redbrick, semi-detached villa, one of the houses of a side-street sloping away towards the perimeter of the town. Entering the front door, you were at once assailed by a nightmare of cheerlessness and squalor, all the sordid melancholy, at its worst, of any nest of bedrooms where only men sleep; a prescript of nature unviolated by the character of solely male-infested sleeping quarters established even in buildings hallowed by age and historical association. F Mess was far from such; at least any history to be claimed was in the making. From its windows in daytime, beyond the suburbs, grey, stony hills could be seen, almost mountains; in another direction, that of the docks over which the blitz had been recently concentrating, rose cranes and factory chimneys beyond which inland waters broadened out towards the sea — ”the unplumb’d, salt, estranging sea.” About half a mile away from the Mess, though still in the same predominantly residential area, two or three tallish houses accommodated all but the ancillary services of Divisional Headquarters. A few scattered university buildings in the same neighbourhood failed to impart any hint of academic flavour.

“No room in this bloody Mess as it is,” said Biggs, Staff Officer Physical Training, expressing this opinion when I first turned up there. “Now you come along and add to the crowd, Jenkins, making an extra place at that wretched rickety table we’ve been issued with to eat off, and another body to occupy the tin sink on the top floor they call a bath — no shaving in the bathroom, remember, absolutely verboten. What are you supposed to be doing at Div. anyway?”

A captain with ’14-’18 ribbons, bald as an egg, he had perhaps been good-looking in a heavy classical manner when younger; anyway, had himself so supposed. Now, with chronically flushed cheeks, he was putting on flesh, his large bulbous nose set between fierce frightened eyes and a small cupid’s bow mouth that kept twitching open and shut like a rubber valve. Muscular over-development of chest, shoulder and buttock gave him the air of a strong man at a circus — a strong woman almost — or professional weight-lifter about to present an open-air act to a theatre queue. His voice, harsh and unsure, registered the persecution mania that beset him, that condition, not uncommon in the army, of for ever expecting a superior to appear — bursting like the Demon King out of a trapdoor in the floor — and find fault. In civilian life sports organiser at a sea-side resort, Biggs, so I learnt later, was in process of divorcing his wife, a prolonged undertaking, troublesome and expensive, of which he would often complain.

“I’m attached to the D.A.A.G.’s office.”

“How long for?”

“Don’t know.”

“How’s Major Widmerpool got authority for an assistant, I should like to know?”

“War Office Letter.”

“Go on.”

“It’s to help clear up a lot of outstanding stuff like court-martial proceedings and requisition claims.”

“I’ve got a lot of outstanding stuff too,” said Biggs. “A bloody lot. I’m not given an assistant. Well, I don’t envy you, Jenkins. It’s a dog’s life. And don’t forget this. Don’t forget it. There’s nothing lower in the whole bloody army than a second-lieutenant. Other Ranks have got their rights, a one-pipper’s none. That goes especially for a Div. H.Q., and what’s more Major Widmerpool is a stickler for having things done the right way. He’s been on my own track before now, I can tell you, about procedure he didn’t consider correct. He’s a devil for procedure.”

After that Biggs lost interest in what was not, indeed, a very interesting subject, except in the light indicated, that to acquire an understrapper at all was, on Widmerpool’s part, an achievement worthy of respect. No one but a tireless creator of work for its own sake would have found an assistant necessary in his job, nor, it could be added, in the ordinary course of things been allowed one, even if required. Widmerpool had brought that off. As it happened, a junior officer surplus to establishment was to some extent justified additionally, not long before my arrival at Division, by Prothero, commanding the Defence Platoon, falling from his motor-bicycle and breaking his leg. While he was in hospital I was allotted some of Prothero’s duties as well as those delegated by Widmerpool.

“You’ll find there’s a lot of work to do here,” said Widmerpool, on my first morning. “A great deal. We shall be at it to a late hour most nights.”

This warning turned out to be justified. There were, as it happened, several courts-martial pending, and another, convened in the past, the findings of which Widmerpool considered unsatisfactory in law. A soldier, who had temporarily gone off his head and assaulted two civilians, had been acquitted at his trial. Widmerpool was engaged in a complicated correspondence on this matter with the Judge Advocate General’s Department. Such things took up time, as most of the week was spent out of doors on exercises. Although, since days when we had been at school together, I had been seeing him on and off — very much on and off — for more than twenty years by this time, I found when I worked under him there were still comparatively unfamiliar sides to Widmerpool. Like most persons viewed through the eyes of a subordinate, his nature was to be appreciated with keener insight from below. This new angle of observation revealed, for example, how difficult he was to work with, particularly on account of a secretiveness that derived from perpetual fear, almost obsession, that tasks completed by himself might be attributed to the work of someone else.

On that first morning at Division, Widmerpool spoke at length of his own methods. He was already sitting at his table when I arrived in the room. Removing his spectacles, he began to polish them vigorously, assuming at the same time a manner of hearty military geniality.

“No excuses required,” he said, before I could speak. “Your master is always the first staff officer to arrive at these Headquarters in the morning, and, apart from those on night duty, the last to leave after the sun has gone down. Now I want to explain certain matters before I go off to attend A. & Q.’s morning conference. The first thing is that I never turn work away, neither in the army nor anywhere else. To turn work away is always an error. Never let me find you doing that — unless, of course, it is work another branch is wrongly trying to foist on us, for which they themselves will ultimately reap the credit. A man fond of stealing credit for other people’s work is Farebrother, my opposite number at Command. I do not care for Farebrother. He is too smooth. Besides, he is always trying to get even with me about a certain board-meeting in the City we both once attended.”

“I met Farebrother years ago.”

“So you keep on telling me. You mentioned the fact at least once last night. Twice, I think.”

“Sorry.”

“I hope previous acquaintance will prevent you being taken in by his so-called charm, should you have dealings with him as my representative.”

Widmerpool’s feud with Sunny Farebrother, so I found, was of old standing, dating back to long before this, though, militarily speaking, in especial to the period when Farebrother had been brigade-major to Widmerpool’s Territorials soon after the outbreak of war. The work of the “A” staff, which Widmerpool (under “A. & Q.”, Colonel Pedlar) represented at Division, comprised administration of “personnel” and “interior enonomy,” spheres in which, so it appeared, Farebrother had more than once thwarted Widmerpool, especially in such matters as transfers from one unit to another, candidates for courses and the routine of disciplinary cases. Farebrother was, for example, creating difficulties about Widmerpool’s correspondence with the Judge Advocate’s Department. There were all kinds of ways in which an “opposite number” at Corps or Command could make things awkward for a staff officer at Division. As Command Headquarters were established in one of the blocks of regular army barracks on the other side of the town, I had no contact with Farebrother in the flesh, only an occasional word on the telephone when the D.A.A.G. was not available; so the matter of our having met before had never arisen. It was hard to estimate how justly, or otherwise, Widmerpool regarded this mutual relationship. Farebrother’s voice on the line never showed the least trace of irritation, even when in warm conflict as to how some order should be interpreted. That quiet demeanour was an outstanding feature of Sunny Farebrother’s tactic. On the whole, honours appeared fairly evenly divided between the two of them where practical results were concerned.

“Right, Sunny, right,” Widmerpool would mutter, gritting his teeth when he had sustained a defeat.

“It’s gone the way Kenneth wants,” was Farebrother’s formula for accepting the reverse situation.

Then there were my own hopes and fears. Though by now reduced to the simplest terms, these were not without complication. In the first place, I desired to separate myself from Widmerpool; at the same time, if possible, achieve material improvement in my own military condition. However, as the months went by, no prospect appeared of liberation from Widmerpool’s bottle-washing, still less of promotion. After all, I used to reflect, the army was what you wanted, the army is what you’ve got — in terms of Molière, le sous-lieutenant Georges Dandin. No use to grumble, not to mention the fact that a great many people, far worse off, would have been glad of the job. This was a change, of course, from taking pride in the thought that only luck and good management had brought a commission at all at a moment when so many of my contemporaries were still failing to achieve that. However, to think one thing at one moment, another at the next, is the prescriptive right of every human being. Besides, I recognised the fact that those who desire to share the faint but perceptible inner satisfaction of being included, however obscurely, within the armed forces in time of war, must, if in their middle thirties and without any particular qualifications for practising its arts, pay for that luxury, so far as employment is concerned, by taking what comes. Consolation was to be found, if at all, in Vigny’s views (quoted that time in the train by David Pennistone) on the theme of the soldier’s “abnegation of thought and action.”

All the same, although the soldier might abnegate thought and action, it has never been suggested that he should abnegate grumbling. There seemed no reason why I alone, throughout the armies of the world, should not be allowed to feel that military life owed me more stimulating duties, higher rank, increased pay, simply because the path to such ends was by no means clear. Even if Widmerpool left Divisional Headquarters for what he himself used to call “better things,” my own state, so far from improving, would almost certainly be worsened. The Battalion, made up to strength with a flow of young officers increasingly available, would no longer require my services as platoon commander, still less be likely to offer a company. Indeed, those services, taking them all in all, were not to be exaggerated in value to a unit set on streamlining its efficiency. I was prepared to admit that myself. On the other hand, without ordination by way of the War Intelligence Course, or some similar apostleship, there was little or no likelihood of capturing an appointment here or on any other staff. For a course of that sort I should decidedly not be recommended so long as Widmerpool found me useful When, for one reason or another, that subjective qualification ceased to be valid — when, for example, Widmerpool went to “better things” — it looked like pretty certain relegation to the Regiment’s Infantry Training Centre, a fate little to be desired, and one unlikely to lead to name and fame. Widmerpool himself was naturally aware of these facts. Once, in an expansive mood, he had promised to arrange a future preferable to assignment — as an object to be won, rather than as a competitor — to the lucky-dip provided by an I.T.C.

“I look after people who’ve been under me,” Widmerpool said, in the course of cataloguing some of his own good qualities. “I’ll see you get fixed up in a suitable job when I move up the ladder myself. That shouldn’t be long now, I opine. At very least I’ll get you sent on a course that will make you eligible for the right sort of employment. Don’t worry, my boy, I’ll keep you in the picture.”

That was a reasonable assurance in the circumstances, and, I felt, not undeserved. “Putting you in the picture,” that relentlessly iterated army phrase, was a special favourite of Widmerpool’s. He had used it when, on my first arrival at Headquarters, he had sketched in for me the characteristics of the rest of the Divisional staff. Widmerpool had begun with General Liddament himself.

“Those dogs on a lead and that hunting horn stuck in the blouse of his battle-dress are pure affectation,” he said. “Come near to being positively undignified in my opinion. Still, of the fifteen thousand men in the Division, I can think of only one other fit to command it “

“Who is?”

“Modesty forbids my naming him.”

Widmerpool allowed some measure of jocularity to invest his tone when he said that, which increased, rather than diminished, the impression that he spoke with complete conviction. The fact was he rather feared the General. That was partly on account of General Liddament’s drolleries, some of which were indeed hard to defend; partly because, when in the mood, the Divisional Commander liked to tease his officers. Widmerpool did not like being teased. The General was not, I think, unaware of Widmerpool’s qualities as an efficient, infinitely industrious D.A.A.G., while at the same time laughing at him as a man. In this Widmerpool was by no means his only victim. Generals are traditionally represented as stupid men, sometimes with good reason; though Pennistone, when he talked of such things later, used to argue that the pragmatic approach of the soldier in authority — the basis of much of this imputation — is required by the nature of military duties. It is an approach which inevitably accentuates any individual lack of mental flexibility, an ability, in itself, to be found scarcely more among those who have risen to eminence in other vocations; anyway when operating outside their own terms of reference. In General Liddament, so I was to discover, this pragmatic approach, even if paramount, was at the same time modified by notable powers of observation. A bachelor, devoted to his profession, he was thought to have a promising future ahead of him. Earlier in the war he had been wounded in action with a battalion, a temporary disability that probably accounted for his not already holding a command in the field.

When the General himself was present, Widmerpool was prepared to dissemble his feelings about the two attendant dogs (he disliked all animals), which could certainly become a nuisance when their double-leashed lead became entangled between the legs of staff officers and their clerks in the passages of Headquarters. All the same, Widmerpool was not above saying “wuff-wuff” to the pair of them, if their owner was in earshot, which he would follow up by giving individual, though unconvincing, pats of encouragement.

“Thank God, the brutes aren’t allowed out on exercise,” he said. “At least the General draws the line there. I think Hogbourne-Johnson hates them as much as I do. Now Hogbourne-Johnson is a man you must take care about. He is bad-tempered, unreliable, not more than averagely efficient and disliked by all ranks, including the General. However, I can handle him.”

Hogbourne-Johnson, a full colonel with red tabs, was in charge of operational duties, the staff officer who represented the General in all routine affairs. A Regular, decorated with an M.C. from the previous war, he was tall, getting decidedly fat, with a small beaky nose set above a pouting mouth turning down at the corners. He somewhat resembled an owl, an angry, ageing bird, recently baulked of a field-mouse and looking about for another small animal to devour. The M.C. suggested that he was presumably a brave man, or, at very least, one who had experienced enough active service to make that term almost beside the point. Widmerpool acknowledged these earlier qualities.

“Hogbourne-Johnson’s had a disappointing career up to date,” he said. “Unrealised early hopes. At least that’s his own opinion. Sword of Honour at Sandhurst, all that sort of thing. Then he made a balls-up somewhere — in Palestine, I think — just before the war. However, he hasn’t by any means given up. Still thinks he’ll get a Division. If he asked me, I could tell him he’s bound for some administrative backwater, and lucky if he isn’t bowler-hatted before the cessation of hostilities. The General’s going to get rid of him as soon as he can lay hands on the particular man he wants.”

“But the General could sack him to-morrow.”

“For some reason it doesn’t suit him to do that. Hogbourne-Johnson is also given to putting on a lot of swank about being a Light Infantryman. To tell the truth, I’m surprised any decent Line regiment could put up with him. They might at least have taught him not to announce himself to another officer on the telephone as ‘Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson.’ I know Cocksidge says, ‘This is Captain Cocksidge speaking,’ if he’s talking to a subaltern. You expect that from Cocksidge. Hogbourne-Johnson is supposed to know better. The C.R.A. doesn’t say, ‘This is Brigadier Hawkins,’ he says ‘Hawkins here.’ However, I suppose I shouldn’t grumble. I can manage the man. That’s the chief thing. If he hasn’t learnt how to behave by now, he never will.”

All this turned out to be a pretty just description of Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson and his demeanour, from which in due course I saw no reason to dissent. The army is a place where simple characterisation flourishes. An officer or man is able, keen, well turned out; or awkward, idle, dirty. He is popular or detested. In principle, at any rate, few intermediate shades of colour are allowed to the military spectrum. To some extent individuals, by the very force of such traditional methods of classification, fall into these hard and fast categories. Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson was one of the accepted army types, disappointed, sour, on the look-out for trouble; except by his chief clerk, Diplock, not much loved. On the other hand, although he may have had his foolish moments as well as his disagreeable ones, Hogbourne-Johnson was not a fool. Where Widmerpool, as it turned out, made a mistake, was in supposing he had Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson eating out of his hand. The Colonel’s failings, such as they were, did not include total lack of grasp of what Widmerpool himself was like in his dealings. Indeed, Hogbourne-Johnson showed comparatively deep understanding of Widmerpool eventually, when the titanic row took place about Diplock, merging — so far as Widmerpool and Hogbourne-Johnson were concerned — into the question of who was to command the Divisional Reconnaissance Regiment.

The Reconnaissance Unit, then in process of generation, was one in which Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson took a special interest from the start, though not an entirely friendly interest.

“These Recce fellows are doing no more than we Light Bobs used to bring off on our flat feet,” he would remark. “Nowadays they want a fleet of armoured vehicles for their blasted operations and no expense spared. There’s a lot of damned nonsense talked about this so-called Recce Battalion.”

The Reconnaissance Corps — as in due course it emerged — was indeed, on first coming into being, a bone of considerable contention among the higher authorities. Some pundits thought like Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson; others, just the opposite. One aspect of the question turned on whether the Recce Corps — to some extent deriving in origin from the Anti-tank Companies of an earlier phase of the war — should be used as a convenient limbo for officers, competent, but judged, for one reason or another, less than acceptable in their parent unit; or, on the other hand, whether the Corps should be moulded into one of the Elites of the army, having its pick of the best officers and men available. Yanto Breeze, for example, of my former Battalion, had transferred to an Anti-tank Company after the never-explained death — suicide or murder — of Sergeant Pendry. Breeze had been implicated only to the extent of being Orderly Officer that night, sufficient contact — bringing the unpleasantness of a Court of Inquiry — to make him want to leave the Battalion. A good, though not particularly ornamental officer, he was felt to be entirely suitable for the Anti-tank Company. Adherents of a more stylish Recce Corps might, rightly or wrongly, have required rather more outward distinction from their officer in-take than Breeze could show. That was much how things stood. The whole question also appealed greatly to Widmerpool, both as an amateur soldier in relation to tactical possibilities, and, as a professional trafficker in intrigue, a vehicle offering all sorts of opportunity for personal interference.

“Hogbourne-Johnson is playing a double game about the Recce Corps,” he said. “I happen to know that. The Divisional Commander is very keen on this new unit. The Generals at Corps and Command, on the other hand, are neither of them enthusiastic on the subject, not helpful about speeding things up. Hogbourne-Johnson thinks — in my opinion rightly — that General Liddament plans to get rid of him. Accordingly, he is doing his best to suck up to the other two Generals by backing their policy. He’ll then expect help if relieved of his appointment”

“Like the Unjust Steward.”

“Who was he?”

“In the Bible.”

“I thought you meant an officer of that name.”

“The one who said write ten, when it ought to have been fifty.”

“There’s nothing unjust about it,” said Widmerpool, always literal-minded. “Naturally Hogbourne-Johnson has to obey his own Divisional Commander’s orders. I do not for a moment suggest he is overstepping the bounds of discipline. After all, Recce developments are a matter of opinion. A regular officer of his standing has a perfect right to hold views. However, what our General would not be specially pleased to hear is that Hogbourne-Johnson is also moving heaven and earth to get a friend from his own regiment appointed to this new unit’s command.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I too have my candidate.”

“To command the Recce Corps?”

“Going into the matter, I discovered Hogbourne-Johnson’s tracks. However, I can circumvent him.”

Widmerpool smiled and nodded in a manner to indicate extreme slyness.

“Who?”

“No one you would have met. An excellent officer of my acquaintance called Victor Upjohn. Knew him as a Territorial. First-rate man.”

“Won’t they appoint a cavalryman, in spite of Hogbourne-Johnson and yourself?”

“They’ll appoint my infantryman — and be glad of him.”

“If the General is likely to be annoyed about Hogbourne-Johnson messing about behind his back as to appointments to command in his Division, he’ll be even less pleased to find you at the same game.”

“He won’t find out. Neither will Hogbourne-Johnson. Upjohn will simply be gazetted. In the meantime, so far as it goes, I am prepared to play ball with Hogbourne-Johnson up to a point. After all, if I know the right man to command the Recce Corps, it’s surely my duty to get him there.”

There was something to be said for this view. If you want your own way in the army, or elsewhere, it is no good following the rules too meticulously, a canon all great military careers — and most civil ones — abundantly illustrate. What Widmerpool had not allowed for, as things turned out, was a sudden deterioration of his own relations with Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson. No doubt one reason for his assurance about that, in spite of the Colonel’s uncertain temper, was that most of Widmerpool’s dealings were with his own immediate superior, Colonel Pedlar, so less likelihood of friction existed in the other more explosive quarter. Naturally he was in touch with Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson from time to time, but there was no day-to-day routine, during which Hogbourne-Johnson was likely, sooner or later, to make himself disagreeable as a matter of principle.

Colonel Pedlar, as “A. & Q.”, set no problem at all. Also a regular full colonel with an M.C., he had little desire to be unaccommodating for its own sake. A certain stiffness of manner in official transactions was possibly due to apprehension that more might be required of him than he had to offer, rather than an innate instinct, like Hogbourne-Johnson’s, to be unreasonable in all his dealings. Colonel Pedlar seemed almost surprised to have reached the rank he had attained; appeared to possess little or no ambition to rise above it, or at least small hope that he would in due course be promoted to a brigade. The slowness of his processes of thought sometimes irked his subordinate, Widmerpool, even though these processes were on the whole reliable. If Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson looked like an owl, Colonel Pedlar resembled a retriever, a faithful hound, sound in wind and limb, prepared to tackle a dog twice his size, or swim through a river in spate to collect his master’s game, but at the same time not in the top class for picking up a difficult scent.

Trouble with Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson might never have arisen, as it did at that particular moment, had not Colonel Pedlar been, quite by chance, out of the way. When it came, sudden and violent, the cause was a far more humdrum matter than the clandestine guiding of appointments. Indeed, the incident itself was such a minor one, so much part of the day’s work, that, had I not myself witnessed it — owing to the exceptional occurrence of Advance Headquarters and Rear Headquarters being brought together in one element at the close of the three-day exercise — I should always have believed some essential detail to have been omitted from the subsequent story; guessed that nothing so trivial in itself could have so much discomposed Widmerpool. That incredulity was due, I suppose, to underestimation, even after the years I had known him, of Widmerpool’s inordinate, almost morbid, self-esteem.

During “schemes,” the Defence Platoon was responsible for guarding the Divisional Commander’s Advance Headquarters. This meant, on these occasions, accommodation for myself in the General’s Mess; accordingly, temporary disengagement from Widmerpool, whose duties as DAA.G. focused on Rear Headquarters. On the last evening of this particular exercise, the Command three-day one, Advance H.Q. had been established, as usual, in a small farmhouse, one of the scattered homesteads lying in the forbidding countryside of the Command’s north-western area, right up in the corner of the map. The first fifty-six hours had been pretty active — as foreseen by me the night before we set out — giving little chance of sleep. However, by the time the General and his operational staff sat down to a late meal at the end of the third day, there was a feeling abroad that the main exertions of the exercise might reasonably be regarded as at an end. Everyone could take things easy for a short time. The General himself was in an excellent temper, the battle against the Blue Force to all intents won.

A single oil lamp threw a circle of dim light round the dining table of the farm parlour where we ate, leaving the rest of the room in heavy shadow, dramatising by its glow the central figures of the company present. Were they a group of conspirators — something like the Gunpowder Plot — depicted in the cross-hatchings of an old engraved illustration? It was not exactly that. At the same time the hard lights and shades gave the circle of heads an odd, mysterious unity. The faces of the two colonels, bird and beast, added a note deliberately grotesque, surrealist, possibly indicating a satirical meaning on the part of the artist, a political cartoonist perhaps. The colonels were placed on either side of General Liddament, who sat at the head of the table, deep in thought. His thin, cleanshaven, ascetic features, those of a schoolmaster or priest — also a touch of Sir Magnus Donners — were yellowish in complexion. Perhaps that tawny colour clarified the imagery, for now it became plain.

Here was Pharaoh, carved in the niche of a shrine between two tutelary deities, who shielded him from human approach. All was manifest. Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson and Colonel Pedlar were animal-headed gods of Ancient Egypt. Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson was, of course, Horus, one of those sculptured representations in which the Lord of the Morning Sun resembles an owl rather than a falcon; a bad-tempered owl at that. Colonel Pedlar’s dog’s muzzle, on the other hand, was a milder than normal version of the jackal-faced Anubis, whose dominion over Tombs and the Dead did indeed fall within A. & Q.’s province. Some of the others round about were less easy to place in the Egyptian pantheon. In fact, one came finally to the conclusion, none of them were gods at all, mere bondsmen of the temple. For example, Cocksidge, officer responsible for Intelligence duties, with his pale eager elderly-little-boy expression — although on the edge of thirty — was certainly the lowest of slaves, dusting only exterior, less sacred precincts of the shrine, cleaning out with his hands the priest’s latrine, if such existed on the temple premises. Next to Cocksidge sat Greening, the General’s A.D.C., pink cheeked, fair haired, good-natured, about twenty years old, probably an alien captive awaiting sacrifice on the altar of this anthropomorphic trinity. Before anyone else could be satisfactorily identified, Colonel Pedlar spoke.

“How went the battle, Derrick?” he asked.

There had been silence until then. Everyone was tired. Besides, although Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson and Colonel Pedlar were not on notably good terms with each other, they felt rank to inhibit casual conversation with subordinates. Both habitually showed anxiety to avoid a junior officer’s eye at meals in case speech might seem required. To make sure nothing so inadvertent should happen, each would uninterruptedly gaze into the other’s face across the table, with all the fixedness of a newly engaged couple, eternally enchanted by the charming appearance of the other. The colonels were, indeed, thus occupied when Colonel Pedlar suddenly put his question. This was undoubtedly intended as a form of expressing polite interest in his colleague’s day, rather than to show any very keen desire for further tactical information about the exercise, a subject with which Colonel Pedlar, and everyone else present, must by now be replete. However Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson chose to take the enquiry in the latter sense.

“Pretty bloody, Eric,” he said. “Pretty bloody. If you want to know about it, read the sit-rep.”

“I’ve read it, Derrick.”

The assonance of the two colonels’ forenames always imparted a certain whimsicality to their duologues.

“Read it again, Eric, read it again. I’d like you to. There are several points I want to bring up later.”

“Where is it, Derrick?”

Colonel Pedlar seemed to possess no intellectual equipment for explaining that he had absolutely no need, even less desire, to re-read the situation report. Perhaps, having embarked on the subject, he felt a duty to follow it up.

“Cocksidge will find it for you, Eric, writ in his own fair hand. Seek out the sit-rep, Jack.”

In certain moods, especially when he teased Widmerpool, the General was inclined to frame his sentences in a kind of Old English vernacular. Either because the style appealed equally to himself, or, more probably, because use of it implied compliment to the Divisional Commander, Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson also favoured this mode of speech. At his words, Cocksidge was on his feet in an instant, his features registering, as ever, deference felt for those of higher rank than himself. Cocksidge’s demeanour to his superiors always recalled a phrase used by Odo Stevens when we had been on a course together at Aldershot:

“Good morning, Sergeant-Major, here’s a sparrow for your cat.”

Cocksidge was, so to speak, in a chronic state of providing, at a higher level of rank, sparrows for sergeant-majors’ cats. His own habitual incivility to subordinates was humdrum enough, but the imaginative lengths to which he would carry obsequiousness to superiors displayed something of genius. He took a keen delight in running errands for anyone a couple of ranks above himself, his subservience even to majors showing the essence of humility. He had made a close, almost scientific study of the likes and dislikes of Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson and Colonel Pedlar, while the General he treated with reverence in which there was even a touch of worship, of deification. In contact with General Liddament, so extreme was his respect that Cocksidge even abated a little professional boyishness of manner, otherwise such a prominent feature of his all-embracing servility, seeming by its appealing tone to ask forbearance for his own youth and immaturity. Widmerpool, to do him justice, despised Cocksidge, an attitude Cocksidge seemed positively to enjoy. The two colonels, on the other hand, undoubtedly approved his fervent attentions, appeared even appreciative of his exaggeratedly juvenile mannerisms. In addition, it had to be admitted Cocksidge did his job competently, apart from such elaborations of his own personality. Now he came hurriedly forward with the situation report.

“Thanks, Jack,” said Colonel Pedlar.

He studied the paper, gazing at it with that earnest, apparently uncomprehending stare, of which Widmerpool had more than once complained.

“I’ve seen this,” he said. “Seems all right, Derrick. Take it back where it belongs, Jack.”

“Glad it seems all right to you, Eric,” said Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson, “because I rather flatter myself the operational staff, under my guidance, did a neat job.”

The bite in his tone should have conveyed warning. He terminated this comment, as was his habit, by giving a smirk, somehow audibly extruded from the left-hand side of his mouth, a kind of hiss, intended to underline the aptness or wit of his words. Unless in a bad humour he would always give vent to this muted sound after speaking. The fact was Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson did not attempt to conceal his own sense of superiority over a brother officer, inferior not only in appointment, regiment and mental equipment, but also in a field where Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson felt himself particularly to shine, that is to say in the arena where men of the world sparklingly perform. The play of his wit was often directed against the more leisurely intellect of Colonel Pedlar, whose efforts to keep up with all this parade of brilliance occasionally landed him in disaster. It was so on that night. After giving a glance at the situation report, he handed it back to Cocksidge, who received the document with bent head, as if at Communion or in the act of being entrusted with a relic of supreme holiness. There could be no doubt that the sit-rep had at least confirmed Colonel Pedlar in the belief that nothing remained to worry about where the exercise was concerned. At such moments as this one he was inclined to overreach himself.

“Going to finish up with a glass of port to-night, Derrick,” he asked, “now that our exertions are almost at an end?”

“Port, Eric?”

A wealth of meaning attached to the tone given by Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson to the name of the wine. Widmerpool’s mother, years before, had pronounced “port” with a similar interrogative inflexion in her voice, though probably to imply her guests were lucky to get any port at all, rather than for the reasons impelling Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson so precisely to enunciate the word.

“Yes, Derrick?”

“Not to-night, Eric. Port don’t do the liver any good. Not the sort of port we have in this Mess anyway. I shall steer clear of port myself, Eric, and I should advise you to do the same.”

“You do?”

“I do, Eric.”

“Well, I think I’ll have a small glass nevertheless, Derrick. I’m sorry you won’t be accompanying me.”

Colonel Pedlar gave the necessary order. Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson shook his head in disapproval. He was known to favour economy; it was said, even to the extent of parsimony. A glass of port was brought to the table. Colonel Pedlar, looking like an advertisement for some well-known brand of the wine in question, held the glass to the lamp-light, turning the rim in his hand.

“Fellow in my regiment was telling me just before the war that his grandfather laid down a pipe of port for him to inherit on his twenty-first birthday,” he remarked.

Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson grunted. He did this in a manner to imply observation of that particular custom, even the social necessity of such a provision, was too well accepted in decent society for any casual commendation of the act to be required; though the tradition might be comparatively unfamiliar in what he was accustomed to describe as “Heavy” infantry; and, it might be added, not much of a regiment at that.

“Twelve dozen bottles,” said Colonel Pedlar dreamily. “Pretty good cellar for a lad when he comes of age.”

Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson suddenly showed attention. He began to bare a row of teeth under the biscuit-coloured bristles and small hooked nose.

“Twelve dozen, Eric?”

“That’s it, isn’t it, Derrick?”

Colonel Pedlar sounded nervous now, already aware no doubt that he had ventured too far in claiming knowledge of the world; had made, not for the first time, an elementary blunder.

“Twelve dozen?” repeated Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson.

He added additional emphasis to the question, carrying the implication that he himself must have misheard.”

“Yes.”

“You’re wide of the mark, Eric. Completely out of the picture.”

“I am, Derrick?”

“You certainly are, Eric.”

“What is a pipe then, Derrick? I’m not in the wine trade.”

“Don’t have to be in the wine trade to know what a pipe of port is, old boy. Everyone ought to know that. Nothing to do with being a shopman. More than fifty dozen. That’s a pipe. You’re absolutely out in your calculations. Couldn’t be more so. Mismanaged your slide-rule. Landed in an altogether incorrect map-square. Committed a real bloomer. Got off on the wrong foot, as well as making a false start.”

“Is that a pipe, by Jove?”

“That’s a pipe, Eric.”

“I got it wrong, Derrick.”

“You certainly did, Eric. You certainly got it wrong. You did, by Jove.”

“You’ve shaken me, Derrick. I’ll have to do better next time.

“You will, Eric, you will — or we won’t know what to think of you.”

General Liddament seemed not to hear them. It was as if he had fallen into a cataleptic sleep or was under the influence of some potent drug. After this exchange between the two colonels, another long silence fell, one of those protracted abstinences from all conversation so characteristic of army Messes — British ones, at least — during which, as every moment passes, you feel someone is on the point of giving voice to a startling utterance, yet, for no particular reason, that utterance is always left pending, for ever choked back, incapable, from inner necessity, of being finally brought to birth. An old tin alarm-clock ticked away noisily on the dresser, emphasising the speedy passing of mortal life. Colonel Pedlar sipped away at his port, relish departed after his blunder. Cocksidge, with the side of his palm, very quietly scraped together several crumbs from the surface of the table cloth, depositing them humbly, though at the same time rather coyly, on his own empty plate, as if to give active expression, even in the sphere of food, to his perpetual dedication in keeping spick and span the surroundings of those set in authority over him, doing his poor best in making them as comfortable as possible. Only that morning, in the dim light at an early hour in the farmhouse kitchen, I had tripped over him, nearly fallen headlong, as he crouched on his knees before the fire, warming the butter ration so that its consistency might be appropriately emulsified for the General to slice with ease when he appeared at the breakfast table. No doubt, during all such silences as the one that now had fallen on the Mess, the mind of Cocksidge was perpetually afire with fresh projects for self-abasement before the powerful. By now there was no more to hope for, so far as food was concerned. It seemed time to withdraw from the board, in other respects unrewarding.

“May I go and see how the Defence Platoon is getting on, sir?”

General Liddament appeared not to have heard. Then, with an effort, he jerked himself from out of his deep contemplation. It was like asking permission from one of the supine bodies in an opium den. He took a few seconds more to come to, consider the question. When he spoke it was with almost biblical solemnity.

“Go, Jenkins, go. No officer of mine shall ever be hindered from attending to the needs of his men.”

A sergeant entered the room at that moment and approached the General.

“Just come through on the W/T, sir, enemy planes over the town again.”

“Right — take routine action.”

The sergeant retired. I followed him out into a narrow passage where my equipment hung from a hook. Then, buckling on belt and pouches, I made for the outbuildings. Most of the platoon were pretty comfortable in a loft piled high with straw, some of them snoring away. Sergeant Harmer was about to turn in himself, leaving things in the hands of Corporal Mantle. I ran through the matter of sentry duties. All was correct.

“Just come through they’re over the town again, Sergeant.”

“Are they again, the buggers.”

Harmer, a middle-aged man with bushy eyebrows, largely built, rather slow, given to moralising, was in civilian life foreman in a steel works.

“We haven’t got to wake up for them to-night.”

“It’s good that, sir, besides you never know they won’t get you.”

“True enough.”

“Ah, you don’t, life’s uncertain, no mistake. Here to-day, gone to-morrow. After my wife went to hospital last year the nurse met me, I asked how did the operation go, she didn’t answer, said the doctor wanted a word, so I knew what he was going to say. Only the night before when I’d been with her she said ‘I think I’ll get some new teeth.’ We can’t none of us tell.”

“No, we can’t.”

Even the first time I had been told the teeth story, I could think of no answer than that.

“I’ll be getting some sleep. All’s correct and Corporal Mantle will take over.”

“Good night, Sergeant.”

Corporal Mantle remained. He wanted to seize this opportunity for speaking a word in private about the snag arisen about his candidature for a commission. Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson had decided to make things as difficult as possible. Mantle was a good N.C.O. Nobody wanted to lose him. Indeed, Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson had plans to promote him sergeant, eventually perhaps sergeant-major, when opportunity arose to get rid of Harmer, not young enough or capable of exceptional energy, even if he did the job adequately. Widmerpool, through whom such matters to some extent circulated, was not interested either way in what happened to Mantle. He abetted Hogbourne-Johnson’s obstructive tactics in that field, partly as line of least resistance, partly because he was himself never tired of repeating the undeniable truth that the army is an institution directed not towards the convenience of the individual, but to the production of the most effective organisation for an instrument designed to win wars.

“At the present moment there are plenty of young men at O.C.T.U.s who are potentially good officers,” Widmerpool said. “Good corporals, on the other hand, are always hard to come by. That situation could easily change. If we get a lot of casualties, it will change so far as officers are concerned — though no doubt good corporals will be harder than ever to find. In the last resort, of course, officer material is naturally limited to the comparatively small minority who possess the required qualifications — and do not suppose for one moment that I presume that minority to come necessarily, even primarily, from the traditional officer class. On the contrary.”

“But Mantle doesn’t come from what you call the traditional officer class. His father keeps a newspaper shop and he himself has some small job in local government.”

“That’s as may be,” said Widmerpool, “and more power to his elbow. Mantle’s a good lad. At the same time I see no reason for treating Mantle’s case with undue bustle. As I’ve said before, I have no great opinion of Hogbourne-Johnson’s capabilities as a staff officer — on that particular point I find myself in agreement with the General — but Hogbourne-Johnson is within his rights, indeed perfectly correct, in trying to delay the departure of an N.C.O., if he feels the efficiency of these Headquarters will be thereby diminished.”

There the matter rested. Outside the barn I had a longish talk with Mantle about his situation. By the time I returned to the house, everyone appeared to have gone to bed; at least the room in which we had eaten seemed at first deserted, although the oil lamp had not been extinguished. It had, however, been moved from the dinner table to the dresser standing on the right of the fireplace. Then, as I crossed the room to make for a flight of stairs on the far side I saw General Liddament himself had not yet retired to his bedroom. He was sitting on a kitchen chair, his feet resting on another, while he read from a small blue book that had the air of being a pocket edition of some classic. As I passed he looked up.

“Good night, sir.”

“How goes the Defence Platoon?”

“All right, sir. Guards correct. Hay to sleep on.”

“Latrines?”

“Dug two lots, sir.”

“Down wind?”

“Both down wind, sir.”

The General nodded approvingly. He was rightly keen on sanitary discipline. His manner showed he retained the unusually good mood of before dinner. There could be no doubt the day’s triumph over the Blue Force had pleased him. Then, suddenly, he raised the book he had been reading in the air, holding it at arm’s length above his head. For a moment I thought he was going to hurl it at me. Instead, he waved the small volume backwards and forwards, its ribbon marker flying at one end.

“Book reader, aren’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What do you think of Trollope?”

“Never found him easy to read, sir.”

The last time I had discussed books with a general had been with General Conyers, a much older man than General Liddament, one whose interests were known to range from psychoanalysis to comparative religion; and in many other directions too. Long experience of the world of courts and camps had given General Conyers easy tolerance for the opinions of others, literary as much as anything else. General Liddament, on the other hand, seemed to share none of that indulgence for those who did not equally enjoy his favourite authors. My answer had an incisive effect. He kicked the second chair away from him with such violence that it fell to the ground with a great clatter. Then he put his feet to the floor, screwing round his own chair so that he faced me.

“You’ve never found Trollope easy to read?”

“No, sir.”

He was clearly unable to credit my words. This was an unhappy situation. There was a long pause while he glared at me.

“Why not?” he asked at last.

He spoke very sternly. I tried to think of an answer. From the past, a few worn shreds of long-forgotten literary criticism were just pliant enough to be patched hurriedly together in substitute for a more suitable garment to cover the dialectic nakedness of the statement just made.

“… the style … certain repetitive tricks of phrasing … psychology often unconvincing … sometimes downright dishonest in treating of individual relationships … women don’t analyse their own predicaments as there represented … in fact, the author does more thinking than feeling … of course, possessor of enormous narrative gifts … marshalling material … all that amounting to genius … certain sense of character, even if stylised … and naturally as a picture of the times …”

“Rubbish,” said General Liddament.

He sounded very angry indeed. All the good humour brought about by the defeat of the Blue Force had been dissipated by a thoughtless expression of literary prejudice on my own part. It might have been wiser to have passed some noncommittal judgment. Possibly I should be put under arrest for holding such mutinous views. The General thought for a long time, perhaps pondering that question. Then he picked up the second chair from the floor where it had fallen on its side. He set it, carefully, quietly, at the right distance and angle in relation to himself. Once more he placed his feet on the seat. Giving a great sigh, he tilted back his own chair until its joints gave a loud crack. This physical relaxation seemed to infuse him with a greater, quite unexpected composure.

“All I can say is you miss a lot.”

He spoke mildly.

“So I’ve often been told, sir.”

“Whom do you like, if you don’t like Trollope?”

For the moment, I could not remember the name of a single novelist, good or bad, in the whole history of literature. Who was there? Then, slowly, a few admired figures came to mind — Choderlos de Laclos — Lermontov — Svevo. … Somehow these did not have quite the right sound. The impression given was altogether too recondite, too eclectic. Seeking to nominate for favour an author not too dissimilar from Trollope in material and method of handling, at the same time in contrast with him, not only in being approved by myself — in possessing great variety and range, the Comédie Humaine suddenly suggested itself.

“There’s Balzac, sir.”

“Balzac!”

General Liddament roared the name. It was impossible to know whether Balzac had been a very good answer or a very bad one. Nothing was left to be considered between. The violence of the exclamation indicated that beyond argument. The General brought the legs of the chair down level with the floor again. He thought for a moment. Fearing cross-examination, I began to try and recall the plots of all the Balzac books, by no means a large number in relation to the whole, I had ever read. However, the next question switched discussion away from the sphere of literary criticism as such.

“Read him in French?”

“I have, sir.”

“Get along all right?”

“I’m held up with occasional technical descriptions — how to run a provincial printing press economically on borrowed money, what makes the best roofing for a sheepcote in winter, that sort of thing. I usually have a fairly good grasp of the narrative.”

The General was no longer listening.

“You must be pretty bored with your present job,” he said.

He pronounced these words deliberately, as if he had given the matter much thought. I was so surprised that, before I could make any answer or comment, he had begun to speak again; now seeming to have lost all his former interest in writers and writing.

“When’s your next leave due?”

“In a week’s time, sir.”

“It is, by God?”

I gave the exact date, unable to imagine what might be coming next.

“Go through London?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you’d like a change from what you’re doing?”

“I should, sir.”

It had never struck me that General Liddament might be sufficiently interested in the individuals making up Divisional Headquarters to have noticed any such thing. Certainly, as a general, he was exceptional enough in that respect. He was also, it occurred to me, acting in contrast with Widmerpool’s often propagated doctrines regarding the individual in relation to the army. His next remark was even more staggering.

“You’ve been very patient with us here,” he said.

Again I could think of no reply. I was also not sure he was not teasing. In one sense, certainly he was; in another, he seemed to have some project in mind. This became more explicit.

“The point is,” he said, “people like you may be more useful elsewhere.”

“Yes, sir.”

“It’s not a personal matter.”

“No, sir.”

“We live such a short time in the world, it seems a pity not to do the jobs we’re suited for.”

These sentences were closer to Widmerpool’s views, though more sanely interpreted; their reminder that life was dust had a flavour, too, of Sergeant Harmer’s philosophy.

“I’m going to send a signal to Finn.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ever heard of Finn?”

“No, sir.”

“Finn was with me at the end of the last war — a civilian, of course — in the City in those days.”

“Yes, sir.”

General Liddament mentioned “the City” with that faint touch of awe, a lowering of the voice, somewhere between reverence and horror, that regular soldiers, even exceptional ones like himself, are apt to show for such mysterious, necromantic means of keeping alive.

“But he put up a good show when he was with us.”

“Yes, sir.”

“An excellent show.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Got a V.C.”

“I see, sir.”

“Then, after the war, Finn gave up the City. Went into the cosmetic business — in Paris.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Made a good thing out of it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now he’s come back here with the Free French.”

“I see, sir.”

“I understand Finn’s looking for suitable officers for the work he’s doing. I suggest you drop in on him during your leave. Give him my compliments. Robin will issue you with an instruction when we get back to base.”

“Robin” was Greening, the A.D.C.

“Shall I mention this to the D.A.A.G., sir?”

General Liddament thought for a moment. For a split second he looked as if he were going to smile. However, his mouth finally remained at its usual enigmatically set position when in repose.

“Keep it under your hat — keep it under your hat — just as well to keep it under your hat.”

Before I could thank him, or indeed any more might be said between us, the door of the room opened violently. Brigadier Hawkins, Commanding the Divisional artillery, came in almost at a run. Tall, lean, energetic, the C.R.A. was the officer Widmerpool had commended for “knowing how to behave when speaking on the telephone,” in contrast with Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson. Widmerpool was right about that. Brigadier Hawkins, who had seen to it the Gunner Mess was the best run in the Division, was one of the few members of its staff who set about his duties with the “gaiety,” which, according to Dicky Umfraville, Marshal Lyautey regarded as the first requirement of an officer. Both Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson and Colonel Pedlar had to be admitted to fall unequivocally short in that respect. Not so, in his peculiar way, the General, whose old friend the Brigadier was said to be.

“Glad to find you still up, sir,” he said. “Sorry to disturb you at this hour, but you should see a report at once they’ve just brought in. I thought I’d come myself, to cut out a lot of chat. The Blue Force we thought encircled is moving men in driblets across the canal.”

General Liddament once more kicked away the chair from his feet, sending it sliding across the room. He picked up a map-case lying beside him, and began to clear a space on the table, littered with a pipe, tobacco, other odds and ends. Trollope — I could not see which novel he had been reading — he slipped into the thigh pocket of his battle-dress. Brigadier Hawkins began to outline the situation. I made a move to retire from their conference together.

“Wait…” shouted the General.

He scribbled some notes on a pad, then pointed towards me with his finger.

“Wake Robin,” he said. “Tell him to come down at once — before dressing. Then go and alert the Defence Platoon to move forthwith.”

I went quickly up the stairs to Greening’s room. He was asleep. I shook him until he was more or less awake. Greening was used to that sort of thing. He jumped out of bed as if it were a positive pleasure to put an end to sleep, be on the move again. I gave him the General’s orders, then returned to the Defence Platoon in the loft. They were considerably less willing than Greening to be disturbed. In fact there was a lot of grousing. Not long after that the Movement Order was issued. Advance Headquarters set off to a new location. This was the kind of thing General Liddament thoroughly enjoyed, unexpected circumstances that required immediate action. Possibly, in its minuscule way, my own case had suggested itself to him in some such terms.

“They do never want us to have no sleep,” said Sergeant-Major Harmer, “but at least it’s all on the way home.”

The Blue Force was held in check before the time limits of the exercise ran out. In short, the battle was won. It was nearly morning when Advance Headquarters were again ordered to move, this time in preparation for our return to base. We were on this occasion brought, contrary to habit in such manoeuvres, into direct contact with our own Rear Headquarters; both branches of the staff being assembled together in a large farm building, cowshed or barn, waiting there while transport arrangements went forward. It was here that the episode took place which so radically altered Widmerpool’s attitude towards Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson.

Cars and trucks were being marshalled along a secondary road on the other side of a ploughed field on which drizzle was falling. A short time earlier, a message had come through from base stating that the raid during the night had done damage that would affect normal administration on return to the town. Accordingly, Colonel Pedlar had driven back at once to arrange any modification of routine that might be required. Colonel Pedlar’s presence with the rest of the staff could possibly, though by no means certainly, have provided a buffer between Widmerpool and Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson. As things fell out, those two came into direct impact just before we moved off. Widmerpool, with the two other officers who normally shared the same staff car, was about to leave the cowshed where we were hanging about, sleepless and yawning, when Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson came suddenly through the doorway. He was clearly very angry, altogether unable to control the rage surging up within him. Even for a professionally bad-tempered man, he was in a notably bad temper. “Where’s the D.A.A.G.?” he shouted at the top of his voice.

Widmerpool came forward with that serious, self-important air of his, which, always giving inadequate impression of his own capabilities, was often calculated to provoke irritation in people he dealt with, even if not angry already.

“Here I am, sir.”

Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson turned on Widmerpool as jf he were about to strike him.

“What the bloody hell do you think of yourself?” he asked, still speaking very loudly.

“Sir?”

Widmerpool was not in the least prepared at that moment for such an onslaught. Only a few minutes before he had been congratulating himself aloud on how successfully had gone his share of the exercise. Now he stood staring at Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson in a way that was bound to make matters worse rather than better.

“Traffic circuits!” shouted Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson. “What in God’s name have you done about them? Don’t you know that’s a D.A.A.G.’s job? I suppose you don’t. You’re not fit to organise an outing for a troop of Girl Guides in the vicarage garden. Divisional Headquarters has been ordered to move back to base forthwith. Are you aware of that?”

“Certainly, sir.”

“You’ve read the Movement Order? Have you got as far as that?”

“Of course, sir.”

“And made appropriate arrangements?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then why is the Medium Field Regiment coming in at right angles across our route? That’s not all. It has just been reported to me that Divisional Signals, and all their technical equipment, are being held up at another crossroads half a mile up the same road by the Motor Ambulance Convoy making a loop and entering the main traffic artery just ahead of them.”

“I talked with the D.A.P.M. about distributory roads, Sir” began Widmerpool.

“I don’t want to hear who you talked to,” said Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson, his voice rising quite high with fury. “I want an immediate explanation of the infernal muddle your incompetence has made.”

If Widmerpool were not allowed to mention recommendations put forward by Keef, Captain Commanding Military Police at Div. H.Q., also to some extent responsible for traffic control, it was obviously impossible for him to give a clear picture of what arrangements had been made for moving the column back. Brigadier Hawkins used to advocate two sovereign phrases for parrying dissatisfaction or awkward interrogation on the part of a superior: “I don’t know, sir, I’ll find out,” and its even more potent alternative: “the officer/man in question has been transferred to another unit.” On this occasion, neither of those great international army formulae of exorcism were applicable. Matters were in any case too urgent. For once, those powerful twin spells were ineffective. However, Widmerpool, as it turned out, could do far better than fall back on such indecisive rubric, however magical, to defend his own position. He possessed chapter and verse. Instead of answering at once, he allowed Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson to fume, while he himself drew from the breast pocket of his battle-dress blouse a fat little notebook. After glancing for a second or two at one of its pages, he looked up again, and immediately began to recite a detailed account of troop movements, unit by unit, throughout the immediate area of Divisional activities.

“… Medium Field Regiment proceeding from … on the move at … must have reached … in fact, sir, should already have passed that point on the road twenty minutes ago … Motor Ambulance Convoy … shouldn’t be anywhere near the Royal Signals route … proceeding to base via one of the minor roads parallel to and south of our main body … I’ll show you on the map in a second, sir … only thing I can think of is some trouble must have occurred on that narrow iron bridge crossing the canal. That bridge wasn’t built for heavy traffic. I’ll send a D.R. right away …”

These details showed commendable knowledge of local transport conditions. Widmerpool recapitulated a lot more in the same vein, possessing apparently the movement-tables of the entire Division, an awareness that certainly did him credit as D.A.A.G. The information should have satisfied Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson that, whatever else could have happened, Widmerpool, at least on the face of it, was not to blame for any muddle that might have taken place. However, Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson was in no state of mind to give consideration to any such possibility; nor, indeed, to look at the problem, or anything else, in the light of reason. There was something to be said for this approach. It is no good being too philosophical about such questions as a column of troops in a traffic jam. Action is required, not explanation. Such action may have to transcend reason. Historical instances would not be difficult to find. That concept provided vindication for Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson’s method, hard otherwise to excuse.

“You’ve made a disgraceful mess of things,” he said. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself. I know we have to put up these days with a lot of amateur staff officers who’ve had little or no experience, and possess even less capacity for learning the A.B.C. of military affairs. Even so, we expect something better than this. Off you go now and find out immediately what’s happened. When you’ve done so, report back to me. Look sharp about it.”

Widmerpool’s face had gone dark red. It was an occasion as painful to watch as the time when Budd had hit him between the eyes full-pitch with an overripe banana; or that moment, even more portentous, when Barbara Goring poured sugar over his head at a ball. Under the impact of those episodes, Widmerpool’s bearing had indicated, under its mortification, masochistic acceptance of the assault — ”that slavish look” Peter Templer had noted on the day of the banana. Under Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson’s tirade, Widmerpool’s demeanour proclaimed no such thing. Perhaps that was simply because Hogbourne-Johnson was not of sufficiently high rank, in comparison with Budd (then captain of the Eleven), not a person of any but local and temporary importance in the eyes of someone like Widmerpool, who thought big — in terms of the Army Council and beyond — while Barbara had invoked a passion in him which placed masochism in love’s special class. All the same, the difference is worth recording.

“Right, sir,” he said.

He saluted, turned smartly on his heel (rather in the manner of one of Bithel’s boyhood heroes), and tramped out of the cowshed. Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson showered a hail of minor rebukes on several others present, then went off to raise hell elsewhere. In due course, not without delays, matters were sorted out. The dispatch-rider sent by Widmerpool returned with news that one of the field ambulances, skidding in mud churned up by the passing and repassing of tanks, had wedged its back wheels in a deep ditch. Meanwhile, the Light Aid Detachment, occupied some miles away with an infantry battalion’s damaged carrier tracks, was not allowed — as too heavy in weight — to cross the iron bridge mentioned by Widmerpool. The L.A.D. had therefore been forced to make a detour. The blocked road necessitated several other traffic diversions, which resulted in the temporary hold-up. That had already been cleared up by the time the D.R. reached the crossroads. No one was specially to blame, certainly not Widmerpool, such accidents as that of the ambulance representing normal wear-and-tear to be expected from movement of most of the available Command transport across country where roads were few and bad.

At the same time, to be unjustly hauled over the coals about such a matter is in the nature of things, certainly military things. Incidents like this must take place all the time in the army. In due course, I was to witness generals holding impressive appointments receiving a telling-off in the briskest manner imaginable, from generals of even greater eminence, all concerned astronomically removed from the humble world of Hogbourne-Johnson and Widmerpool. All the same, it was true Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson had been violent in his denunciation, conveying strictures on what he believed to be inefficiency with a kind of personal contempt that was unfitting, something over and above an official reprimand for supposed administrative mishandling. In addition, Hogbourne-Johnson, as a rule, seemed thoroughly satisfied with Widmerpool, as Widmerpool himself had often pointed out.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the case, Widmerpool was very sore about it. He took it as badly as my former Company Commander, Rowland Gwatkin, used to take his tickings-off from the adjutant, Maelgwyn-Jones. In fact this comparatively trivial exchange between them transformed Widmerpool from an adherent of Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson — even if, in private, a condescending one — to becoming the Colonel’s most implacable enemy. As it turned out, opportunity to make himself awkward arose the day we returned from the exercise. In fact, revenge was handed to Widmerpool, as it were, on a plate. This came about in connection with Mr. Diplock, Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson’s chief clerk.

“Diplock may be an old rascal,” Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson himself had once commented, “but he knows his job backwards.”

Repeating the remark later, Widmerpool had indulged in one of his rare excursions into sarcasm.

“We all know Diplock’s a rascal,” he had remarked, “and also knows his job backwards. The question is — does he know it forwards? In my own view, Diplock is one of the major impediments to the dynamic improvement of this formation.”

Mr. Diplock (so styled from holding the rank of Warrant Officer, Class One) was a Regular Army Reservist, recalled to the colours at the outbreak of war. As indicating status bordering on the brink of a commissioned officer’s (more highly paid than a subaltern), he was entitled to service dress of officer-type cloth (though high-collared) and shoes instead of boots. His woolly grey hair, short thick body, air of perpetual busyness, suggested an industrious gnome conscripted into the service of the army; a gnome who also liked to practise considerable malice against the race of men with whom he mingled, by making as complicated as possible every transaction they had to execute through himself. Diplock was totally encased in military obscurantism. Barker-Shaw, the F.S.O. — as Bithel mentioned, a don in civil life — had cried out, in a moment of exasperation, that Diplock, with education behind him, could have taken on the whole of the Civil Service, collectively and individually, in manipulation of red tape; and emerged victorious. He would have outdone them all, Barker-Shaw said, in pedantic observance of regulation for its own sake to the detriment of practical requirement. Diplock’s answer to such criticism was always the same: that no other way of handling the matter existed. Filling in forms, rendering “states,” the whole process of documentation, seemed to take the place of religion in his inner life. The skill he possessed in wielding army lore reached a pitch at which he could sabotage, or at least indefinitely protract, almost any matter that might have earned the disapproval of himself or any superior of whom he happened to be the partisan — in practice, Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson — while at the same time, if something administratively unusual had to be arranged, Diplock always said he knew how to arrange it. This self-confidence, on the whole justified, was perhaps the main reason why Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson was so well affected towards his chief clerk. The other was no doubt the parade of deference — of a deeper, better understood sort than Cocksidge’s — that Diplock, in return, offered to Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson. Diplock’s methods had always irritated Widmerpool, although himself no enemy to formal routine as a rule.

“I told Hogbourne-Johnson in so many words this morning that we should never get anything done here so long as we had a chief clerk who was such an old woman. Do you know what he said?”

Although Widmerpool prided himself on his own grasp of army life, he had not been able wholly to jettison the more civilian approach, that you are paid to give advice to your superiors in whatever happens to be a specialised aspect of your particular job; that such advice should be presented in the plainest, most forceful terms. He never quite became accustomed to a tradition that aims at total self-effacement in the subordinate, more especially when his professional recommendations are controversial.

“What was the answer?”

“‘Diplock wasn’t an old woman when he won the Military Medal’.”

“How does he know? — some old women are very tough.”

“I replied in the most respectful manner that Diplock won the M.M. a long time ago,” said Widmerpool, ignoring this facetiousness. “That I was only referring to his present fumbling about with A.C.I.s, Ten-Ninety-Eights, every other bit of bumph he can lay his hands on, especially when something is needed in a hurry. I suppose Hogbourne-Johnson thought he was snubbing me. He gave that curious snarling laugh of his.”

This slight brush had taken place before Widmerpool’s more disastrous encounter with the Colonel. It illustrated not only Widmerpool’s retention, in certain respects, of civilian values, but also his occasional lack of grasp of some quite obvious matter. Even in civilian life, a frontal attack would have been ill-judged in approaching a relationship in a business firm such as Hogbourne-Johnson’s with Diplock. It was not going to alter the stranglehold Diplock enjoyed on Hogbourne-Johnson. At the same time, the fact that Widmerpool felt it possible to offer that remark about Diplock at all, absolved him from any suggestion of later deliberately assailing the Colonel through insidious attack by way of his own chief clerk. Widmerpool had already decided Diplock was unsatisfactory. When the time came, of course, he was not blind to pleasure derived from that method, but he did not contrive it of sheer malice. Once the ball was rolling, as D.A.A.G., he had no alternative but to follow up suspicions aroused.

That even the lightest of such suspicions should have come into being on the subject of Mr. Diplock behaving in an irregular manner might seem out of the question; far less, that there should be indications he was embezzling government funds. However, that was how things began to look. Possibly so much rectitude in observing the letter of the law in matters of daily routine required, psychologically speaking, release in another direction. General Conyers had been fond of expatiating on something of the sort. Anyway, the affair opened by Widmerpool saying one day, soon after the three-day exercise, that he was not satisfied with the financial administration of the H.Q. Sergeants’ Mess.

“Something funny is going on there,” he said. “Diplock is at the bottom of it, I’m sure. I’ve told those Mess treasurers time and again to take the bottle from the cellar account and charge it to the bar account. They never seem to understand. In Diplock’s case, it looks to me as if he won’t understand.”

These doubts were not set at rest as the weeks passed. Not long after Widmerpool made this comment, several small sums of money disappeared from places where they had been deposited.

“I’ve recommended that cash-boxes be screwed to the floor,” said Widmerpool. “At least you know then where they’ve been left. Diplock put all sorts of difficulties in the way, but I insisted.”

“Have you mentioned these losses higher up?”

“I had a word with Pedlar, who didn’t at all agree with what I am beginning to wonder — I try to have as few direct dealings as possible now with Hogbourne-Johnson. I am well aware I should not receive a sympathetic hearing there. It will be a smack in the eye for him if my suspicions turn out to be correct.”

Then it appeared, in addition to the Sergeants’ Mess, something unsatisfactory was afoot in connection with the Commuted Ration Allowance.

“Mark my words,” said Widmerpool. “This is all going to link up. What I require is evidence. As a start, you will go out to the Supply Column tomorrow and make a few enquiries. I must have facts and figures. As you are to be travelling in that direction, it will be a good opportunity to explain those instructions I have here just issued to RA.S.C. sub-units. You can go on to the Ammunition Company and the Petrol Company, after you’ve gathered the other information. Take haversack rations, as they’re some distance apart, and the other thing will need some little time to extract. There may be lack of co-operation. C.R.A.S.C. has been difficult ever since the business of those trucks, which I was, in fact, putting to a perfectly legitimate use.”

At one time or another, Widmerpool had quarrelled with most of the officers at Divisional Headquarters. The row with C.R.A.S.C. — Commanding Royal Army Service Corps at H.Q., a lieutenant-colonel — had been about employment of government transport on some occasion when interpretation of regulations was in doubt. It had been a drawn battle, like that with Sunny Farebrother. Widmerpool’s taste for conflict seemed to put him less at a disadvantage than might be supposed. His undoubted reputation for efficiency had indeed been to some extent built up on being regarded as a difficult man to deal with; rather than on much more deserved respect for the plodding away at unspectacular work to which he used to devote himself every night in his own office. Personal popularity is an asset easy to exaggerate in the transaction of practical affairs. Possibly it can even be a handicap. The fact that Widmerpool was brusque with everyone he met, even actively disobliging to most, never seemed in the last resort to weaken his position. However the Diplock affair was rather a different matter.

Enquiries at the quarters of the Supply Column indicated that, as Widmerpool supposed, all was not well. His feud with C.R.A.S.C. had certainly penetrated there, if unwillingness to spare time to impart information was anything to judge by. I left the place with a clearer understanding of my father’s strictures, in the distant past, regarding Uncle Giles’s transference to the Army Service Corps. However, certain essential details were now to some extent available. There could be no doubt that, at best, existing arrangements, so far as the Sergeants’ Mess was concerned, were in disorder; at worst, something more serious was taking place in which Diplock might be involved. I brought back the material required by Widmerpool that evening.

“Just as I thought,” he said, “I’ll go and have a word with A. & Q. right away.”

Widmerpool stayed a long time with Colonel Pedlar. He had told me to wait until his return, in case further information collected during the day might be needed. When he came back to the room his expression immediately showed that he regarded the interview to have been unsatisfactory.

“Things will have to be looked into further,” he said. “Pedlar’s still unwilling to believe anything criminal is taking place. I don’t agree with him. Just run through what they told you again.”

It was nearly dinner time when I arrived back that night at F Mess. I went to the bedroom to change into service dress. When I came down the stairs, the rest of them were going into the room where we ate*

“Buck up, Jenkins,” said Biggs, “or you’ll miss all the lovely bits of gristle Sopey’s been collecting from the swill tubs all the afternoon for us to gnaw. Wonder he has the cheek to put the stuff he does in front of a man.”

He was in one of his noisy moods that night. When Biggs felt cheerful — which was not often — he liked to shout and indulge in horseplay. This usually took the form of ragging Soper, the Divisional Catering Officer. Soper, also a captain with ’14-’18 ribbons, was short and bandy-legged, which, with heavy eyebrows and deep-set shifty eyes, gave him a simian appearance that for some reason suggested a professional comedian. In civil life one of the managers, on the supply side, of a chain of provincial restaurants, he was immersed in his work as D.C.O., never in fact making a remark that in the least fitted in with his promisingly slapstick appearance, or even one to be classed as a joke. Off-duty he talked of scarcely any subject but army allowances. Biggs and Soper to some extent reproduced, at their lower level, the relationship of Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson and Colonel Pedlar in the General’s Mess; that is to say they grated on each other’s nerves, but, as twin veterans of the earlier war, maintained some sort of uneasy alliance. This bond was strengthened by a fellow feeling engendered by the relatively unexalted nature of their own appointments, both being much on their dignity where the “G” staff — ”operational” in duties — was concerned. There was, however, this important deviation in their reflection of the two colonels’ relationship, for, although Biggs, aggressive and strident, so to speak bullied Soper (like Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson oppressing Colonel Pedlar), it was Soper who, vis-à-vis Biggs, enjoyed the role of man of the world, pundit of a wider sophistication. For example, Soper’s knowingness about food — albeit army food — impressed Biggs, however unwillingly.

“How are the diet sheets, Sopey?” said Biggs, belching as he sat down. “When are you going to give us a decent bit of beefsteak for a change? Can you tell me that?”

Soper showed little or no interest in this enquiry, certainly predominantly rhetorical in character. He had picked up a fork, from which he was removing with his thumbnail a speck of dried vegetable matter that adhered to the handle.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” was all he replied, adding to the table in general, “Suppose if I complain about the washing up, we’ll just be told there’s not enough water.”

The raid that had taken place while we were on the Command exercise had damaged one of the local mains, so that F Mess was suffering from a water shortage; produced as excuse for every inadequacy in the kitchen.

“What do you say, Doc?” said Biggs, turning in the other direction. “Couldn’t you do with a nice cut of rump steak with a drop of blood on it? I know I could. Makes my mouth water, the thought. I’d just about gobble it up.”

Macfie, D.A.D.M.S., a regular Royal Army Medical Corps major, who had seen some pre-war service in India, gaunt, glum, ungenial, rarely spoke at meals or indeed at any other time. Now, glancing at Biggs with something like aversion, he made no answer beyond jerking his head slightly a couple of times before returning to the typewritten report he was thumbing over. No one among the two or three others at the table seemed any more disposed to comment.

“Come on, Doc, give the V.D. stats a rest at mealtimes,” said Biggs, who had perhaps drunk more beer than usual before dinner. “God, I’m looking forward to some grub. Feel as empty as a bloody drum.”

He began stamping his feet loudly on the bare boards of the floor, at the same time banging with his clenched fists on the table.

“Buck up, waiter!” he shouted. “When are we going to get something to eat, you slow bugger?”

“I want to swop night duty to-morrow,” said Soper. “Take it on, Jenkins?”

“Mine’s next Friday.”

“That’ll do me.”

“They won’t change the system again?”

“I’ll act for you even if they do.”

“O.K.”

Soper had caught me out once on a reorganised Duty Roster, avoiding my turn for night duty as well as his own. He was sharp on matters of that kind. I did not want to fall for a second confidence trick. Biggs ceased his tattoo on the surface of the table.

“Couldn’t get a bloody staff car all day,” he said. “I’ve a good mind to put in a report to A. & Q.”

“Fat lot of good that would do,” said Soper,

He seemed satisfied now the fork was fairly clean, replacing it by the side of his plate. A spoon now attracted his attention.

“Organising that bloody boxing next week’s going to be a bugger,” said Biggs. “Don’ t have an easy life like you, Sopey, you old sod. driving round the units in state and tasting the sea-pie and Bisto. Hope this bloody beef isn’t as tough to-night as it was yesterday. I’ll be after you, Sopey, if it is. God, what a day it’s been. A. & Q. on my tail all the time about that bloody boxing, and Colonel H.-J. giving me the hell of a rocket about a lot of training pamphlets I’d never heard of. He came through on the blower after I’d locked the safe and was looking forward to downing a pint. I’m just about brassed off, I can tell you. Went to see Bithel of the Mobile Laundry this afternoon. He’s a funny bugger, if ever there was one. We had a pint together all the same. He soaks up that porter pretty easy. It was about one of his chaps that’s done a bit of boxing. Might represent Div. H.Q., if he’s the right weight. We could win that boxing compo, you know. That would put me right with Colonel H.-J. Command’s best welterweight had a bomb dropped on him in the blitz the other night, when they hit the barracks. Gives us a chance.”

Plates of meat were handed round by a waiter.

“Potatoes, sir?”

I was thinking of other things; thinking, to be precise, that I could do with a bottle of wine, then and there, however rough or sour. The Mess waiter was holding a dish towards me. I took a potato; then, for some reason, looked up at him. His enquiry, though quietly made, had penetrated incisively into these fantasies of the grape, cutting a neat channel, as it were, through both vinous daydreams and a powerful conversational ambience generated by Biggs in his present mood. I glanced at the waiter’s face for a second, then looked away, feeling, as I took a second potato, faintly, indeterminately uneasy. The soldier was tall and thin, about my own age apparently, with a pale, washed-out complexion, high forehead, dark hair receding at the temples and slightly greying. Bloodshot eyes, with dark, bluish rims, were alive, but gave at the same time an impression of poor health, this vitiated look increased by the fact of a battle-dress blouse with a collar too big in circumference for a long thin neck. I replaced the spoon in the potato dish, still aware of a certain inner discomfort. The waiter moved on to Biggs, who took four potatoes, examining each in turn, as, one after another, they rolled on to his plate, splashing gravy on the cloth. I followed the waiter with my eyes, while he offered the dish to Macfie.

“Spuds uneatable again,” said Biggs. “Like bloody golf balls. They haven’t been done long enough. That’s all about it. Here, waiter, tell the chef, with my compliments, that he bloody well doesn’t know how to cook water.”

“I will, sir.”

“And he can stick these spuds up his arse.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Repeat to him just what I’ve said.”

“Certainly, sir.”

“Where’s he to stick the spuds?”

“Up his arse, sir.”

“Bugger off and tell him.”

So far as cooking potatoes went, I was wholly in agreement with Biggs. However, purely gastronomic considerations were submerged in confirmation of a preliminary impression; an impression upsetting, indeed horrifying, but correct. There could no longer be any doubt of that. What I had instantaneously supposed, then dismissed as inconceivable, was, on closer examination, no longer to be denied. The waiter was Stringham. He was about to go through to the kitchen to deliver Bigg’s message to the cook, when Soper stopped him.

“Half a tick,” said Soper. “Who laid the table?”

“I did, sir.”

“Where’s the salt?”

“I’ll get some salt, sir.”

“Why didn’t you put any salt out?”

“I’m afraid I forgot, sir.”

“Don’t forget again.”

“I’ll try not to, sir.”

“I didn’t say try not to, I said don’t.”

“I won’t, sir.”

“Haven’t they got any cruets in the Ritz?” said Biggs. “Hand the pepper and salt round personally to all the guests, I suppose.”

“Mustard, sir — French, English, possibly some other more obscure brands — so far as I remember, sir, rather than salt and pepper,” said Stringham, “but handing round the latter too could be a good idea.”

He went out of the room to find the salt, and tell the cook what Biggs thought about the cooking. Soper turned to Biggs. He was plainly glad of this opportunity to put the S.O.P.T. in his place.

“Don’t show your ignorance, Biggy,” he said. “Handing salt round at the Ritz. I ask you. You’ll be going into the Savoy next for a plate of fish and chips or baked beans and a cup o’ char.”

“That’s no reason why we shouldn’t have any salt here, is it?” said Biggs.

He spoke belligerently, disinclined for once to accept Soper as social mentor, even where a matter so familiar to the D.C.O. as restaurant administration was in question.

“Something wrong with that bloke,” he went on. “Man’s potty. You can see it. Hear what he said just now? Talks in that la-di-da voice. Why did he come to this Mess? What happened to Robbins? Robbins wasn’t much to look at, but at least he knew you wanted salt.”

“Gone to hospital with rupture,” said Soper. “This one’s a replacement for Robbins. Can’t be much worse, if you ask me.”

“This one’ll have to be invalided too,” said Biggs. “Only got to look at him to see that. Bet I’m right. No good having a lot of crazy buggers about, even as waiters. Got to get hold of blokes who are fit for something. Jesus, what an army.”

“Always a business finding a decent Mess waiter,” said Soper. “Can’t be picking and choosing all the time. Have to take what you’re bloody well offered.”

“Don’t like the look of this chap,” said Biggs. “Gets me down, that awful pasty face. Can’t stick it. Reckon he tosses off too much, that’s what’s wrong with him, I shouldn’t wonder. You can always tell the type.”

From the rubber valve formed by pressure together of upper and lower lip, he unexpectedly ejected a small morsel of fat, discharging this particle with notable accuracy of aim on to the extreme margin of his plate, just beyond the potatoes left uneaten. It was a first-rate shot of its kind.

“When did the new waiter arrive?” I asked.

Nothing was to be gained by revealing previous acquaintance with Stringham.

“Started here at lunch to-day,” said Soper,

“I’ve run across him before,” said Biggs.

“At Div. H.Q.?”

“One of the fatigue party fixing up the boxing ring,” said Biggs. “Ever so grand the way he talks, you wouldn’t believe. Needs taking down a peg or two in my opinion. That’s why I asked him about the Ritz. Don’t expect he’s ever been inside the Ritz more than I have.”

Soper did not immediately comment. He stared thoughtfully at the scrap of meat rejected by Biggs, either to imply censure of too free and easy table manners, or, in official capacity as D.C.O., professionally assessing the nutritive value of that particular cube of fat — and its waste — in wartime. Macfie also gave Biggs a severe glance, rustling his typewritten report admonishingly, as he propped the sheets against the water jug, the better to absorb their contents while he ate.

“He’ll do as a waiter so long as we keep him up to the mark,” said Soper, after a while. “You’re always grousing about something, Biggy. If it isn’t one thing, it’s another. Why don’t you put a bloody sock in it?”

“There’s enough to grouse about in this bloody Mess, isn’t there?” said Biggs, his mouth full of beef and cabbage, but still determined to carry the war into Soper’s country. “Greens stewed in monkeys’ pee and pepper as per usual.”

Stringham had returned by this time with the salt. Dinner proceeded along normal lines. Food, however unsatisfactorily cooked, always produced a calming effect on Biggs, so that his clamour gradually died down. Once I caught Stringham’s eye, and thought he gave a faint smile to himself. Nothing much was said by anyone during the rest of the meal. It came to an end. We moved to the anteroom. Later, when preparing to return to the D.A.A.G.’s office, I saw Stringham leave the house by the back door. He was accompanied by a squat, swarthy lance-corporal, no doubt the cook so violently stigmatised by Biggs. At Headquarters, when I got back there, Widmerpool was already in his room, going through a pile of papers. I told him about the appearance of Stringham in F Mess. He listened, showing increasing signs of uneasiness and irritation.

“Why on earth does Stringham want to come here?”

“Don’t ask me.”

“He might easily prove a source of embarrassment if he gets into trouble.”

“There’s no particular reason to suppose he’ll get into trouble, is there? The embarrassment is for me, having him as a waiter in F Mess.”

“Stringham was a badly behaved boy at school,” said Widmerpool. “You must remember that. You knew him much better than I did. He took to drink early in life, didn’t he? I recall at least one very awkward incident when I myself had to put him to bed after he had had too much.”

“I was there too — but he is said to have been cured of drink.”

“You can never be sure with alcoholics.”

“Perhaps he could be fixed up with a better job.”

“But being a Mess waiter is one of the best jobs in the army,” said Widmerpool impatiently. “It’s not much inferior to sanitary lance-corporal. In that respect he has nothing whatever to grumble about.”

“So far as I know, he isn’t grumbling. I only meant one might help in some way.”

“In what way?”

“I can’t think at the moment. There must be something.”

“I have always been told,” said Widmerpool, “ — and rightly told — that it is a great mistake in the army, or indeed elsewhere, to allow personal feelings about individuals to affect my conduct towards them professionally. I mentioned this to you before in connection with Corporal Mantle. Mind your own business is a golden rule for a staff officer.”

“But you’re not minding your own business about who’s to command the Recce Corps.”

“That is quite different,” said Widmerpool. “In a sense the command of the Recce Corps is my business — though perhaps someone like yourself cannot see that. The point is this. Why should Stringham have some sort of preferential treatment just because you and I happen to have been at school with him? That is exactly what people complain about — and with good reason. You must be aware that such an attitude of mind — that certain persons have a right to a privileged existence — causes a lot of ill feeling among those less fortunately placed. War is a great opportunity for everyone to find his level. I am a major — you are a second-lieutenant — he is a private. I have no doubt that you and I will achieve promotion. So far as you are concerned, you will in any case receive a second pip automatically at the conclusion of eighteen months’ service as an officer, which in your case cannot be far off by now. I think I can safely say that my own rank will not much longer be denoted by a mere crown. Of Stringham, I feel less certain. A private soldier he is, and, in my opinion, a private soldier he will remain.”

“All the more reason for trying to find him a suitable billet. It can’t be much fun handing round the vegetables in F Mess twice a day.”

“We are not in the army to have fun, Nicholas.”

I accepted the rebuke, and said no more about Stringham. However, that night in bed, I reflected further on his arrival at Div. H.Q. We had not met for years; not since the party his mother had given for Moreland’s symphony — where all the trouble had started about Moreland and my sister-in-law, Priscilla. Priscilla, as it happened, was in the news once more, from the point of view of her family. Rumours were going round that, separated from Chips Lovell by the circumstances of war, she was not showing much discretion about her behaviour. A “fighter-pilot” was said often to be seen with her, this figment, in another version, taking the form of a “commando,” loose use of the term to designate an individual, rather than the unit’s collective noun. However, all this was by the way. The last heard of Stringham himself had been from his sister, Flavia Wisebite, who had described her brother as cured of drink and serving in the army. At least the second of these two statements was now proved true. It was to be hoped the first was equally reliable. Meanwhile, there could be no doubt it was best to conceal the fact that we knew each other. Widmerpool also agreed on this point, when he himself brought up the subject again the following day. He too appeared to have pondered the matter during the night.

“So you think something else should be found for Stringham?” he asked that afternoon.

“I do.”

“I’ll give my mind to it,” he said, speaking more soberly than on the earlier occasion. “In the meantime, we are none of us called upon to do more than fulfil the duties of our respective ranks and appointments, vegetables or no vegetables. Now go and find out from the D.A.P.M. whether he has proceeded with the enquiries to be made in connection with Diplock and his dealings. Get cracking. We can’t talk about Stringham all day.”

So far as Stringham’s employment in F Mess was concerned, nothing of note happened during the next day or two. On the whole he did what was required of him with competence — certainly better than Robbins — though he would sometimes unsmilingly raise his eyebrows when waiting on me personally. For one reason or another, circumstances always prevented speech between us. I began to think we might not be able to find an opportunity to talk together before I went on leave. Then one evening, I saw Stringham coming towards me in the twilight. He saluted, looking straight ahead of him, was going to pass on, when I put out a hand.

“Charles.”

“Hullo, Nick.”

“This is extraordinary.”

“What is?”

“Your turning up here.”

“What makes you think so?”

“Let’s get off the main road.”

“If you like.”

We went down into a kind of alley-way, leading to a block of office buildings or factory works, now closed for the night.

“What’s been happening to you, Charles?”

“As you see, I’ve become a waiter in F Mess. I always used to wonder what it felt like to be a waiter. Now I know with immense precision.”

“But how did it all come about?”

“How does anything come about in the army?”

“When did you join, for instance?”

“Too long ago to remember — right at the beginning of the Hundred Years War. After enlisting in my first gallant and glorious corps, and serving at their depot, I managed to exchange into the infantry, and got posted to this melancholy spot. You know how — to use a picturesque army phrase — one gets arsed around. I don’t expect that happens any less as an officer. When the Royal Army Ordnance Corps took me to its stalwart bosom, I was not medically graded A.1. — which explains why in the past one’s so often woken up feeling like the wrath of God — so I got drafted to Div. H.Q., a typical example of the odds and sods who fetch up at a place like that. Hearing there was a job going as waiter in F Mess, I applied in triplicate. My candidature was graciously confirmed by Captain Soper. That’s the whole story.”

“But isn’t — can’t we find something better for you?”

“What sort of thing?”

That had been Widmerpool’s question too. Stringham asked it without showing the smallest wish for change, only curiosity at what might be put forward.

“I don’t know. I thought there might be something.”

“Don’t you feel I’m quite up to the mark as waiter?” he said. “Nick, you fill me with apprehension. Surely you are not on the side of Captain Biggs, who, I realise, does not care for my personality. I thought I was doing so well. I admit failure about the salt. I absolutely acknowledge the machine broke down at that point. All the same, such slips befall the most practised. I remember when the Duke of Conn aught lunched with my former in-laws, the Bridgnorths, the butler, a retainer of many years’ standing, no mere neophyte like myself, offered him macaroni cheese without having previously provided His Royal Highness with a plate to eat it off. I shall never forget my ex-father-in-law’s face, richly tinted at the best of times — my late brother-in-law, Harrison Wisebite, used to say Lord Bridgnorth’s complexion recalled Our Artist’s Impression of the Hudson in the Fall. On that occasion it was more like the Dutch bulb fields in bloom. No, forget about the salt, Nick. We all make mistakes. I shall improve with habit”

“I don’t mean —”

“Between you and me, Nick, I think I have it in me to make a first-class Mess waiter. The talent is there. It’s just a question of developing latent ability. I never dreamed I possessed such potentialities. It’s been marvellous to release them.”

“I know, but —”

“You don’t like my style? You feel I lack polish?”

“I wasn’t —”

“After all, you must agree it’s preferable to hand Captain Biggs his food, and retire to the kitchen with Lance-Corporal Gwither, rather than sit with the Captain throughout the meal, to have to watch him masticate, day in day out. Gwither, on the other hand, is a delightful companion. He was a plasterer’s mate before he joined the army, and, whatever Captain Biggs may say to the contrary, is rapidly learning to cook as an alternative. In addition to that, Nick, I understand you yourself work for our old schoolmate, Widmerpool. You’re not going to try and swop jobs, are you? If so, it isn’t on. How did your Widmerpool connection come about, anyway?”

I explained my transference from battalion to Div. H.Q. had been the result of Widmerpool applying for me by name as his assistant. Stringham listened, laughing from time to time.

“Look, Charles, let’s fix up dinner one night. A Saturday, preferably, when most of the stuff at the D.A.A.G.’s office has been cleared up after the week’s exercise. We’ve a mass of things to talk about.”

“My dear boy, are you forgetting our difference in rank?”

“No one bothers about that off duty. How could they? London restaurants are packed with officers and Other Ranks at the same table. Life would be impossible otherwise. My own brothers-in-law, for example, range from George, a major, to Hugo, a lance-bombardier. We needn’t dine at the big hotel, such as it is, if you prefer a quieter place.”

“I didn’t really mean that, Nick. I know perfectly well, in practice, we could dine together — even though you would probably have to pay, as I’m not particularly flush at the moment. It isn’t that. I just don’t feel like it. Dining with you would spoil the rhythm so far as I’m concerned. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m actively enjoying what I’m doing at the moment — but then how little of one’s life has ever been actively enjoyable. At the same time, what I’m doing is what I’ve chosen to do. Even what I want to do, if it comes to that. Up to a point it suits me. I’ve become awfully odd these days. Perhaps I always was odd. Anyway, that’s beside the point. How I drone on about myself. Talking of your relations, though, I heard your brother-in-law, Robert Tolland, was killed.”

“Poor Robert. In the fighting round the Channel ports.”

“Awfully chic to be killed.”

“I suppose so.”

“Oh, yes, of course. You can’t beat it. Smart as hell. Fell in action. I’m always struck by that phrase. Seems absolutely no chance of action here, unless Captain Biggs draws a gun on me for handing him the brussels sprouts the wrong side, or spilling gravy on diat bald head of his. You know Robert Tolland was running round with my sister, Flavia, before he went to France and his doom. You never met Flavia, did you?”

“Saw her and Robert together when I was on leave last year.

“Flavia never has any luck with husbands and lovers. Think of being married to Cosmo Flitton and Harrison Wisebite in quick succession. Why, I’d make a better husband myself. No doubt you heard at the same time that my mother’s parted company with Buster Foxe. She’s having money troubles at the moment. One of the reasons why Buster packed up. I’m feeling the draught myself. Decided shortage of ready cash. My father left what halfpence he had to that French wife of his, supposing, quite mistakenly, Mama would always be in a position to shell out.”

“Your mother’s at Glimber?”

“Good God, no. Glimber has some ministry evacuated there, so that’s one problem off her hands. She’s living in a labourer’s cottage near a camp in Essex to be near Norman — you remember, her little dancer. At one moment she was getting up at half-past five every morning to cook his breakfast. There’s devotion for you. Norman’s going to an O.CT.U. Won’t he look wonderful in a Sam Browne belt — that waist. Of course by the nature of things he can only be a son to her — a better son than her own, I fear — and in any case living with Norman in a cottage must be infinitely preferable to Buster in a castle, even allowing for the early rising. How sententious one gets. Just the sort of conclusion Tennyson was always coming to. You know, talking of the Victorians, I’ve taken to reading Browning.”

“Our General reads Trollope — the Victorians are obviously the fashion in this Division.”

“It was Tuffy who started me off on him. Rather a surprising taste for her in a way. You remember Tuffy? Nick, you make me talk of old times.”

“Miss Weedon — of course.”

‘Tuffy cured me of the booze. Then, having done that, she got bored with me. I see the point, there was nothing more to do. I mean I was going to prove absolutely impossible to set up as a serious member of civilised society. Stopping drinking alone was sufficient to ensure that. Even I myself grasped I’d become the most desperate of bores by being permanently sober. Then the war came along and I began to develop all sorts of martial ambitions. Tuffy didn’t really approve of them, although the fact they were even within the bounds of possibility so far as I was concerned was a considerable tribute to herself. She saw, all the same, one way or another, I was going to escape her clutches. The long and the short of it was, I entered the army, while Tuffy married an octogenarian — perhaps by now even nonagenarian — general. Just the age when you get into your stride as a soldier. They’ll probably appoint him C.I.G.S.”

“You’re out of touch. Generals are frightfully young nowadays. Widmerpool will be one at any moment. Anyway, they might do worse than employ General Conyers. I’ve known him for years.”

“My dear Nick, you know everybody. Not a social item escapes you. I myself can no longer keep up with births, marriages and deaths — well, deaths now and then perhaps, but not births and marriages. That’s why being in the ranks suits me. No strain in that particular respect. Nobody asks you if you read in this morning’s Times that so-and-so’s engaged or somebody else is getting a divorce. All that had begun to get me down for some reason. Make me tired. Anyway, to hark back to the long and wearisome story of my own life, the point was that Tuffy, like everyone else, had had enough of me. She wanted another sphere in which to exercise her tireless remedial activities. That was why I took the shilling:

I ’listed at home for a lancer,

Oh who would not sleep with the brave?

I am not, as your familiarity with military insignia will already have proclaimed, strictly speaking a lancer — just as well, for these days I couldn’t possibly take part in those musical rides lancers are always performing at the Military Tournament and places like that … haven’t sat on a horse for years …”

Stringham paused a moment, beginning now to hum a bar or two of a jerky tune, the sort to which riders at a Horse Show might canter round the paddock.

“So-let-each-cavalier-who-loves-honour-and-me

Come-follow-the-bonnets-of-Bonny-Dundee …”

He curled his wrists slightly, lifting them in the air as if holding reins. He seemed far away, to have forgotten completely that we were talking. I wondered how sane he remained. Then he came suddenly back to himself.

“… What was I saying? Oh, yes, A. E. Housman, of course … not my favourite poet, as a matter of fact, but that was just what happened … though I hasten to add I sleep with the brave only in the sense of dormitory accommodation. To tell the truth, Nick, I had the greatest difficulty in extracting the metaphorical shilling from an equally metaphorical Recruiting Sergeant. No magnificent figure with a bunch of ribbons in his cap, but several rather seedy characters in a stuffy office drinking cups of tea. Even so, they wouldn’t look at me when I first breezed in. Then the war took a turn for the worse, in Norway and elsewhere, and they saw they’d need Stringham after all. One of the reasons I left the R.A.O.C. is that they have a peculiarly trying warrant rank called Conductor — just as if you were on a bus — so I made the exchange I spoke of. What a fascinating place the army is. Before I joined, I thought all you had to do when you fired a rifle was to get your eye and the sights and the target all in one line and then blaze away. The army has produced a whole book about it, a fat little volume. But my egotism is insufferable, Nick. Tell me about yourself. What have you been doing? How are you reacting to it all? You look a trifle harassed, if I may say so. Not surprising, working with Widmerpool.”

Stringham himself looked ill, though not in the least harassed.

“On top of everything else,” he said, “one’s getting frightfully old. Do you think I shall qualify as a Chelsea pensioner after the war? I’d like one of those red frockcoats, though I’ve never cared for Chelsea as a neighbourhood. No leanings whatever towards bohemian life. However, one may come to both before one’s finished — residence in Chelsea and a bohemian to boot. You know I’ve been thinking a lot about myself lately, when scrubbing the floors and that sort of thing — an activity for some reason I often find myself quite enjoying — and I’ve come to the conclusion I’m narcissistic, mad about myself. That’s why my marriage went wrong. I really was awfully glad when it was over.”

“Do you do anything about girls now?”

“Seem to have lost all interest. Isn’t that strange? You know how it is. My great amusement now is trying to get things straight in my own mind. That takes me all my time, as you can imagine. The more I think, the less I know. Funny, isn’t it? Talking of girls, what happened to our old pal, Peter Templer? Do you remember how he used to go on about girls?”

“Peter’s said to have some government job to do with finance.”

“Not in the army?”

“Not as far as I know.”

“How like Peter. Always full of good sense, in his own way, though many people never guessed that at first. Married?”

“First wife ran away — second one, he appears to have driven mad.”

“Has he?” said Stringham. “Well, I daresay I might have driven Peggy mad, had we not gone our separate ways. Talking of separate ways, I’ll have to be getting back to my cosy barrack-room, or I’ll be on a charge. It’s late.”

“Won’t you really dine one night?”

“No, Nick, no. Better not, on the whole. I won’t salute, if you’ll forgive such informality, as no one seems to be about. Nice to have had a talk.”

He moved away before there was time even to say good night, walking quickly up the path leading to the main thoroughfare. I followed at less speed. By the time I reached the road at the top of the alley, Stringham was already out of sight in the gloom. I turned again in the direction of F Mess. This reunion with an old friend had been the reverse of enjoyable, indeed upsetting, painful to a degree. I tried to imagine what Stringham’s present existence must be like, but could reconstruct in the mind only superficial aspects, those which least disturbed, probably even stimulated him. I felt more than ever glad a week’s leave lay ahead of me, one of those curious escapes that in wartime punctuate army life, far more than a ‘holiday,” comparable rather with brief and magical entries into another incarnation.

Widmeroool did not like anyone going on leave, least of all his own subordinates. In justice to this attitude, he appeared to treat his own leaves chiefly as opportunities for extending freedom of contact with persons who might further his military career, working scarcely less industriously than when on duty. I should be in no position to criticise him in that respect, if General Liddament fulfilled his promise in relation to this particular leave, during which I too hoped to better my own condition. However, it was probable the General had forgotten about his remarks during the exercise. The tactical upheaval which immediately followed our talk would certainly have justified that. I had begun to wonder whether I ought to remind him, and, if so, how this should be effected. However, by the morning after the encounter with Stringham, I had still taken no step in that direction; nor had I mentioned the meeting to Widmerpool, who was, as it happened, in a peevish mood.

“When do you begin this leave of yours?” he asked.

“To-morrow.”

“I thought it was the day after.”

“To-morrow.”

“If you see your relations, the Jeavonses, it’s as well for you to know their sister-in-law staying as a paying guest in my mother’s cottage wasn’t a success. My mother decided she’d rather have evacuees.”

“Has she got evacuees?”

“She had some for a short time,” said Widmerpool, “then they went back to London. They were absolutely ungrateful.”

He talked of his mother less than formerly, even giving an impression from time to time that Mrs. Widmerpool’s problems had begun to irritate him, that he felt she was becoming a millstone round his neck. Widmerpool had been on edge for several days past owing to the Diplock affair turning out to be so much more complicated than appeared on first examination. Diplock had brought all his own notable powers of causing confusion to bear, darkening the waters round him like a cuttlefish, so that evidence was hard to collect. Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson, for his part, made no secret of regarding Widmerpool’s attempted impeachment of his chief clerk as nothing more nor less than a personal attack on himself. Indeed, Widmerpool could not have hit on a more wounding method of revenging himself on the Colonel, if his suspicions about Diplock were in due course to be substantiated. On the other hand, there was likely to be trouble if nothing more could be proved than that Diplock had been in the habit of keeping rather muddled accounts. Greening, the General’s A.D.C., came into the D.A.A.G.’s room at that moment. He handed me a small slip of paper.

“His Nibs says you know about this,” he said.

Greening, although he blushed easily, was otherwise totally unselfconscious. He was inclined to express himself in a curious, outdated schoolboy slang that sounded as if it had been picked up from some favourite book in childhood. Probably this habit appealed to General Liddament’s taste for a touch of the exotic in his entourage. He may even have encouraged Greening in vagaries of speech, an extension of his own Old English. The piece of paper was inscribed with the typewritten words “Major L. Finn, V.C.,” followed by the name of a Territorial regiment and a telephone number. I saw I had underrated General Liddament’s capacity for detail.

“Not much he forgets about,” said Greening, with artless curiosity. “What is it?”

A.D.C.s are a category of officer usually disparaged in Popular scrutiny of military matters. On the whole, they are no worse than most, better than many; while the job they do is the best possible training, if they are likely to rise in the world. Greening was, of course, not the sort likely to rise very far. “Just a message to be delivered in London.” Widmerpool looked up from the file in which he was writing away busily. “What is that?”

“Something for the General.”

“What are you to do?”

“Telephone this officer.”

“What officer?”

“A Major Finn.”

“And say what?”

“Give him the General’s compliments.”

“Nothing else?”

“See what he says.”

“Sounds odd.”

“That’s what the General said.”

“Let me see.”

I handed him the paper.

“Finn?” he said. “It’s a Whitehall number.”

“So I see.”

“A V.C.’

“Yes.”

“I seem to know the name — Finn. Sure I know it. When did the General tell you to do this?”

“On the last Command exercise.”

“At what moment?”

“After dinner on the last night.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“He talked about Trollope — and Balzac.”

“The authors?”

I was tempted to reply, “No — the generals,” but discretion prevailed.

“You seem to be on very intimate terms with our Divisional Commander,” said Widmerpool sourly. “Well, let me tell you that you will return from leave to find a pile of work. Are you waiting for something, Greening?”

“The General bade me discourse fair words to you, sir, anent traffic circuits.”

“What the hell do you mean?”

“I don’t know, sir,” said Greening. ‘That’s exactly how the General put it.”

Widmerpool did not answer. Greening went away. He was one of the most agreeable officers at those Headquarters. I never saw him much except on exercises. Towards the end of the war, I heard, in a roundabout way, that, after return to his regiment, he had been badly wounded at Anzio as a company commander and — so my informant thought — might have died in hospital.