The Military Philosophers

TWO

Like Finn’s aching jaw on the line of march, the war throbbed on, punctuated by interludes when more than once the wrong tooth seemed to have been hurriedly extracted. Meanwhile, I inhabited a one-room flat on the eighth floor of a prosaic Chelsea tenement. Private life, apparently at a standstill, as ever formed new patterns. Isobel’s brother, George Tolland (by then a lieutenant- colonel serving as ‘A & Q’ on a Divisional staff in the Middle East), badly wounded in the campaign defeating Rommel, was in hospital in Cairo. Her sister Susan’s husband, Roddy Cutts, major of Yeomanry transformed into Reconnaissance Corps, had recently written home to say he had fallen in love with one of the girls decoding cables at GHQ Persia/Iraq Force, and, accepting risk of spoiling a promising political career, wanted a divorce. This eventuality, not at all expected by Susan, nor any of the rest of the family, as Roddy had always been regarded as rather unadventurous in that sort of situation, caused a good deal of dismay.

If not required to stay late in the Whitehall area, I used, as a general routine, to come straight back from duty to a nearby pub, dine there, then retire to bed with a book. At that period the seventeenth-century particularly occupied me, so that works like Wood’s Athenae Oxonienses or Luttrell’s Brief Relation opened up vistas of the past, if not necessarily preferable to one’s own time, at least appreciably different. These historical readings could be varied with Proust. The flat itself was not wholly unsympathetic. The block’s ever-changing population, a mixed bag consisting largely of persons of both sexes working for the ministries, shaded off on the female side from high-grade secretaries, officers of the women’s services, organizers of one thing and another, into a nebulous world of divorcées living on their own and transient types even less definable, probably all but unemployable where ‘war work’ was concerned, yet for one reason or another prepared to stay in London and face the blitz. On warm evenings these un-attached ladies were to be met with straying about on the flat roof of the building, watching the bombers fly out, requesting cigarettes or matches and complaining to each other, or anyone else with whom they made contact, about the shortcomings of Miss Wartstone.

On another floor of the block, Hewetson, the Section’s officer with the Belgians and Czechs, also rented a flat. For a time he and I used to set out together every morning; then, deciding to share a larger place with a friend in the Admiralty (who had a hold over a woman who could cook) Hewetson moved elsewhere. He was a solicitor in private life, and, although he did not talk much of such things, gave the impression of being more fortunate than Borrit in chance relationships. He did admit to some sort of an adventure, arisen from sunning himself on the roof during a period of convalescence after a bout of ’flu, with one of these sirens of the chimney pots. Another told him she could only achieve emotional intimacy with her own sex, so Hewetson probably knew the roof better than one might think. All the same, he could not get on with Miss Wartstone. She was manageress of the flats. Her outward appearance at once prepared residents for an unusually contentious temperament. Miss Wartstone had, indeed, passed into a middle-age of pathological quarrelsomeness, possibly in part legacy of nervous tensions built up during the earlier years of the blitz. Latterly, nothing worse than an occasional window broken by blast had disturbed the immediate neighbourhood, but, as the war progressed, few tempers remained as steady as at the beginning.

Miss Wartstone used to put up notices, like those at school, and, in the same way, people would draw pictures on them and write comments. ‘Disgasting Management,’ somebody scrawled, probably one of the Allied officers, of whom quite a fair number were accommodated at the flats. Hewetson himself would go white if Miss Wartstone’s name was mentioned.

‘That woman,’ he would say.

When the Eighth Army moved into Tripoli, Hewetson was offered promotion in a new branch of the Judge-Advocate-General’s department proliferated in North Africa. As things turned out, this resulted in a change of my own position in the Section. It could be dated, more or less, by the fact that, when Hewetson came down from speaking with Finn about his own departure, Colonel Cobb, one of the American assistant military attachés, was in our room at that moment, talking of the capture of the German generals at Stalingrad. Although the Americans had a mission of their own for the bulk of their business, Cobb used to visit Finn from time to time about a few routine matters. He usually dropped in afterwards for a minute or two, chiefly, I think, to satisfy a personal preoccupation with the British army and its unexpected ways, an interest by now past the stage of mere desire for professional enlightenment and become fairly obsessive. He would endlessly question people, if opportunity arose, about their corps, Regular or Territorial, its special peculiarities and customs: when raised: where served: what worn. In the banter that sometimes followed these interrogations, Cobb rather enjoyed a touch of grimness, smiling with grave acquiescence when, in the course of one such scrutiny, it was by chance revealed that my own Regiment had borne among the Battle Honours of its Colours the names of Detroit and Miami.

‘Ah, Detroit?’ he said, speaking as if it had happened yesterday. ‘An unfortunate affair that… Miami… The name reminds me of my great-aunt’s grandfather, a man not to be trifled with, who held a commission from King George in the West Florida Provincials.’

To his own anecdotes, of which he possessed an impressive store, Cobb brought a dignified tranquillity of manner that might have earned a high fee in Hollywood, had he ever contemplated acting a military career, rather than living one. He narrated them in a low unemphasized mumble, drawing the words and sentences right back into his mouth, recalling certain old-fashioned types of Paris American. Like Finn, though in a totally different genre, Cobb indulged these dramatic aptitudes in himself, which, one suspected, could even motivate a deliberate visit — for example, the day after Pearl Harbour — should he feel an affirmation required to be made in public.

‘What’s America’s next step, Colonel?’ someone had asked on that occasion.

Cobb did not answer at once. Instead, he threw himself into a relatively theatrical pose, one of those attitudes, stylized yet unforced, in which he excelled; this time in the character of a man giving deep attention to a problem of desperate complexity. Then he spoke a considered judgment.

‘The US Navy are prohibited alcohol,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to call in their golf-clubs, I guess.’

Years later in New York, I repeated that comment to Harrison F. Wisebite’s nephew, Milton, met at a publisher’s party at the St Regis. Milton Wisebite, who worked in the Time-Life office at that period, had himself served in Europe with his country’s expeditionary force.

‘Courthouse Cobb?’ he said. ‘Haven’t thought of him in decades.’

‘That was his nickname?’

‘Throughout the US Army.’

‘What did it mean?’

‘There was reference to a supposed predilection towards severity in the exercise of discipline.’

That was a side of Colonel Cobb, imaginable, though happily never imperative to encounter. However, Milton Wisebite’s words recalled the stern tone in which Cobb had referred to the capitulation of Paulus on that day, endorsing thereby in memory the progress of the war and the moment when Hewetson left the Section. Finn was unwilling to replace him with an officer lacking any previous experience of liaison work. Accordingly the new man, Slade, a schoolmaster by profession, was given to Pennistone as second-string, and I was ordered to take over the Belgians and Czechs.

As it happened, on that evening at the St Regis, when everyone had had a good deal to drink, Milton Wisebite had gone on to ask news of Pamela Flitton, with whom, so it then appeared, he had enjoyed a brief moment of intimacy at some stage of the war. Apparently the episode had been the high peak of romance in his life, more especially as she was a kind of relation of his. Whatever took place between them — he was not explicit — must have been at an appreciably later period than the other surrender at Stalingrad, but, within the year or less that had passed since she had driven for the Section, Pamela Flitton’s name had already become fairly notorious for just that sort of adventure.

The stories, as such stories do, came in gradually. For example, the affair of which Horaczko had hinted, when our ways had parted in the hall of the Titian, was confirmed later by Michalski, less reserved in discussing such matters, who said he thought things had ended by a Polish major being brought before one of their army’s Courts of Honour. Even if that were an exaggeration, there was much else going round to suggest it might be true. To mention a few of these items: two RAF officers, one from Bomber, the other from Fighter Command, were court-martialled as a consequence of a fight about which was to drive her home after a party. The Naval Police had separated them, and, although a serious view was not taken by the authorities, the episode had made too much disturbance to be disregarded. The Navy was involved again in the person of a paymaster- lieutenant commander, who for some reason received a severe reprimand on her account. He was reported to be a scatterbrained fellow anyway. More ominously, a relatively senior official in the Treasury, a married man with several children, gave her a lift in his car one night at Richmond station — goodness knows what she was doing there in the first instance — starting a trail of indiscretion that led to his transference to a less distinguished ministry. Barker-Shaw, who had been Field Security Officer at my former Division, now at MI5, hinted there had nearly been an unofficial strike about her down at the docks. These were only some of the tales one heard. No doubt most of them were greatly inflated in the telling, if not positively untrue, but they indicated her range, even if you discounted ones like pouring the wine on the floor when Howard Craggs, the left-wing publisher, now a temporary civil servant of some standing, had given her dinner at an expensive black market restaurant; even less to be believed that — like Barbara Goring discharging the sugar over Widmerpool — she had emptied the bottle over Craggs’s head. The latter version was agreed to be untrustworthy if only because he was known still to pursue her.

Even if these highly coloured anecdotes were to be disbelieved, their very existence indicated a troublesome personality. Myth of such pervasive volume does not suddenly arise about a woman entirely without a reason. One thing was certain. She had left the ATS. This was said to be due to bad health, trouble with a lung.

‘I never yet met a pretty girl who didn’t tell you she had TB,’ said Dicky Umfraville. ‘Probably the least of the diseases she inherited from Cosmo.’

Umfraville had been unsuccessful in his efforts to find a niche in one of the secret organizations, and was now commanding a transit camp with the rank of major.

‘Giving men hell is what Miss Flitton likes,’ he said. ‘I know the sort. Met plenty of them.’

There was something to be said for accepting that diagnosis, because two discernible features seemed to emerge from a large, often widely diversified, canon of evidence chronicling Pamela Flitton’s goings-on: the first, her indifference to the age and status of the men she decided to fascinate; the second, the unvarying technique of silence, followed by violence, with which she persecuted her lovers, or those who hoped to be numbered in that category. She appeared, for example, scarcely at all interested in looks or money, rank or youth, as such; just as happy deranging the modest home life of a middle-aged air-raid warden, as compromising the commission of a rich and handsome Guards ensign recently left school. In fact, she seemed to prefer ‘older men’ on the whole, possibly because of their potentiality for deeper suffering. Young men might superficially transcend their seniors in this respect, but they probably showed less endurance in sustaining that state, while, once pinioned, the middle-aged could be made to writhe almost indefinitely. In the Section her memory remained with Borrit.

‘Wonder what happened to that juicy looking AT,’ he said more than once. ‘The good-lookers never stay. Wouldn’t mind spending a weekend with her.’

‘Weekends’ took place once a fortnight, most people saving up their weekly one day off to make them up. Once in a way Isobel managed to come to London during the week and we went out for a mild jaunt. This was not often, and, when she rang up one day to say Ted Jeavons had got hold of a couple of bottles of gin and was asking a few people in to share them with him, the invitation presented itself as quite an excitement. After Molly’s death, Isobel and her sisters used to keep in closer touch with Jeavons than formerly, making something of a duty to see him at fairly regular intervals, on the grounds that, a widower, he needed more attention than before. I had not seen him myself since suggesting Templer should take a room at the Jeavons’ house, but heard Templer had done so. Whether he remained, I did not know. Jeavons, keeping up Molly’s tradition of always welcoming any member of the family, had shown surprising resilience in recovering from the unhappy night when he had lost his wife. Certainly he had been greatly upset at the time, but he possessed a kind of innate toughness of spirit that carried him through. Norah Tolland, who did not care for any suggestion of sentimentality that concerned persons of the opposite sex — though she tolerated the loves, hates and regrets of her own exclusively feminine world — insisted that Jeavons’s recovery was complete.

‘Ted’s perfectly capable of looking after himself,’ she said. ‘In some respects — allowing for the war — the place is better run than when Molly was alive. I get a bit sick of those long disjointed harangues he gives about ARP.’

His duties as an air-raid warden had now become Jeavons’s sole interest, the whole background of his life. Apart from his period in the army during the previous war, he must have worked longer and more continuously at air-raid precautions than at any other job. Jeavons, although to be regarded as not much good at jobs, had here found his vocation. No one knew quite how the money situation would resolve itself when Molly died, Jeavons no longer in his first youth, with this admitted lack of handiness at earning a living. It turned out that Molly, with a forethought her noisy manner concealed, had taken steps to compound for her jointure, a financial reconstruction that had included buying the South Kensington house, thereby insuring (air raids unforeseen in that respect) her husband having a roof over his head, if she predeceased him. Although she was older, that possibility seemed unlikely enough in the light of Jeavons’s much propagated ‘rotten inside’, the stomach wound so perpetually reviled by himself. However, the unlikely had come to pass. Chips Lovell, when alive, had never tired of deploring Sleaford stinginess where their widows were concerned, but at least Jeavons had reaped some residue. One felt he deserved that at his age, though what precisely that age was, no one knew. Fifty must be in the offing, if not already attained.

‘Norah’s bringing a girl-friend with her,’ he said. ‘Wonder what she’s got hold of this time. The last one had a snub nose and freckles with biggish feet.’

Norah Tolland was a driver in one of the several classifications of women’s services, a corps which regarded themselves as of rather more consequence than mere ATS, whose officers they were not required to salute. Norah had taken pleasure in explaining that to a very important ATS officer wearing red tabs who had hauled her up for a supposed omission of respect.

‘Sorry your friend Templer’s gone, Nick,’ said Jeavons. ‘We got on pretty well. Used to have long talks at odd moments of the night when we’d both come off duty in the small hours. He told me a thing or two. Stories about the ladies, my hat.’

Jeavons’s thick dark hair, with its ridges of corkscrew curls, had now turned quite white, the Charlie Chaplin moustache remaining black. This combination of tones for some reason gave him an oddly Italian appearance, enhanced by blue overalls, obscurely suggesting a railway porter at a station in Italy. Jeavons continued to wear these overalls, though by now promoted to an administrative post at the local ARP headquarters. He poured out glasses of gin-and-orange, a drink for ever to recall world war.

‘Why did Templer leave?’

‘Been fed up for ages. Wanted a more active job. Quite worried him.’

‘He told me all that nearly a year ago.’

‘There was a woman in the case. Usually is. That’s why he wanted to do something more dangerous. London’s quite dangerous enough for me. Templer didn’t think so.’

‘It sounds unlike him.’

‘He went off to some training place,’ said Jeavons. ‘Never know how people will behave. Look at poor Charles Stringham, missing at Singapore. Remember when he lived on the top floor here with Miss Weedon trying to cure him of the booze. He and I used to have one on the sly once in a way. Mrs Conyers, I should call her, not Miss Weedon. Bad luck her husband dropping dead like that, but in your nineties you must be prepared for accidents.’

General Conyers, also an air-raid warden, had collapsed in the street one night, pursuing looters attempting to steal a refrigerator from a bombed house. He died, as he had lived, in active, dramatic, unusual circumstances; such, one felt, as he himself would have preferred.

‘Tuffy, as Charles used to call her, is in MI5 now,’ said Jeavons. ‘Don’t think she has to get into evening dress and jade ear-rings and vamp German agents. Just supervises the girls there. Always looked as if she knew a lot of secrets. Those black dresses and white collars. I expect they want reliable people, and she’s reliable all right. This girl of Templer’s made him feel he was getting old. He wanted to find out whether that was true or not. Of course, you might argue he oughtn’t to have been playing around at all. You’ve got to remember the circumstances. Wife’s in a mental home, as you probably know. Awful thing to happen. It’s hard to keep straight, if you’re on your own. I remember Smith, that butler of your brother-in-law Erry’s, using those very words. Erry used to lend us Smith from time to time, when he was away from Thrubworth. Of course, Smith’s wife had been dead for years, luckily for her. I warrant there’d been some high jinks on Smith’s part at one time or another. Terrible chap, Smith. Oughtn’t to say it, but I’m really glad he’s dead. No chance of his ever working here again.’

‘Erry said it was a rather ghastly business when Smith pegged out.’

‘Ghastly?’ said Jeavons. ‘Just about. Didn’t you know? He was bitten by Maisky, that monkey Molly used to own. It seems Smith tried to take a biscuit away from that tenacious ape. Probably wanted it himself to mop up some of the gin he’d drunk. God, the way that man used to put back our gin. I marked the bottle, but it wasn’t a damn bit of use. Silly thing to do, to take issue with Maisky. Of course Smith came off second-best. Perhaps they both reached out for the biscuit at the same moment. Anyway, Maisky wouldn’t have any snatching and Smith contracted septicemia with fatal results. Meant the end of Maisky too, which wasn’t really just. But then what is just in this life? Still, I suppose some things are, if you think about them. Smith’ll be the last butler I’ll ever find myself employing — not that there’s likely to be many butlers to employ, the way things are going. That fact doesn’t break my heart. Taking them all in all, the tall with the short, the fat with the thin, the drunk with the sober, they’re not a profession that greatly appeals to me. Of course, I was brought in contact with butlers late in life. Never set eyes on them in the circles I came from. I may have been unlucky in the butlers I’ve met. There may be the one in a hundred, but it’s a long time to wait. Read about butlers in books — see ’em in plays,’ That’s all right. Have ’em in the house — a very different matter. Look what they do to your clothes, apart from anything else. I started without butlers and I’ll die without butlers, no less a happy man. There’s the bell. No butler, so I’ll answer it myself. Probably some of the pals from my ARP dump.’

He went off down the stairs. After the bomb damage, the house had been shored up to prevent collapse, but no interior renovation had taken place. A long, jagged crack still zigzagged across one of the walls, which were in many places covered with large brown patches, like maps showing physical features, or the rather daring ornamental designs of a modernistic decorator. All the pictures, even the Moroccan pastels, had been removed, as well as the Oriental bowls and jars that used to clutter the drawing-room. A snapshot of Molly, wearing a Fair Isle jumper and holding Maisky in her arms like a baby, stood on the mantelpiece, curled and yellowing. Maisky, heedless of mortality, looked infinitely self-satisfied. Jeavons returned, bringing with him several ARP colleagues, male and female.

‘Room’s not looking very smart for a party,’ he said.

A minute or two later Norah Tolland arrived. Her companion — ‘girl-friend’, as Jeavons had termed her — turned out to be Pamela Flitton. Norah was in uniform, which suited her. She was, in general, more settled, more sure of herself than when younger, though on this particular occasion the presence of Pamela seemed to make her both elated and nervous.

‘Ted, I felt sure you wouldn’t mind my bringing Pam,’ she said. ‘She’s having dinner with me tonight. It seemed so much easier than meeting at the restaurant.’

‘Most welcome,’ said Jeavons.

He looked Pamela over. Jeavons examining a woman’s points was always in itself worth observing. If good-looking, he stared at her as if he had never before seen anything of the kind, though at the same time determined not to be carried away by his own astonishment. Pamela justified this attention. She was wearing a neat black frock, an improvement on her battledress blouse. It was clear she had established over Norah an absolute, even if only temporary, domination. Norah’s conciliatory manner showed that

‘Have a drink?’ said Jeavons.

‘What have you got?’

Pamela glanced aggressively round the room, catching my eye, but making no sign of recognition.

‘Gin-and-orange.’

‘No whisky?’

‘Sorry.’

‘I’ll have gin-and-water — no, neat gin.’

I went across to her.

‘Escaped from the ATS?*

‘Got invalided.’

‘A lady of leisure?’

‘My job’s a secret one.’

Jeavons took her lightly by the arm and began to introduce her to the other guests. She shook his hand away with her elbow, but allowed him to tell her the names of two or three persons who worked with him. When introductions were over, she picked up a paper from the table — apparently some not very well printed periodical — and took it, with her glass of gin, to the furthest corner of the room. There she sat on a stool, listlessly turning the pages. Norah, talking to Isobel, gave an anxious glance, but did not take any immediate steps to join Pamela, or try to persuade her to be more sociable. A talkative elderly man with a red face, one of the ARP guests, engaged me in conversation. He said he was a retired indigo planter. Jeavons himself went across the room and spoke to Pamela, but he must have received a rebuff, because he returned a second or two later to the main body of the guests.

‘She’s reading our ARP bulletin,’ he said.

He spoke with more surprise than disapproval; in fact almost with admiration.

‘Read the poem in this number?’ asked the indigo planter. ‘Rather good. It begins “What do you carry, Warden dear?” Gives a schedule of the equipment — you know, helmet, gas-mask, First Aid, all that — but leaves out one item. You have to guess. Quite clever.’

‘Jolly good.’

Norah, evidently not happy about Pamela, separated herself from Isobel soon after this, and went across to where her friend was sitting. They talked for a moment, but, if Norah too hoped to make her circulate with the rest, she was defeated. When she returned I asked her what her own life was like.

‘I was with Gwen McReith’s lot for a time. Quite fun, because Gwen herself is amusing. I first met Pam with her, as a matter of fact.’

‘Pam seems quite a famous figure.’

Norah sighed.

‘I suppose she is now,’ she said.

‘Is she all right over there in the corner?’

‘No good arguing with her.’

‘I mean we both of us might go over and talk to her.’

‘For God’s sake not’

Nothing of any note took place during the rest of the party, until Norah and Pamela were leaving. Throughout that time, Pamela had continued to sit in the corner. She accepted another drink from Jeavons, but ceased to read the ARP bulletin, simply looking straight in front of her. However, before she and Norah went off together, an unexpected thing happened. She came across the room and spoke in her accustomed low, almost inaudible tone.

‘Are you still working with the Poles?’

‘No — I’ve switched to the Belgians and Czechs.’

‘When you were with the Poles, did you ever hear the name Szymanski?’

‘It’s a very common Polish name, but i£ you mean the man who used to be with the Free French, and caused endless trouble, then transferred to the Poles, and caused endless trouble there, I know quite a lot about him.’

She laughed.

‘I just wondered,’ she said.

‘What about him?’

‘Oh, nothing.’

‘Was he the character you were talking to outside that Polish hide-out in Bayswater?’

She shook her head, laughing softly again. Then they went away. The ARP people left too.

‘There’s enough for one more drink for the three of us,’ said Jeavons. ‘I hid the last few drops.’

‘What do you think of Pamela Flitton?’

‘That’s the wench that gave Peter Templer such a time,’ said Jeavons. ‘Couldn’t remember the name. It’s come back. He said it all started as a joke. Then he got mad about her. That was the way Templer put it. What he didn’t like — when she wasn’t having any, as I understand it — was the feeling he was no good any more. How I feel all the time. Nothing much you can do about it. Mind you, he was browned off with the job too.’

‘Do men really try to get dangerous jobs because they’ve been disappointed about a woman?’

‘Well, I don’t,’ Jeavons admitted.

The enquiry about Szymanski was odd, even if he were not the Pole outside the Ufford. Neither Pennistone nor I bad ever set eyes on this man, though we had been involved in troubles about him, including a question asked in Parliament There was some uncertainty as to his nationality, even whether the territory where he was stated to have been born was now Polish or Czechoslovak, assuming he had in truth been born there. Most of his life he had lived on his wits as a professional gambler — like Cosmo Flitton — so it appeared, familiar as a dubious character in France, Belgium and the Balkans; in fact all over the place. He had a row of aliases: Kubitsa: Brod: Groza: Dupont: to mention only a few of them. No one — even MI5 was vague — seemed to know when and how he had first appeared in this country, but at an early stage he was known to have volunteered for the Belgian forces. This offer was prudently declined. Szymanski then tried the Free French, who, with the self-confidence of their race, took him on the strength; later ceding him with relief to the Poles, who may have wanted to make use of him in some special capacity. The general opinion was that he had a reasonable claim to Polish citizenship. The Czechs raised no objection. There were those who insisted his origins were really Balkan.

‘It seems fairly clear he’s not Norwegian,’ said Pennistone, ‘but I’ve learnt to take nothing on trust about Szymanski. You may have him on your hands before we’ve finished, Dempster.’

Szymanski was one of those professional scourges of authority that appear sporadically in all armies, a type to which the Allied contingents were peculiarly subject owing to the nature of their composition and recruitment Like Sayce of my former Battalion, Szymanski was always making trouble, but Sayce magnified to a phantasmagoric degree, a kind of super-Sayce of infinitely greater intelligence and disruptive potential. The abiding fear of the Home Office was that individuals of this sort might, after being found stateless, be discharged from the armed forces and have to be coped with as alien civilians.

As it happened, Szymanski’s name cropped up again a day or two later in our room. Masham, who was with the British Mission in liaison with the Free French, was waiting to be summoned by Finn, to whom he was to communicate certain points arising out of Giraud taking over from Darlan in North Africa. Masham asked Pennistone how the Poles were getting on with Szymanski, who had caused a lot of trouble to himself in his Free French days.

‘Szymanski’s gone a bit too far this time,’ Pennistone said. ‘They’ve sent him to detention. It was bound to come.’

There was a barracks, under the control of a British commandant, specially to accommodate delinquent Allied personnel.

I asked how recently that had happened.

‘A week or so ago.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ said Masham. ‘Though one’s got to admit the man was rather a card. It looks as if this North African switch-over will mean a back place for de Gaulle.’

‘Has anyone else hanged himself in his braces in that Free French snuggery behind Selfridge’s?’ asked Borrit.

‘Nobody hanged himself in his braces there or in any other Free French establishment,’ said Masham, rather irritably. ‘You’ve got the story wrong.’

Like all his Mission, Masham was, as he himself would have expressed it, plus catholique que le Pape, far more Francophil than the Free French themselves, who on the whole rather enjoyed a good laugh at less reputable aspects of their own corporate body. When in due course I had direct dealings with them myself, they were always telling stories about some guerrilla of theirs who divided his time between being parachuted into France to make contact with the Resistance, and returning to London to run a couple of girls on Shaftesbury Avenue.

‘What did happen then?’

‘There was some fuss about an interrogation.’

‘De Gaulle was pretty cross when our people enquired about it.’

‘He’s got to steer his own show, hasn’t he?’ said Masham, ‘Anyway, it looks as if he’s on the way out. By the way, Jenkins, the successful candidate for the job you applied to us for caught it at Bir Hakim.’

Kucherman rang up at that moment, and, by the time I had finished with Belgian business, Masham had gone up to see Finn. Transfer to the Belgians and Czechs meant no more physically than ceasing to sit next to Pennistone, though it vitiated a strong alliance in resisting Blackhead. The two Allied contingents with which I was now in liaison were, of course, even in their aggregate, much smaller numerically than the Polish Corps. At first sight, in spite of certain advantages in being one’s own master, responsible only to Finn, a loss in other directions seemed threatened by diminution of variety in the general field of activity. A claustrophobic existence offered, in this respect, the consolation of exceptional opportunities for observing people and situations closely in a particular aspect of war. Our Section’s viewpoint was no doubt less all embracing than, say, Widmerpool’s in his subterranean lair; at the same time could provide keener, more individual savour of things noted at first-hand.

It had been stimulating, for example, to watch the quickly gathering momentum of the apparatus — infinitesimally propelled, among others, by oneself — that reduced to some order the circumstances of the hundred and fifteen thousand Poles permitted to cross the Russian frontier into Iran; assisting, as it were, Pennistone’s ‘one man and a boy’ at the receiving end. Hundreds of thousands were left behind, of course, while those who got out were in poorish shape. All the same, these were the elements to form the Second Polish Army Corps; later so creditably concerned at Monte Cassino and elsewhere. Regarded superficially, the new Belgian and Czech assignments seemed to offer problems less obviously engrossing. However, as matters turned out, plenty of channels for fresh experience were provided by these two. Even the earliest meetings with Major Kucherman and Colonel Hlava promised that.

Precise in manner, serious about detail, Hewetson was judged to perform his duties pretty well, though he possessed no particular qualifications as expert on Belgian affairs, still less those of Czechoslovakia. Before I took over from him, he gave me a briefing about the characteristics of the Allies in question.

‘An excellent point about the Belgians,’ he said, ‘is not caring in the least what they say about each other, or their own national failings. They have none of that painful wish to make a good impression typical of some small nations. It’s a great relief. At the same time their standards in certain respects — food and drink, for example — are high ones. They are essentially easy to get on with. Do not believe disobliging propaganda, chiefly French, about them. They are not, it must be admitted, indifferent to social distinction. Their assistant MA, Gauthier de Graef, likes telling a story, no doubt dating from the last war, of an English officer, French officer, and Belgian officer, when a woman rode by on a horse. The Englishman said: “What a fine horse”; the Frenchman, “What a fine woman”: the Belgian, “I wonder what she was née”. Of course I don’t suggest that would happen today.’

‘One can’t make the classless society retroactive.’

Another saying of Gauthier’s is that when he wakes up in the night in a wagon-lit and hears a frightful row going on in the next compartment, he knows he’s back in his own beloved country — though I must say I haven’t been subjected to the smallest ill-humour myself on the part of my Belgian charges.’

‘They sound all right.’

‘One small snag — Lannoo was given promotion the other day, and has already left for his new job. The Belgian authorities still won’t make up their minds whom to appoint in his place. I’ve been dealing with Gauthier de Graef for weeks, who of course can’t take the decisions his boss could. I suppose this delay is the sort of thing the Belgians themselves grumble about.’

As it turned out, the official appointment of Kucherman came through only on the day when Hewetson left the Section. There was some misunderstanding about certain customary formalities, one of those departmental awkwardnesses that take place from time to time and can cause coolness. The fact was Kucherman himself was a figure of much more standing at home than the average officer likely to be found in that post. Possibly some of the Belgian Government thought this fact might overweigh the job; others, that more experience was desirable in purely military matters. At least that was the explanation given to Hewetson when things were in the air. As he had said, a particular charm possessed by the Belgians was, in a world everyday increasingly cautious about hazarding in public opinions about public affairs, no Belgian minded in the least criticizing his Government, individually or collectively.

‘One of their best points,’ Hewetson repeated.

In short, by the time I introduced myself to Kucherman, a faint sense of embarrassment had been infused into the atmosphere by interchanges at a much higher level than Finn’s. Kucherman was only a major, because the Belgians were rather justly proud of keeping their ranks low.

‘After all the heavy weather that’s been made, you’ll have to be careful not to get off on the wrong foot, Nicholas,’ said Finn. ‘Kucherman’s own people may have been to blame for some of that, but we’ve been rather stiff and unaccommodating ourselves. You’ll have to step carefully. Kucherman’s a well known international figure.’

I repeated these remarks of Finn’s to Pennistone.

‘Kucherman’s a big shot all right,’ said Pennistone. ‘I used to hear a lot about him and his products when I was still in business. He’s head of probably the largest textile firm. That’s just one of his concerns. He’s also a coal owner on an extensive scale, not to mention important interests in the Far East — if they still survive. We shall expect your manner to alter after a week or two of putting through deals with Kucherman.’

The picture was a shade disconcerting. One imagined a figure, younger perhaps, but somewhat on the lines of Sir Magnus Donners: tall: schoolmasterish; enigmatic. As it turned out, Kucherman’s exterior was quite different from that. Of medium height, neat, brisk, with a high forehead and grey hair, he seemed to belong to the eighteenth- century, the latter half, as if he were wearing a wig of the period tied behind with a black bow. This, I found later, was one of the Belgian physical types, rather an unexpected one, even in a nation rich in physiognomies recalling the past.

On the whole, a march-past of Belgian troops summoned up the Middle Ages or the Renaissance, emaciated, Memling-like men-at-arms on their way to supervise the Crucifixion or some lesser martyrdom, while beside them tramped the clowns of Teniers or Brouwer, round rubicund countenances, hauled away from carousing to be mustered in the ranks. These latter types were even more to be associated with the Netherlands contingent — obviously a hard and fast line was not to be drawn between these Low Country peoples — Colonel Van der Voort himself an almost perfect example. Van der Voort’s features seemed to have parted company completely from Walloon admixtures — if, indeed it was Walloon blood that produced those mediaeval faces. Van der Voort’s air had something faintly classical about it too, something belonging not entirely to domestic pot-house or kermesse scenes, a touch of the figures in the train of Bacchus or Silenus; though naturally conceived in Dutch or Flemish terms. Kucherman’s high forehead and regular features — the French abbé style — was in contrast with all that, a less common, though a fairly consistent Belgian variant that gave the impression, on such occasions as the parade on their National Day, of the sudden influence of a later school of painting.

The first day at Eaton Square — by then almost a preserve of the Belgian ministries — the name of Sir Magnus Donners did indeed crop up. He had been in the headlines that morning on account of some more or less controversial statement made in public on the subject of manpower. Kucherman referred to this item of news, mentioning at the same time that he had once lunched at Stourwater. We talked about the castle. I asked if, since arrival in England, he had seen Sir Magnus. Kucherman laughed.

‘A member of your Cabinet does not want to be bothered by a major in one of the smaller Allied contingents.’

‘All the same, it might be worth while letting him know you are here.’

‘You think so?’

‘Sure of it.’

‘Certainly he showed great interest in Belgium when we met — knowledge of Belgian affairs. You know Belgium yourself?’

‘I’ve been there once or twice. When my father was at the War Office, I remember him bringing two Belgian officers to our house. It was a great excitement.’

‘Your father was officier de carrière?’

‘He’d come back from Paris, where he’d been on the staff of the Peace Conference. By the way, several Belgian officers are living at the same block of flats as myself. I don’t know any of them.’

Cucherman asked the name of the place.

‘Ah, yes,’ he said. ‘Clanwaert is there. You will be dealing with him about Congo matters. An amusing fellow.’

‘I have an appointment with him tomorrow.’

‘He was formerly in the Premier Regiment des Guides — like your Life Guards, one might say. I believe he fought his first engagement in 1914 wearing what was almost their parade uniform — green tunic, red breeches, all that. Then a love affair went wrong. He transferred to La Force Publique. A dashing fellow with a romantic outlook. That was why he never married.’

The Force Publique was the Congo army, quite separate from the Belgian army, officered somewhat on the lines, so it seemed, of our own Honourable East India Company’s troops in the past.

‘Kucherman’s going to be all right,’ said Finn.

Even Gauthier de Graef, who had all his countrymen’s impatience with other people’s methods, and would not have hesitated to grumble about his new chief, agreed with that judgment. He was a tall young man with a large moustache, who, after a frantic drive to the coast to catch up the remnant of the Belgian forces embarked for England, had jumped the last yard or so over water, as the boat had already set sail from harbour.

‘I needed a drink after that,’ he said. ‘A long one, let me assure you.’

I was just off to see Kucherman or Hlava one morning, when General Bobrowski was put through on my telephone. Bobrowski, even for himself, was in a tremendous state of excitement. He explained that he had been unable to make contact with Finn, and now he was told that neither Pennistone nor Slade were available. It was a matter of the most urgent importance that he had an appointment with Finn as soon as possible. He appealed to me as Pennistone’s former assistant in Polish liaison. Finn was at that moment with one of the brigadiers; Pennistone probably at the Titian — where it was quite likely he would learn of whatever was on Bobrowski’s mind — and Slade was no doubt somewhere in the building negotiating with another section. Slade returned at that moment and I handed Bobrowski over to him. I wondered what the trouble was. Bobrowski became easily excited, but this seemed exceptional. Pennistone outlined the enormity on my return.

‘Listen to this,’ he said. ‘Tell me whether you believe it or not’

He was partly angry himself, partly unable not to laugh.

‘Let’s go and have lunch. I’ll tell you there.’

The story was certainly a strange one.

‘Szymanski’s out,’ said Pennistone.

‘Out of where?’

‘Jug.’

‘He’s escaped from the detention barracks?’

‘In a rather unusual way.’

‘Did he break out?’

‘He left by the front door.’

‘In disguise?’

‘It appears that first of all a certain amount of telephoning took place from the appropriate branches, Polish and British, saying that Szymanski’s conviction had been quashed and his case was to be reconsidered. Then two British officers arrived bearing the correct papers to obtain his body. Szymanski was accordingly handed over to their custody.’

‘This was bogus?’

‘The next thing was, Szymanski himself appeared shortly after at the prison, wearing the uniform of a British second-lieutenant and explaining that he knew the way to get out of anywhere. In fact, the prison hasn’t been invented that could keep him inside.’

‘Didn’t they lock him up again?’

‘They couldn’t. The documents made him a free man.’

‘What had happened?’

‘There were those who thought Szymanski’s outstanding qualities — not necessarily his most gentlemanly ones — might come in useful for a piece of work required.’

‘You mean some of our people?’

‘Possibly certain Polish elements were also sympathetic to the scheme. That’s not clear yet. It would have been easier to organize, had that been the case. However, one can’t be sure. Another country may be in on it too.’

‘Was this Sunny Farebrother’s crowd?’

‘It looks like it.’

‘With forged papers?’

‘Yes.’

‘Won’t there be the hell of a row?’

‘There will — and is. As liaison officer with the Poles, naturally I can only regard the whole affair as perfectly disgraceful. At the same time, one can’t help seeing it has its funny side.’

‘Finn must be having a fit.’

‘He’s beside himself.’

‘Is Sunny personally involved?’

‘So it’s believed — though he did not turn up himself at the prison gates.’

‘Is it known who did?’

‘One of them was called Stevens. I believe rather a tough nut, quite young, with an MC. He’s said to have been wounded in the Middle East, and came back to join Farebrother’s show.’

‘Odo Stevens?’

‘I don’t know his first name.’

‘Will they re-arrest Szymanski?’

‘How can they? He’s been disposed of abroad probably. Anyway undergoing training at some secret place.’

‘He’ll be dropped somewhere?’

‘To do something pretty unpleasant, I should imagine.’

‘And the Poles are angry?’

‘Our ones are livid. Can you blame them? I’ve never seen Bobrowski in such a state. It’s understandable. At one end of the scale, our authorities make a great parade of the letter of the Law. The Home Office, if it possibly can, displays its high-mindedness in hampering the smaller Allies from arresting their deserters — they’d be much too afraid to obstruct the Americans or Russians — then a thing like this happens. All we can do is to grin feebly, and say we hope no offence will be taken.’

Although this incident had its being in the half-light encompassing those under-the-counter activities from which Finn liked to keep his Section so rigorously apart, Finn himself, not to mention Pennistone, had to suffer most of the consequences of what had taken place, so far as the Polish authorities were concerned. They were not at all pleased, saying, not without reason, that a serious blow had been struck against discipline. The episode strongly suggested that the British, when it suited them, could carry disregard of all convention to inordinate lengths; indulge in what might be described as forms of military bohemianism of the most raffish sort. Finn was, of course, entirely on the Polish side in thinking that. It was hard that he himself should have to bear most of the brunt of their complaint. The undertaking was no less remarkable in that Farebrother, outwardly so conventional, was prepared to lend himself to such a plot. It was just another view as to how the war should be won; perhaps the right one.

‘A great illusion is that government is carried on by an infallible, incorruptible machine,’ Pennistone said. ‘Officials — all officials, of all governments — are just as capable of behaving in an irregular manner as anyone else. In fact they have the additional advantage of being able to assuage their conscience, if they happen to own one, by assuring themselves it’s all for the country’s good.’

I wondered if Pamela Flitton had known these monkey-tricks were on the way, when she had enquired about Szymanski. Her own exploits continued to be talked about. Clanwaert was the next Ally to mention her. That was a month or two later. We met one evening on the way back to the block of flats. Outwardly, Clanwaert suppressed any indication of the romanticism at which Kucherman had hinted. He had a moustache even larger than Gauthier de Graef’s, and an enormous nose to which it seemed attached, as if both were false. The nose was a different shape from Finn’s, making one think more of Cyrano de Bergerac. Clanwaert used to tap it, in the old-fashioned traditional gesture, when he knew the answer to some question. Like Kucherman, he talked excellent English, though with a thicker, more guttural accent, a habit of spitting all his words out making most of his remarks sound ironic. Perhaps that was intended. I asked if it were true he had fought his first battle in red breeches.

‘Not red, my friend — this is important — amaranthe. How do you say that in English?’

‘Just the same — amaranth.’

‘That’s the name of a colour?’

‘An English writer named St John Clarke called one of his books Fields of Amaranth. It was a novel. The flower is supposed to be unfading in legend. The other name for it in English is Love-lies-bleeding. Much play was made about these two meanings in the story.’

‘Love-lies-bleeding? That’s a strange name. Too good for a pair of breeches.’

‘Not if they were unfading.’

‘Nothing’s unfading, my friend,’ said Clanwaert ‘Nothing in Brussels, at least.’

‘I’ve enjoyed visits there before the war.’

‘It was a different city after ’14-’18. Most places were. That was why I transferred to la Force Publique. I can assure you the Congo was a change from la Porte Louise. For a long time, if you believe me, I was Elephant Officer. Something to hold the attention. I would not mind going back there at the termination of this war. Indeed, one may have no choice — be lucky if one reaches Africa. Nevertheless, there are times when the Blacks get on one’s nerves. One must admit that. Perhaps only because they look at the world in a different manner from us — maybe a wiser one. I shall be writing you another letter about those officers in the Congo who want a share in this war of ours. As I told you before, they feel out of it, afraid of people saying afterwards — “As for you, gentlemen, you were safe in the Congo.” It is understandable. All the same your High Command say they cannot see their way to employ these Congo officers. I understand that too, but I shall be writing you many letters on the subject. You must forgive me. By the way, I met a young lady last night who told me she knew you.’

‘Who was that?’

‘Mademoiselle Flitton.’

‘How was she?’

Clanwaert laughed, evidently aware of the impression the name would make.

‘She told me to remind you of the Pole she mentioned when you last met.’

‘She did?’

‘That was some joke?’

‘Some people thought so. I hope Mademoiselle Flitton is in good Belgian hands now.’

‘I think she has higher aspirations than that.’

Clanwaert laughed, but revealed no secrets. As it turned the implications of the words were clarified through the agency of the Czechs.

‘Colonel Hlava is an excellent man’ Hewetson had said. ‘More ease of manner than most of his countrymen, some of whom like to emphasize their absolute freedom, as a nation, from the insincere artificialities of social convention. Makes them a bit dour at times. Personally, I find it oils the wheels when there’s a drop of Slovak, Hungarian or Jewish blood. Not so deadly serious.’

‘Hlava’s a flying ace?’

‘With innumerable medals for gallantry in the last war — where he served against the Russians, whom he’s now very pro — not to mention international awards as a test pilot. He is also rather keen on music, which I know nothing about. For example, he asked me the other day if I didn’t get rather tired of Egyptian music. As I’m almost tone deaf, I’d no idea Egypt was in the forefront as a musical country.’

‘Tzigane — gipsy.’

‘I thought he meant belly-dancing,’ said Hewetson. ‘By the way, when you’re dealing with two Allies at once, it’s wiser never to mention one to the other. They can’t bear the thought of your being unfaithful to them.’

It was at one of Colonel Hlava’s musical occasions that the scene took place which showed what Clanwaert had been talking about. This was a performance of The Bartered Bride mounted by the Czechoslovak civil authorities in the interests of some national cause. I was not familiar with the opera, but remembered Maclintick and Gossage having a music critics’ argument about Smetana at Mrs Foxe’s party for Moreland’s symphony. No recollection remained of the motif of their dispute, though no doubt, like all musical differences of opinion, feelings had been bitter when aroused. I was invited, with Isobel, to attend The Bartered Bride in a more or less official capacity. We sat with Colonel Hlava, his staff and their wives.

‘The heroine is not really a bride, but a fiancée,’ explained Hlava. ‘The English title being not literal for German Die Verkaufte Braut.’

In most respects very different from Kucherman, the Czech colonel possessed the same eighteenth-century appearance. Perhaps it would be truer to say Hlava recalled the nineteenth century, because there was a look of Liszt about his head and thick white hair, together with a certain subdued air of belonging to the Romantic Movement. This physical appearance was possibly due to a drop of Hungarian blood — one of the allegedly lubricating elements mentioned by Hewetson — though Hlava himself claimed entirely Bohemian or Moravian origins. Quiet, almost apologetic in manner, he was also capable of firmness. His appointment dated back to before the war, and, during the uncertainties of the immediately post-Munich period, he had armed his staff, in case an effort was made to take over the military attaché’s office by elements that might have British recognition, but were regarded by himself as traitorous. Hlava liked a mild joke and was incomparably easy to work with.

‘Smetana’s father made beer,’ he said. ‘Father wanted son to make beer too, but Smetana instead make Czechoslovak national music.’

These wartime social functions had to take place for a variety of reasons: to give employment: raise money: boost morale. They were rarely very enjoyable. Objection was sometimes aimed at them on the grounds that they made people forget the war. Had such oblivion been attainable, they would, indeed, have provided a desirable form of recuperation. In fact, they often risked additionally emphasizing contemporary conditions, the pursuits of peace, especially the arts, elbowed out of life, being hard to re-establish at short notice. Conversations, on such occasions as this opera, were apt to hover round semi-political or semi-official matters, rather than break away into some aesthetic release.

‘Your other great national composer is, of course, Dvorak.’

‘Dvorik poor man like Smetana. Dvorak’s father poor pork butcher.’

‘But a musical pork butcher?’

‘Played the bagpipes in the mountains,’ said Hlava. ‘Like in Scotland.’

Most of the theatre was occupied with Allied military or civil elements, members of the Diplomatic Corps and people with some stake in Czech organizations. In one of the boxes, Prince Theodoric sat with the Huntercombes and a grey-haired lady with a distinguished air, probably one of his household, a countrywoman in exile. Lord Huntercombe, now getting on in age, was shown in the programme as on the board staging this performance. He was closely connected with many Allied causes and charities, and looked as shrewd as ever. He and Theodoric were wearing dark suits, the grey-haired lady in black — by this stage of the war not much seen — beside Lady Huntercombe, in rather a different role from that implied by her pre-war Gainsborough hats, was formidable in Red Cross commandant’s uniform.

‘Who’s the big man with the white moustache three rows in front?’ asked Isobel.

‘General van Strydonck de Burkel, Inspector-General of the Belgian army and air force — rather a figure.’

The overture began. The curtain had already gone up on the scene of the country fair, when a woman came through one of the doors of the auditorium, paused and looked about her for a moment, then, showing no sign of being embarrassed by her own lateness, made her way to an empty seat beside another woman, in the same row as General van Strydonck, but nearer the middle. In doing this she caused a good deal of disturbance. Several men stood up to let her get by, among them Widmerpool, whom I had not before noticed. It was surprising to see him at a show like this, as he was likely to be working late every night at his particular job. When the lights went on again, he was revealed as being in the company of a youngish major-general. Our party went out during the entr’acte,

‘How unpunctual Miss Flitton is,’ said Isobel.

Pamela Flitton came into the foyer at that moment. She was wearing a bright scarlet coat and skirt, and accompanied by a woman in uniform, Lady McReith, someone I had not seen for the best part of twenty years.

‘She must have blown every coupon she’s got on that outfit.’

‘Or taken them off some poor chap who received a special issue for overseas.’

Apart from hair now iron-grey, very carefully set, Lady McReith remained remarkably unaltered. She was thinner than ever, almost a skeleton, the blue veins more darkly shaded in on her marble skin. She retained her enigmatic air, that disconcerting half-smile that seemed to be laughing at everyone, although at this moment she did not look in the best of humours. Probably she had paid for Pamela’s ticket and was cross at her lateness. If Lady McReith were at the head of a detachment of drivers, she would know about discipline. However, annoyance showed only in her eyes, while she and Pamela stood in a corner watching the crowd. Widmerpool and his general, who was of unknown identity, were behaving as if something important was brewing between them, strolling up and down in a preoccupied manner like men talking serious business, rather than a couple of opera-lovers having a night off duty. On the way back to our seats, we found ourselves next to them in the aisle. Widmerpool, who had met Isobel in the past, peered closely to make sure I was out with my wife, and said good evening. Then he muttered a question under his breath.

‘Do you happen to know the name of the girl in red who came in late? I’ve seen her before. With some Americans at one of Biddle’s big Allied gatherings.’

‘Pamela Flitton.’

‘So that’s Pamela Flitton?’

‘She’s a niece of Charles Stringham’s. You heard he was at Singapore when the Japs moved in?’

‘Yes, yes, poor fellow,’ said Widmerpool.

He made no reference to the fact that he had been in some measure responsible for sending Stringham there, indeed, there was no time to do so before he went back to his seat. During the second entr’acte he did not appear, possibly having left the theatre with his companion. The Huntercombes, who had remained in their box on this earlier opportunity for the audience to stretch its legs, now entered the foyer with Theodoric and the foreign lady. Theodoric, always very conscious of the social demands imposed by royal rank, began to look about him for people to whom it was a requirement to make himself agreeable. No doubt feeling the disfavour Czechs, in principle, affected for persons of high degree had first claim on his good manners, he came over to shake hands with Hlava’s party.

‘How is Colonel Finn? Busy as ever?’

‘More than ever, sir.’

‘I try not to waste his time with our small problems, but I may have to ask for an interview next week.’

I gave a reassuring reply. Theodoric left the Hlava group, crossing the floor for a word with Van Strydonck de Burkel. Huge, with a white curled moustache, the Belgian general, though now rather old to take an active part in the direction of policy, looked everything he should from his picturesque reputation. In the earlier war, at the head of two squadrons of cavalry, he had led an operationally successful charge against a German machine-gun emplacement; a kind of apotheosis of those last relics of horsed warfare represented by Horaczko and Clanwaert. Having spoken a word or two to Van Strydonck, the Prince was on his way to another sector of the foyer, when Pamela Flitton suddenly detached herself from Lady McReith, and moved swiftly through the crowd. On reaching Theodoric, she slipped her arm through his.

‘Don’t miss Lola Montez,’ said Isobel.

Considering the familiarity of the behaviour, its contrast with Pamela’s usually icy demeanour, Theodoric accepted the gesture with composure. If he felt whatever intimacy might exist between them were better left unadvertised in a theatre packed with official personages, he did not encourage gossip by showing any sign of that. On the contrary, he took her hand, pressed it earnestly, as if they scarcely knew each other but he wished to show himself specially grateful for some thoughtful action that had gratified his sense of what was right. Then, having spoken a few words to her, he gave a smile of dismissal, and turned towards General Asbjornsen who was standing nearby. Pamela was at first not prepared to accept this disengaging movement on the part of the Prince, or at any rate preferred to demonstrate that it was for her rather than Theodoric himself to decide when and how the conversation should be terminated. Accordingly, she constituted herself part of the Theodoric-Asbjornsen axis for a minute or two; then, giving in her turn a nod to Theodoric, at the same time patting his arm, she coolly returned to Lady McReith, who now made no effort to look anything but cross. The bell sounded. We sat down to the Third Act and the man disguised as a bear.

‘British gave Smetana musical degree,’ said Hlava.

The Bartered Bride was the only occasion, a unique one, go far as I know, that added any colour to the rumour going round that Pamela Flitton was ‘having an affair’ with prince Theodoric. Whether that were true, or whether she merely hoped to create an impression it was true, was never to my knowledge finally cleared up. All that can be said is that later circumstances supplied an odd twist to the possibility. When, subsequently, Jeavons heard the story, he showed interest.

‘Sad Molly’s gone,’ he said. ‘She always liked hearing about Theodoric, on account of his having been mixed up years ago with her ex-sister-in-law, Bijou. Looks as if Theodoric falls for an English girl every dozen years or so. Well, his wife’s in America and I told you what Smith said. Can’t be too cheerful having your country occupied by the Germans either. By all accounts, he’s doing what he can to help us get them out. Needs some relaxation. We all do.’

About this time, Jumbo Wilson, in the light-hearted manner of generals, made nonsense of the polite letters Clanwaert and I used to send each other on the subject of the Congo army, by delivering a speech in honour of a visiting Belgian ex-Prime Minister to the effect that the services of La Force Publique would come in very useful in the Middle East. The words were scarcely out of his mouth when they set off with all their vehicles to the field of operation, arriving there very reasonably intact, and, I suppose, justifying Jumbo Wilson’s oratory. However, if Clanwaert and I were thereby given something to laugh about, plenty of horrible matters were abroad too.

An announcement was made on the German radio, stating that at a place called Katyn, near the Russian town of Smolensk, an accumulation of communal graves had been found by advancing German troops. These graves were filled with corpses wearing Polish uniform. There were several thousands of bodies. The source of this information was naturally suspect, but, if in any degree to be believed, offered one solution to the mysterious disappearance of the untraced ten or fifteen thousand Polish officers, made prisoners of war by the Soviet army in 1939. ‘Rather a large deficiency’, as Q (Ops.) Colonel had remarked. The broadcast stated that individual bodies could be identified by papers carried on them, in some cases a tunic still bearing the actual insignia of a decoration, a practice of the Polish army in the case of operation awards. The hands had been tied together and a shot placed in the base of the skull. As a consequence of this radio announcement, the Polish Government in London approached the International Red Cross with a view to instituting an investigation. Exception was at once taken to this step by the USSR, relations with the Polish Government being immediately severed.

‘The show-down has come,’ said Pennistone.

The day this news was released, I went upstairs to see Finn about a rather complicated minute (to be signed by one of the Brigadiers) on the subject of redundant Czech army doctors being made available for seconding to the Royal Army Medical Corps. There had been difficulty about drafting satisfactory guarantees to make sure the Czechs, should they so require, would be able to recover the services of their MOs. Finn was in one of his unapproachable moods. The Russo-Polish situation had thoroughly upset him.

‘It’s a bad business,’ he kept repeating. ‘A bad business. I’ve got Bobrowski coming to see me this afternoon. What the hell am I to say?’

I tried to get the subject round to Czech medical matters and the views of the RAMC brasshats, but he told me to bring the matter up again that afternoon.

‘You’ve got to go over to the Cabinet Offices now,’ he said. ‘They’ve just rung through. Some Belgian papers they want us to see. Something about the King. Nothing of any great importance, I think, but graded “hand of officer”, and to be read by those in direct contact with the Belgians.’

The position of the King of the Belgians was delicate. Formally accepted as monarch of their country by the Belgian Government in exile, the royal portrait hanging in Kucherman’s office, King Leopold, rightly or wrongly, was not, officially speaking, very well looked on by ourselves. His circumstances had been made no easier by a second marriage disapproved by many of his subjects.

‘Have a look at this Belgian file before you bring it up,’ said Finn. ‘Do a note on it. Then we can discuss it after we’ve settled the Czech medicos. God, this Polish business.’

I went across to the Ministry of Defence right away. Finn had given the name of a lieutenant-colonel from whom the papers were to be acquired. After some search in the Secretariat, this officer was eventually traced in Widmerpool’s room. I arrived there a few minutes before one o’clock, and the morning meeting had begun to adjourn. If they were the same committee as that I had once myself attended, the individual members had all changed, though no doubt they represented the same ministries. The only one known to me was a figure remembered from early London days, Tompsitt, a Foreign Office protégé of Sir Gavin Walpole-Wilson’s. Sir Gavin himself had died the previous year. Obituaries, inevitably short in wartime, had none of them mentioned the South American misjudgment that had led to his retirement. His hopes in Tompsitt, untidy as ever and no less pleased with himself, seemed to have been realized, this job being presumably a respectable one for his age, if not particularly glamorous. Widmerpool, again in a good humour, made a facetious gesture of surprise on seeing me.

‘Nicholas? Good gracious me. What is it you want, do you say? Belgian papers? Do you know anything about this, Simon? You do? Then we must let him have them.’

Someone was sent to find the papers.

‘We finished early this morning,’ said Widmerpool. ‘An unheard of thing for us to do. I’m going to allow myself the luxury of lunching outside this building for once. So you’re looking after the Belgians now, are you, Nicholas? I thought it was the Poles.’

‘I’ve moved over.’

‘You must be glad.’

‘There were interesting sides.’

‘Just at this moment, I mean. You are well out of the Poles. They are rocking the boat in the most deplorable manner. Our own relations with the USSR are never exactly easy — then for the Poles to behave as they have done.’

The attention of the other civilian, who, with Tompsitt, had been attending the meeting, was caught by Widmerpool’s reproachful tone. He looked a rather younger version of our former housemaster, Le Bas, distinctly clerical, a thin severe overworked curate or schoolmaster.

‘One would really have thought someone at the top of the Polish set-up would have grasped this is not the time to make trouble,’ he said. ‘Your people must be pretty fed up, aren’t they, Tomp?’

Tompsitt shook back his unbrushed hair.

‘Fed to the teeth,’ he said. ‘Probably put everything back to scratch.’

‘All the same,’ said the sailor, ‘it looks a bit as if the Russkis did it.’

He was a heavily built man, with that totally anonymous personality achieved by certain naval officers, sometimes concealing unexpected abilities.

‘Not to be ruled out,’ said Tompsitt.

‘More information’s required.’

‘Doesn’t make it any better to fuss at this moment,’ said the curate-schoolmaster.

He stared angrily through his spectacles, his cheeks contorted. The soldier, youngish with a slight stutter, who looked like a Regular, shook his papers together and put them into a briefcase.

‘It’s quite a crowd,’ he said.

‘What are the actual figures?’ asked the sailor.

‘Been put as high as nine or ten thousand,’ said the airman.

He was a solid-looking middle-aged man with a lot of decorations, who had not spoken until then.

‘How would that compare with our own pre-war army establishment?’ asked the sailor. ‘Let me see, about …’

‘Say every third officer,’ said the soldier. ‘Quite a crowd, as I remarked. Say every third officer in our pre-war army.’

‘But it’s not pre-war,’ said Tompsitt. ‘It’s war.’

‘That’s the point,’ said Widmerpool. ‘It’s war. Just because these deaths are very upsetting to the Poles themselves — naturally enough, harrowing, tragic, there isn’t a word for it, I don’t want to underrate that for a moment — but just because of that, it’s no reason to undermine the fabric of our alliances against the Axis. Quarrels among the Allies themselves are not going to defeat the enemy.’

‘Even so, you can’t exactly blame them for making enquiries through the International Red Cross,’ the soldier insisted.

He began to move towards the door.

‘But I do blame them,’ said Tompsitt. ‘I blame them a great deal. Their people did not act at all circumspectly. The Russians were bound to behave as they did under the circumstances.’

‘Certainly hard to see what explanation they could give, if they did do it,’ said the airman. ‘ “Look here, old boy, we’ve shot these fellows of yours by accident” … Of course, it may turn out the Germans did it after all. They’re perfectly capable of it.’

Everyone agreed that fact was undeniable.

‘There’s quite a chance the Germans did,’ said the curate-schoolmaster hopefully.

‘In any case,’ said Widmerpool, ‘whatever materializes, even if it does transpire — which I sincerely trust it will not — that the Russians behaved in such a very regrettable manner, how can this country possibly raise official objection, in the interests of a few thousand Polish exiles, who, however worthy their cause, cannot properly handle their diplomatic relations, even with fellow Slavs? It must be confessed also that the Poles themselves are in a position to offer only a very modest contribution, when it comes to the question of manpower. How, as I say, can we approach our second most powerful Ally about something which, if a fact, cannot be put right, and is almost certainly, from what one knows of them, the consequence of administrative inadequacy, rather than wilful indifference to human life and the dictates of compassion? What we have to do is not to waste time and energy in considering the relative injustices war brings in its train, but to make sure we are going to win it.’

By this time the Belgian file had been found and handed over to me. The others, having settled to their own satisfaction the issues of the Russo-Polish difference, were now talking of luncheon. Tompsitt had begun telling the curate-schoolmaster about some scandal in diplomatic circles when he had been en poste in Caracas.

‘Going through the park, Michael?’ Widmerpool asked the sailor. ‘We might set off together if you can be seen walking with a Pongo.’

The sailor had an appointment in the other direction. I wondered whether in the access of self-abasement that seemed to have overcome him, Widmerpool would make a similar suggestion to the airman, referring to himself as a ‘brown job’. However, he required instead my own company. Tompsitt came to the climax of the anecdote which made his colleague suck in his thin lips appreciatively.

‘Of course he’s a Vichy man now,’ said Tompsitt.

‘Do French diplomats have mistresses?’

‘The Italians are worse,’ said Tompsitt pontifically.

‘Now then, you two, keep off the girls,’ said Widmerpool gaily. ‘Come on, Nicholas.’

‘I’ve got to take these papers back.’

‘You can cut through the Horse Guards.’

We ascended to ground level and set off through St James’s Park. The water had been drained from the lake to decrease identification from the air, leaving large dejected basins of clay-like soil. There were no ducks.

‘Rather ridiculous the way those two were talking about women,’ said Widmerpool. ‘You’d hardly believe how unsophisticated some of these Civil Servants are on such subjects, even senior ones, the Foreign Office as much as any, in spite of thinking so much of themselves. They like to behave as if they are a lot of duke’s nephews who’ve got there by aristocratic influence, whereas they’re simply a collection of perfectly ordinary middle-class examinees with rather less manners than most. “The Italians are worse!” Did you ever hear such a remark? I’ve known Tomp for a very long time, and he’s not a bad fellow, but lives in a very constricted social sphere.’

‘Who was the other?’

‘Some fellow from MEW,’ said Widmerpool. ‘No real experience of the world.’

There was something to be said for Widmerpool’s views, though there had been a time when he had argued the other way. This contempt for those uninstructed in moral licence was new too. It was the sort of subject he was inclined to avoid. His own sex life had always been rather a mystery. There was nothing so very unusual about that. Most people’s sex life is a mystery, especially that of individuals who seem to make most parade of it. Such is the conclusion one finally arrives at. All the same, Widmerpool had more than once shown himself an exceptional mixture of vehemence and ineptitude; the business of Gypsy Jones, for example, in his early days; then the disastrous engagement to Mrs Haycock or his romantic love for Barbara Goring. Few subjects are more fascinating than other people’s sexual habits from the outside; the tangled strands of appetite, tenderness, convenience or some hope of gain. In the light of what he had been saying, a direct question could sound not unreasonably inquisitive.

‘How do you organize that side of your own life these days?’

I did not feel absolutely at ease making this unconcealed attempt to satisfy curiosity, but, in supposing Widmerpool might be embarrassed, evasive or annoyed, I was wholly wrong. The enquiry delighted him. He clapped me on the back.

‘Plenty of pretty little bits in the black-out.’

‘Tarts?’

‘Of course.’

The solution was the same as Borrit’s. I remembered now that Widmerpool had commented favourably, years before, when I told him my own rooms in Shepherd Market were flanked by a large block of flats housing prostitutes. At the time, I had supposed that remark bombast on his part. Now, such a diagnosis seemed less positive. Perhaps, anyway in the course of the years, his remark, ‘How convenient’, had acquired a certain authenticity. One wondered what cumbersome burden of desire, satisfied or unsatisfied, possibly charged in its fulfilment with some elaborate order of ritual, Widmerpool carried round with him.

‘I suppose you have to be rather careful.’

It was a lame comment, which Widmerpool treated with the contempt it deserved.

‘I am careful,’ he said. ‘Is there anything about my life that would lead you to suppose I should not be careful? I believe in thinking things out. Arranging my life, but arranging it in such a way that I do not fall into a groove. By the way, there is a probability I shall go red in the near future.’

‘Go red?’

I had not the least idea what he meant. It seemed possible he might have returned to the subject of sexual habits, planning something in that line embarrassing even to himself.

‘Become a full colonel.’

He snapped the words out. Failure to recognize a colloquialism had irritated him. The phrase was peculiar to himself. Usually people spoke of a ‘red hat’ or ‘taking flannel’.

‘Only a tanner a day more in pay,’ he said, recovering his good humour, ‘but it’s the real jump in rank.’

It was no doubt specifically to inform me of this imminent promotion that he must have come out of the way across the Horse Guards Parade, I thought. By now we had nearly reached the arch leading into Whitehall. He suddenly lost his high spirits, sinking all at once to the depths of gloom, as I had known him do before, one of those changes of mood that would overcome him without warning.

‘You never know about promotion till it’s in the bag,’ he said. ‘There are occupational risks where I work. There are anywhere where you may find yourself in the CIGS’s entourage.’

‘Why him specially?’

‘He’s quite ruthless, if he doesn’t like the look of you. The other day he said, “I don’t want to see that officer again. I don’t like his face”. Perfectly good man, but they had to get rid of him.’

Widmerpool spoke with infinite dejection. I saw what he meant. Given the CIGS was easily irritated by the faces of staff-officers, Widmerpool’s, where survival was in question, was a bad bet, rather than a good one.

‘No use worrying,’ he said. ‘After all, I was not affected by all the trouble Liddament made.’

‘His Corps seem to have done well in the desert.’

‘No doubt Liddament has his points as a commander in the field. Unfortunately, I was blind to them when serving on the staff of his Division. Tell me — talking of those days made me think of Farebrother — had you left the Poles at the time of the Szymanski scandal?’

‘Yes.’

‘You heard Farebrother was largely responsible?’

‘That was being said.’

‘He’s been unstuck in consequence. Not without some action on my part.’

‘I didn’t know you were involved.’

‘I made it my business to be involved. Strictly between ourselves, the whole disgraceful affair was not unconnected with Prince Theodoric whom we saw at that musical performance the other night.’

‘Where does Theodoric come in?’

‘That is naturally secret, but I don’t mind telling you that the Prince is bringing a lot of pressure to bear one way and another.’

‘You mean from the Resistance point of view.’

‘I hold my own views on that subject,’ said Widmerpool. ‘I hear that young woman in red, whose name I asked, is said to be Theodoric’s mistress.’

‘That’s the gossip.’

‘I have little or no time for social life, but one keeps an eye on these things.’

A full colonel, wearing the red tabs with which Widmerpool himself hoped soon to be equipped, came out of a door under the arch and turned into Whitehall. Widmerpool pointed after him and laughed.

‘Did you see who that was?’ he asked. ‘I really strolled with you across here, out of my way, in case we might catch sight of him.’

‘Was it Hogbourne-Johnson?’

‘Relegated to the Training branch, where, if he’s not kicked out from there too, he will remain until the end of the war. The man who thought he was going to get a Division. Do you remember when he was so abominably rude to me?’

‘That balls-up about traffic circuits?’

‘It won’t be long now before I’m his equal in rank. I may find an opportunity to tell him some home truths, should our paths cross, though that’s unlikely enough. It’s only on the rarest occasions like today that I’m out of my office — and, after all, Hogbourne-Johnson’s a very unimportant cog in the machine.’

He nodded and began to move off. I saluted — the uniform, as one was always told, rather than the man — and took the Belgian documents back to our room.