The General

by C. S. Forester

  Curzon himself had small belief still in the theories of a long war to be conducted exclusively in trenches. That would leave such small scope for the kind of soldiering he appreciated that he simply could not believe in it. Even in the spring of 1915, when the line in France reeled under the blow dealt it at Ypres, he was in a fever of apprehension lest the Allied victory should come too quickly, before the Ninety-first Division could arrive to take its share of the glory. In March the first reports of the Battle of Neuve Chapelle were construed by him as indicating a great victory, the first step in the advance to Berlin, and he was left puzzled, even after the circulation of the War Office confidential memoranda on the battle, by the subsequent inactivity.

  He threw himself more ardently than ever into his duty of preparing the Ninety-first Division for active service. His brigadiers – Daunt and Challis and Webb – needed no goading. They were prepared to work until they dropped. The main part of Curzon’s work consisted in co-ordinating the activities of all the officers under him. It would have called for a Solomon to adjudicate between the conflicting claims put before him. Curzon was able to keep the peace not by the ingenuity or justice of his decisions, but solely by the strictness of the discipline maintained. There was no one who dared to dispute or evade his orders. He was the terror of the shirkers and of the wrigglers. His reputation as a relentless disciplinarian stood him in good stead, and after he had made an example of Colonel Ringer he had no more trouble with his subordinates.

  The paper work which all this involved was a sore trial to him. Despite the growth of the Headquarters Staff, of the introduction of clerks, of the multiplication of specialist officers, the office work which he personally had to attend to increased inordinately. His anxiety regarding his Division prevented him from delegating more of his authority than he was compelled to, and early morning and late night found him patiently reading courts martial records and confidential reports on junior officers. He signed no indents or statements which he had not read; he set himself painfully to learn all about the idiosyncrasies and strengths and weaknesses of every officer and unit with which he came in contact. He exercised his mind over the Rifles’ regrettable tendency to absence without leave, and the proneness of the Seventh (Service) Battalion of the Cumberland Light Infantry to acquire sore feet on route marches.

  It was his duty to make the Division efficient; that was why he slaved and toiled over the business. His desire for his own professional advancement, his anxiety to stand well in Emily’s eyes and in those of her family, were undoubtedly acute, but they were not the motives which guided him. He had been given a job of work to do, and he did it to the best of his ability, although the desk work made him thin and irritable and spoilt his digestion and his eyesight, and although he could never find time now to have all the exercise for which he craved.

  He usually had to leave Lady Emily to hunt by herself, or under the escort of either Greven or Follett, his aides-de-camp – there was a good deal of fox-hunting to be enjoyed, because various patriotic people had decided that hunting must go on, so that when the boys returned from the trenches they would find this essential characteristic of England still flourishing, while officers in England should be provided with sport; nor might foxes be allowed to diminish the food supply of England; nor might the breed of English horses, so essential in war-time, be allowed to decline; nor might the hunt servants be thrown out of employment – there were dozens of reasons put forward for the maintenance of fox-hunting besides the real one that the hunters did not believe a war to be nearly as serious as the suspension of fox-hunting. It was highly convenient for all concerned that their patriotic feelings should run so closely parallel to their own desires.

  Yet it is possible that fox-hunting played its part in welding the Ninety-first Division into a living, active whole, for every officer did his best to hunt, and the friendships formed in the hunting field may have influenced subsequent events in no-man’s-land. At any rate, the Major-General commanding the Division gave his approval and his blessing to fox-hunting, and when the season came to an end at the approach of summer he condoled with his wife on the subject. Emily looked at him a little queerly – they were dining, at the time, alone for once in the absence of any guests from the Division, but the parlourmaid was in the room and her presence caused Lady Emily not to say immediately what she was going to say. Later on, when they sat in the drawing-room with their coffee beside them, Emily reverted to the subject, nervously.

  ‘You were saying I must be sorry that hunting was coming to an end, Bertie,’ said Emily.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Curzon. ‘I always think it’s a pity.’

  ‘Well,’ said Emily, ‘it doesn’t matter to me now. I couldn’t go on hunting in any case.’

  Curzon looked across at Emily with surprise in his face. He had naturally, like any sane newly married man, thought occasionally of the possibility of his wife having a child, but now that she was trying to tell him about it that was the last idea to occur to him.

  ‘Why, m’dear,’ he asked, ‘is anything the matter?’

  ‘Not really the matter,’ said Emily. Her eyes were wide and she made herself meet Curzon’s glance without flinching.

  ‘But – but –’ said Curzon. ‘What is it, then?’

  Emily went on looking at him without speaking, and yet still he would not jump to the right conclusion. For a moment he was honestly worried lest Emily should have decided that fox-hunting was unpatriotic or cruel. And Emily was not at all deterred at the thought of saying she was pregnant (although that was not the word she would use). What was holding her back was the thought that after that announcement she would have to tell her husband her reasons for thinking herself to be in that condition, and that would involve discussion of matters she had never mentioned to any man at all, not even (as yet) to a doctor. Curzon and she had skated safely (only those of Victorian upbringing can guess how) during three months of married life over the thin ice of feminine weaknesses without crashing through into revelations.

  ‘But, my good girl,’ protested Curzon, and then the truth dawned upon him.

  ‘God bless my soul,’ said Curzon, his coffee cup clattering into its saucer. He grinned with surprised delight; already, in this his early middle-age, there was just noticeable the old-maidish quality about his smile which was later to become so pronounced.

  For some unaccountable reason Emily found tears in her eyes; they were soon rolling down her cheeks.

  ‘Oh, my dear, my darling,’ said Curzon, hurrying across the room to her. Words of endearment did not come too easily to him; in part that was because of lurking memories of having used them to Cissie Barnes. He patted her on the shoulder, and then, as that did not avail, he knelt in stiff dinner-jacketed awkwardness beside her in her low chair. Emily wiped her eyes and smiled at him, tear-dazzled.

  ‘You’re – you’re not sorry, m’dear, are you?’ said Curzon.

  ‘No,’ replied Emily boldly. ‘I’m glad. I’m glad.’

  ‘So am I,’ endorsed Curzon, and his imagination awoke.

  ‘My son. I shall have a son,’ he said. Mental pictures were steaming through his mind like a cinematograph – he thought of the boy at school; later on in Sandhurst uniform; he could picture all the triumphs which would come the boy’s way and which he would enjoy vicariously. As a young man he had envied the representatives of military families, with a long record of service from generation to generation. His son would be one of a military family now, General Curzon’s eldest boy, and after him there would be a long unbroken succession of military Curzons. It was as good to be an ancestor as to have ancestors.

  ‘He’ll be a fine little chap,’ said Curzon, gazing into the future.

  Emily was able to smile at the light in his face even though she had no intention of bringing a son into the world – her wish was for a daughter to whom she had already promised a childhood far happier than ever she had enjoyed.

  ‘Darling,’ she said to Curzon
, taking the lapels of his coat in her hands.

  ‘Darling,’ said Curzon to her, his face empurpling as he craned over his stiff collar to kiss her hands. He toppled forward against her, and her arms went round him, and his about her, and they kissed, and Emily’s cheek was wet against his, and Curzon’s eyes did not remain absolutely dry. Curzon went to bed that night without having read through the Deputy Judge Advocate-General’s comments on the conflicting evidence in the court martial on Sergeant-Major Robinson, accused of having been drunk on parade. But he got up early next morning to read them all the same.

  The news brought the Duke and Duchess swooping down upon the Priory despite the fact that the crisis in the Cabinet was at its height. Curzon found that his mother-in-law, while almost ignoring him as a mere male in this exclusively feminine business, had practically forgiven him for his obstinacy with regard to Horatio Winter-Willoughby – time, the finding of a new appointment for the young man, and Emily’s pregnancy had between them taken the sting out of her enmity. Yet she irritated Curzon inexpressibly by the way in which she took charge of Emily. Emily must leave this old-fashioned house at once, and come to London where the finest professional advice was to be obtained. She had already retained the services of Sir Trevor Choape for the event. Bude House would of course be open to Emily all this summer; Sir Trevor had recommended a nurse to whom she had written that very day. The child must have all the care a Winter deserved.

  At that even the Duke ventured a mild protest.

  ‘Hang it all, my dear,’ he said. ‘The child’s a Curzon, not a Winter, when all is said and done.’

  The Duchess only shot a glance of freezing contempt at him.

  ‘The child will be my grandchild, and yours,’ she said – but what she left unspoken about the infant’s other grandparents was far more weighty. The Duchess went on to declare, either expressly or by implication, her distrust of Curzon in a crisis of this sort, her doubts as to the suitability of Hampshire as a pre-natal environment, and her certainty of the undesirability of Narling Priory as a home for a pregnant woman. She made such skilful play with the most obvious points of her argument that it was difficult to pick up the weak ones. Narling Priory was a hideously old-fashioned house; it was lit by oil lamps and candles; it had only two bathrooms, and its hot-water system was a mid-Victorian relic in the last stages of senility. The Duchess did not say that it was indecent for a woman to be pregnant in a house half of which was occupied by a horde of staff officers, but she implied it. The nearest doctor of any reputation was at Petersfield or Southampton, miles away – the Duchess brushed aside Curzon’s tentative reminder that there were fifty regimental doctors within five miles.

  The Duchess had taken it for granted that they would take Emily back to London with them that very day, leaving Curzon to revert to his primitive bachelorhood; she was quite surprised when both Emily and Curzon protested against this separation. In the end they compromised on a decision that Emily was to return to London with them so as to keep the appointment with Sir Trevor, but was to come back to Narling Priory for as long as Sir Trevor gave permission.

  ‘As a matter of fact,’ said the Duke to Curzon, when Lady Emily and the Duchess had left them to themselves while they retired to discuss women’s secrets, ‘as a matter of fact, I suppose neither of us will be much surprised if Emily has to be put in charge of the Duchess and me quite soon.’

  He looked across at Curzon significantly, and Curzon was instantly all attention.

  ‘You haven’t heard anything about going to France?’ went on the Duke.

  ‘No,’ said Curzon. ‘Nothing more than rumours.’

  ‘I don’t know what’s been settled about your Division,’ went on the Duke, ‘even although I am in office again. I don’t hear everything, you know.’

  ‘Have any new formations gone to France already, then?’ demanded Curzon, sick at heart.

  ‘Yes,’ said the Duke. ‘Two divisions went this week. There’s no harm in your knowing, after all. There are two more earmarked for the Mediterranean too – I don’t know which. The news will be public property in a week.’

  Curzon sat tugging at his moustache. He knew how rapidly the Army had expanded. There were fifteen divisions in England which had been created after the Ninety-first. In France the expansion, thanks to the arrival of the Indian Corps and other units, had been such that a new sub-division of a nature never previously contemplated had been devised – the Expeditionary Force was divided into three armies now, each comprising several army corps. After his flying start he was being left behind again in the race for promotion. He was shocked to hear that other new divisions had preceded his to France. He had not the least wish to be ordered to the Mediterranean – and in that he displayed intuition, even though the Dardanelles landing had not yet taken place. The whole opinion of the Army, expressed in all the discussions in which he had taken part, was emphatically that France was the decisive area. It was in France that glory and promotion, therefore, were to be won. It was essential to his career that the Ninety-first Division should be dispatched to France, and quickly.

  ‘There’s a good deal of talk,’ went on the Duke, ‘about a big offensive soon. One that will win the war at a blow. They’ve got to accumulate a big reserve of munitions, and have all the available troops to hand first, of course, but I don’t think it will be long. Everbody’s talking about it in London, especially the women, though God knows how these things leak out.’

  This final speech made up Curzon’s mind for him definitely. The Ninety-first Division must take part in this knock-out blow. Something very decided must be done to ensure that.

  ‘Do you know,’ said Curzon meditatively, ‘I think I’ll come back to town with you to-night, as well? You don’t mind, do you?’

  ‘Of course not, my dear fellow,’ said the Duke. ‘Of course, we shall have to be starting soon.’

  ‘I shall be ready when you are,’ said Curzon, getting out of his chair with astonishing rapidity. His mind was already racing through the programme he had planned with his staff for the morrow, and devising means whereby it could be carried through without his presence.

  ‘I’ll just go through and give orders to my staff, if you will excuse me,’ said Curzon.

  ‘Of course,’ said the Duke once more, and, left alone, he gazed into the fire and called up memories of his own prospective fatherhood, and how jumpy he had been, and how unwilling he would have been to allow his wife out of his sight for twenty-four hours. It did not occur to the Duke that Curzon’s decision to travel to London was not influenced by his wife’s condition, but was simply caused by the gossip he had been retailing about the military situation.

  Chapter Fifteen

  A deferential staff-captain came quietly into Major-General Mackenzie’s room at the War Office – there was a notice on the door saying, ‘Don’t knock’.

  ‘It’s General Curzon speaking on the telephone, sir,’ said the captain. ‘He says he would be glad if you could spare the time to see him for a few minutes to-day.’

  ‘Oh, hell,’ said Mackenzie irritably. ‘Tell him I’m just off to York on a tour of inspection.’

  Two minutes later the captain was back again.

  ‘General Curzon says it is a matter of great importance, and he would be very much obliged if you would see him before you go to York.’

  ‘Blast the man,’ said Mackenzie.

  ‘He said that he was only in town for to-day, and must return to his division to-night, sir. But he asked me to tell you that he was lunching with the Duke of Bude and that it would be more convenient if he could see you first.’

  ‘Damn his eyes,’ said Mackenzie. ‘Oh, all right. Tell him to come round now. Have him sent straight in.’

  Despite the language Mackenzie had used about him, there was cordiality in his reception of Curzon, in his offering of a chair and a cigar. Curzon smoked and waited for Mackenzie to open the conversation.

  ‘Well,’ said Mackenzie, ‘what do
you want this time?’

  Curzon pulled at his cigar. He was doing his best to keep himself calm and well in hand while playing this unaccustomed game of diplomacy.

  ‘I want,’ he said eventually, ‘orders for France.’

  ‘For France?’

  ‘Yes, for me and my division.’

  ‘The hell you do,’ said Mackenzie. ‘Who’s been talking?’

  Curzon said nothing in reply to that; he judged that in his case silence would be more effective than speech.

  ‘It’s blasted impertinence on your part,’ said Mackenzie, ‘to come in like this asking for the earth. You’re a temporary major-general, but you’re only a substantive major. It wouldn’t be hard to gazette you back to your substantive rank.’

  Curzon had faced this possibility; he was well aware of the risk he was running, but the prize before him was worth the risk. He pulled at his cigar while weighing his words.

  ‘I dare say,’ he said, ‘but I was hoping you wouldn’t do that.’

  Curzon’s mind was seething with memories, despite his outward calm. He remembered Mackenzie’s words on his appointment to his division: ‘The closer you and I stay by each other, the better it will be for both of us.’ That necessarily implied that Mackenzie credited him with the ability to do him harm if he wanted to. There was that question the Duke had asked only a short time ago, about whether Mackenzie was ‘any good’. That had been more than a hint that the Duke could influence Mackenzie’s dismissal from office. There had been Mackenzie’s pliability with regard to special issues for the Ninety-first Division in the early winter days. That had not been a matter of any great importance, but it constituted good confirmatory evidence.

  ‘You’re asking for trouble, you know,’ said Mackenzie, with a warning note in his voice.

  ‘What, in asking to go to France?’ said Curzon.

  ‘Your division’s told off to join Hamilton’s command in the Mediterranean, and you know it,’ said Mackenzie. Curzon judged it best not to say he did not know it. ‘How it’s got out I can’t imagine. These bloody women, I suppose. Of course you don’t want to go there. Of course you want to go to France. So does everybody else. D’you think I’m going to listen to every little poop of a temporary major-general who doesn’t want to do what he’s told? You’d have had your orders next week, and you’d have been out of England in three shakes of a duck’s tail where you couldn’t have made this fuss. Somebody’s got to go, haven’t they? Don’t you start thinking I’m in love with this Constantinople idea, because I’m not. It hurts me just as much to have to find troops for it as it does you to go. But I’ve got my duty to do, the same as the rest of us.’