“I don’t mean —”
“Between you and me, Nick, I think I have it in me to make a first-class Mess waiter. The talent is there. It’s just a question of developing latent ability. I never dreamed I possessed such potentialities. It’s been marvellous to release them.”
“I know, but —”
“You don’t like my style? You feel I lack polish?”
“I wasn’t —”
“After all, you must agree it’s preferable to hand Captain Biggs his food, and retire to the kitchen with Lance-Corporal Gwither, rather than sit with the Captain throughout the meal, to have to watch him masticate, day in day out. Gwither, on the other hand, is a delightful companion. He was a plasterer’s mate before he joined the army, and, whatever Captain Biggs may say to the contrary, is rapidly learning to cook as an alternative. In addition to that, Nick, I understand you yourself work for our old schoolmate, Widmerpool. You’re not going to try and swop jobs, are you? If so, it isn’t on. How did your Widmerpool connection come about, anyway?”
I explained my transference from battalion to Div. H.Q. had been the result of Widmerpool applying for me by name as his assistant. Stringham listened, laughing from time to time.
“Look, Charles, let’s fix up dinner one night. A Saturday, preferably, when most of the stuff at the D.A.A.G.’s office has been cleared up after the week’s exercise. We’ve a mass of things to talk about.”
“My dear boy, are you forgetting our difference in rank?”
“No one bothers about that off duty. How could they? London restaurants are packed with officers and Other Ranks at the same table. Life would be impossible otherwise. My own brothers-in-law, for example, range from George, a major, to Hugo, a lance-bombardier. We needn’t dine at the big hotel, such as it is, if you prefer a quieter place.”
“I didn’t really mean that, Nick. I know perfectly well, in practice, we could dine together – even though you would probably have to pay, as I’m not particularly flush at the moment. It isn’t that. I just don’t feel like it. Dining with you would spoil the rhythm so far as I’m concerned. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m actively enjoying what I’m doing at the moment – but then how little of one’s life has ever been actively enjoyable. At the same time, what I’m doing is what I’ve chosen to do. Even what I want to do, if it comes to that. Up to a point it suits me. I’ve become awfully odd these days. Perhaps I always was odd. Anyway, that’s beside the point. How I drone on about myself. Talking of your relations, though, I heard your brother-in-law, Robert Tolland, was killed.”
“Poor Robert. In the fighting round the Channel ports.”
“Awfully chic to be killed.”
“I suppose so.”
“Oh, yes, of course. You can’t beat it. Smart as hell. Fell in action. I’m always struck by that phrase. Seems absolutely no chance of action here, unless Captain Biggs draws a gun on me for handing him the brussels sprouts the wrong side, or spilling gravy on diat bald head of his. You know Robert Tolland was running round with my sister, Flavia, before he went to France and his doom. You never met Flavia, did you?”
“Saw her and Robert together when I was on leave last year.
“Flavia never has any luck with husbands and lovers. Think of being married to Cosmo Flitton and Harrison Wisebite in quick succession. Why, I’d make a better husband myself. No doubt you heard at the same time that my mother’s parted company with Buster Foxe. She’s having money troubles at the moment. One of the reasons why Buster packed up. I’m feeling the draught myself. Decided shortage of ready cash. My father left what halfpence he had to that French wife of his, supposing, quite mistakenly, Mama would always be in a position to shell out.”
“Your mother’s at Glimber?”
“Good God, no. Glimber has some ministry evacuated there, so that’s one problem off her hands. She’s living in a labourer’s cottage near a camp in Essex to be near Norman – you remember, her little dancer. At one moment she was getting up at half-past five every morning to cook his breakfast. There’s devotion for you. Norman’s going to an O.CT.U. Won’t he look wonderful in a Sam Browne belt – that waist. Of course by the nature of things he can only be a son to her – a better son than her own, I fear – and in any case living with Norman in a cottage must be infinitely preferable to Buster in a castle, even allowing for the early rising. How sententious one gets. Just the sort of conclusion Tennyson was always coming to. You know, talking of the Victorians, I’ve taken to reading Browning.”
“Our General reads Trollope – the Victorians are obviously the fashion in this Division.”
“It was Tuffy who started me off on him. Rather a surprising taste for her in a way. You remember Tuffy? Nick, you make me talk of old times.”
“Miss Weedon – of course.”
‘Tuffy cured me of the booze. Then, having done that, she got bored with me. I see the point, there was nothing more to do. I mean I was going to prove absolutely impossible to set up as a serious member of civilised society. Stopping drinking alone was sufficient to ensure that. Even I myself grasped I’d become the most desperate of bores by being permanently sober. Then the war came along and I began to develop all sorts of martial ambitions. Tuffy didn’t really approve of them, although the fact they were even within the bounds of possibility so far as I was concerned was a considerable tribute to herself. She saw, all the same, one way or another, I was going to escape her clutches. The long and the short of it was, I entered the army, while Tuffy married an octogenarian – perhaps by now even nonagenarian – general. Just the age when you get into your stride as a soldier. They’ll probably appoint him C.I.G.S.”
“You’re out of touch. Generals are frightfully young nowadays. Widmerpool will be one at any moment. Anyway, they might do worse than employ General Conyers. I’ve known him for years.”
“My dear Nick, you know everybody. Not a social item escapes you. I myself can no longer keep up with births, marriages and deaths – well, deaths now and then perhaps, but not births and marriages. That’s why being in the ranks suits me. No strain in that particular respect. Nobody asks you if you read in this morning’s Times that so-and-so’s engaged or somebody else is getting a divorce. All that had begun to get me down for some reason. Make me tired. Anyway, to hark back to the long and wearisome story of my own life, the point was that Tuffy, like everyone else, had had enough of me. She wanted another sphere in which to exercise her tireless remedial activities. That was why I took the shilling:
I ’listed at home for a lancer,
Oh who would not sleep with the brave?
I am not, as your familiarity with military insignia will already have proclaimed, strictly speaking a lancer – just as well, for these days I couldn’t possibly take part in those musical rides lancers are always performing at the Military Tournament and places like that … haven’t sat on a horse for years …”
Stringham paused a moment, beginning now to hum a bar or two of a jerky tune, the sort to which riders at a Horse Show might canter round the paddock.
“So-let-each-cavalier-who-loves-honour-and-me
Come-follow-the-bonnets-of-Bonny-Dundee …”
He curled his wrists slightly, lifting them in the air as if holding reins. He seemed far away, to have forgotten completely that we were talking. I wondered how sane he remained. Then he came suddenly back to himself.
“… What was I saying? Oh, yes, A. E. Housman, of course … not my favourite poet, as a matter of fact, but that was just what happened … though I hasten to add I sleep with the brave only in the sense of dormitory accommodation. To tell the truth, Nick, I had the greatest difficulty in extracting the metaphorical shilling from an equally metaphorical Recruiting Sergeant. No magnificent figure with a bunch of ribbons in his cap, but several rather seedy characters in a stuffy office drinking cups of tea. Even so, they wouldn’t look at me when I first breezed in. Then the war took a turn for the worse, in Norway and elsewhere, and they saw they’d need S
tringham after all. One of the reasons I left the R.A.O.C. is that they have a peculiarly trying warrant rank called Conductor – just as if you were on a bus – so I made the exchange I spoke of. What a fascinating place the army is. Before I joined, I thought all you had to do when you fired a rifle was to get your eye and the sights and the target all in one line and then blaze away. The army has produced a whole book about it, a fat little volume. But my egotism is insufferable, Nick. Tell me about yourself. What have you been doing? How are you reacting to it all? You look a trifle harassed, if I may say so. Not surprising, working with Widmerpool.”
Stringham himself looked ill, though not in the least harassed.
“On top of everything else,” he said, “one’s getting frightfully old. Do you think I shall qualify as a Chelsea pensioner after the war? I’d like one of those red frockcoats, though I’ve never cared for Chelsea as a neighbourhood. No leanings whatever towards bohemian life. However, one may come to both before one’s finished – residence in Chelsea and a bohemian to boot. You know I’ve been thinking a lot about myself lately, when scrubbing the floors and that sort of thing – an activity for some reason I often find myself quite enjoying – and I’ve come to the conclusion I’m narcissistic, mad about myself. That’s why my marriage went wrong. I really was awfully glad when it was over.”
“Do you do anything about girls now?”
“Seem to have lost all interest. Isn’t that strange? You know how it is. My great amusement now is trying to get things straight in my own mind. That takes me all my time, as you can imagine. The more I think, the less I know. Funny, isn’t it? Talking of girls, what happened to our old pal, Peter Templer? Do you remember how he used to go on about girls?”
“Peter’s said to have some government job to do with finance.”
“Not in the army?”
“Not as far as I know.”
“How like Peter. Always full of good sense, in his own way, though many people never guessed that at first. Married?”
“First wife ran away – second one, he appears to have driven mad.”
“Has he?” said Stringham. “Well, I daresay I might have driven Peggy mad, had we not gone our separate ways. Talking of separate ways, I’ll have to be getting back to my cosy barrack-room, or I’ll be on a charge. It’s late.”
“Won’t you really dine one night?”
“No, Nick, no. Better not, on the whole. I won’t salute, if you’ll forgive such informality, as no one seems to be about. Nice to have had a talk.”
He moved away before there was time even to say good night, walking quickly up the path leading to the main thoroughfare. I followed at less speed. By the time I reached the road at the top of the alley, Stringham was already out of sight in the gloom. I turned again in the direction of F Mess. This reunion with an old friend had been the reverse of enjoyable, indeed upsetting, painful to a degree. I tried to imagine what Stringham’s present existence must be like, but could reconstruct in the mind only superficial aspects, those which least disturbed, probably even stimulated him. I felt more than ever glad a week’s leave lay ahead of me, one of those curious escapes that in wartime punctuate army life, far more than a ‘holiday,” comparable rather with brief and magical entries into another incarnation.
Widmeroool did not like anyone going on leave, least of all his own subordinates. In justice to this attitude, he appeared to treat his own leaves chiefly as opportunities for extending freedom of contact with persons who might further his military career, working scarcely less industriously than when on duty. I should be in no position to criticise him in that respect, if General Liddament fulfilled his promise in relation to this particular leave, during which I too hoped to better my own condition. However, it was probable the General had forgotten about his remarks during the exercise. The tactical upheaval which immediately followed our talk would certainly have justified that. I had begun to wonder whether I ought to remind him, and, if so, how this should be effected. However, by the morning after the encounter with Stringham, I had still taken no step in that direction; nor had I mentioned the meeting to Widmerpool, who was, as it happened, in a peevish mood.
“When do you begin this leave of yours?” he asked.
“To-morrow.”
“I thought it was the day after.”
“To-morrow.”
“If you see your relations, the Jeavonses, it’s as well for you to know their sister-in-law staying as a paying guest in my mother’s cottage wasn’t a success. My mother decided she’d rather have evacuees.”
“Has she got evacuees?”
“She had some for a short time,” said Widmerpool, “then they went back to London. They were absolutely ungrateful.”
He talked of his mother less than formerly, even giving an impression from time to time that Mrs. Widmerpool’s problems had begun to irritate him, that he felt she was becoming a millstone round his neck. Widmerpool had been on edge for several days past owing to the Diplock affair turning out to be so much more complicated than appeared on first examination. Diplock had brought all his own notable powers of causing confusion to bear, darkening the waters round him like a cuttlefish, so that evidence was hard to collect. Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson, for his part, made no secret of regarding Widmerpool’s attempted impeachment of his chief clerk as nothing more nor less than a personal attack on himself. Indeed, Widmerpool could not have hit on a more wounding method of revenging himself on the Colonel, if his suspicions about Diplock were in due course to be substantiated. On the other hand, there was likely to be trouble if nothing more could be proved than that Diplock had been in the habit of keeping rather muddled accounts. Greening, the General’s A.D.C., came into the D.A.A.G.’s room at that moment. He handed me a small slip of paper.
“His Nibs says you know about this,” he said.
Greening, although he blushed easily, was otherwise totally unselfconscious. He was inclined to express himself in a curious, outdated schoolboy slang that sounded as if it had been picked up from some favourite book in childhood. Probably this habit appealed to General Liddament’s taste for a touch of the exotic in his entourage. He may even have encouraged Greening in vagaries of speech, an extension of his own Old English. The piece of paper was inscribed with the typewritten words “Major L. Finn, V.C.,” followed by the name of a Territorial regiment and a telephone number. I saw I had underrated General Liddament’s capacity for detail.
“Not much he forgets about,” said Greening, with artless curiosity. “What is it?”
A.D.C.s are a category of officer usually disparaged in Popular scrutiny of military matters. On the whole, they are no worse than most, better than many; while the job they do is the best possible training, if they are likely to rise in the world. Greening was, of course, not the sort likely to rise very far. “Just a message to be delivered in London.” Widmerpool looked up from the file in which he was writing away busily. “What is that?”
“Something for the General.”
“What are you to do?”
“Telephone this officer.”
“What officer?”
“A Major Finn.”
“And say what?”
“Give him the General’s compliments.”
“Nothing else?”
“See what he says.”
“Sounds odd.”
“That’s what the General said.”
“Let me see.”
I handed him the paper.
“Finn?” he said. “It’s a Whitehall number.”
“So I see.”
“A V.C.’
“Yes.”
“I seem to know the name – Finn. Sure I know it. When did the General tell you to do this?”
“On the last Command exercise.”
“At what moment?”
“After dinner on the last night.”
“Did he say anything else?”
“He talked about Trollope – and Balzac.”
“The authors?”
I was tempted to reply, “No – the generals,” but discretion prevailed.
“You seem to be on very intimate terms with our Divisional Commander,” said Widmerpool sourly. “Well, let me tell you that you will return from leave to find a pile of work. Are you waiting for something, Greening?”
“The General bade me discourse fair words to you, sir, anent traffic circuits.”
“What the hell do you mean?”
“I don’t know, sir,” said Greening. ‘That’s exactly how the General put it.”
Widmerpool did not answer. Greening went away. He was one of the most agreeable officers at those Headquarters. I never saw him much except on exercises. Towards the end of the war, I heard, in a roundabout way, that, after return to his regiment, he had been badly wounded at Anzio as a company commander and – so my informant thought – might have died in hospital.
TWO
Sullen reverberations of one kind or another – blitz in England, withdrawal in Greece – had been providing the most recent noises-off in rehearsals that never seemed to end, breeding a wish that the billed performance would at last ring up its curtain, whatever form that took. However, the date of the opening night rested in hands other than our own; meanwhile nobody could doubt that more rehearsing, plenty more rehearsing, was going to be needed for a long time to come. Although these might be dispiriting thoughts, an overwhelming sense of content descended as the train reached the outskirts of London. Spring seas had been rough the night before, the railway carriage as usual overcrowded, while we threaded a sluggish passage through blackness towards the south; from time to time entering – pausing in – then vacating – areas where air-raid warnings prevailed. Viewed from the windows of the train, the deserted highways and gutted buildings of outlying districts created to the eye the semblance of an abandoned city. Nevertheless, I felt full of hope.
London contacts had to be sorted out. A letter from Chips Lovell, received only the day before, complicated an arrangement to dine with Moreland that evening. Lovell had heard I was coming on leave, and wanted to talk about “family affairs.” That was a motive reasonable enough in principle; in practice, a disturbing phrase, when considered in relation to rumoured “trouble” with Priscilla. Lovell was a Marine. He had been commissioned into the Corps at the time of its big expansion at the beginning of ^e war, soon after this being posted to a station on the East Coast. Evidently he had moved from there, because he gave a London telephone exchange (with extension) to find him, though no indication of what his new employment might be.
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