The Soldier's Art

by Anthony Powell

  Widmerpool could not have been pleased to hear that Farebrother was about to become a lieutenant-colonel, while he himself, however briefly, remained a major. Indeed, it probably irritated him that Farebrother should be promoted at all. At the same time, a display of self-control rare with him, he contrived to show no concern, his manner being even reasonably congratulatory. This was no doubt partly on account of the satisfactory nature of his own promised change of employment, but, as he revealed on a later occasion, also because of the low esteem in which he held the organisation which Farebrother was about to join.

  “A lot of scallywags, in my opinion,” he said later.

  Farebrother was certainly acute enough to survey their respective future situations from much the same point of view, that is to say appreciating the fact that, although he might himself be now ahead, Widmerpool’s potentialities for satisfying ambition must be agreed to enjoy a wider scope. Indeed, in a word or two, he openly expressed some such conclusion. Farebrother could afford this generosity, because, as it turned out, he had another trick up his sleeve. He brought this trump card out only after they had talked for a minute or two about their new jobs. Farebrother opened his attack by abruptly swinging the subject away from their own personal affairs.

  “You’ve been notified Ivo Deanery’s going to get the Recce Unit?” he asked suddenly.

  Widmerpool was taken aback by this question. He began to look angry again.

  “Never heard of him,” he said.

  The answer sounded as if it were intended chiefly to gain time.

  “Recently adjutant to my Yeomen,” said Farebrother. “As lively a customer as you would meet in a day’s march. Got an M.C. in Palestine just before the war.”

  Widmerpool was silent. He did not show any interest at all in Ivo Deanery’s juvenile feats of daring, whatever they might have been. I supposed he did not want to admit to Farebrother that he himself had been running a candidate for the Recce Unit’s Commanding Officer; and that candidate, from what had been said, must have been unsuccessful.

  “Knew you were interested in the Recce Regiment command,” said Farebrother, speaking very casually.

  “Naturally.”

  “I mean specially interested.”

  “There was nothing special about it,” said Widmerpool.

  “Oh, I understand there was,” said Farebrother, assuming at once a puzzled expression, as if greatly worried at Widmerpool’s denial of special interest. “In fact that was the chief reason I came round to see you.”

  “Look here,” said Widmerpool, “I don’t know what you’re getting at, Sunny. How could you be D.A.A.G. of a formation and not take a keen interest in who’s appointed to command its units?”

  He was gradually losing his temper.

  “The M.G.A. thinks you were a bit too interested,” said Farebrother, speaking now with exaggerated sadness. “Old boy, there’s going to be the hell of a row. You’ve put your foot in it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Widmerpool was thoroughly disturbed now, frightened enough to control his anger. Farebrother looked interrogatively at me, then his eyes travelled back to Widmerpool. He raised his eyebrows. Widmerpool shook his head vigorously.

  “Say anything you like in front of him,” he said. “He knows I had a name in mind for the Recce Unit command. Nothing wrong with that. Naturally I regret my chap hasn’t got it. That’s all there is to it. What’s the M.G.A. beefing about?”

  Farebrother too shook his head, but slowly and more lugubriously than ever.

  “I understand from the M.G.A. that you were in touch with him personally not long ago about certain matters with which I myself was concerned.”

  Widmerpool went very red.

  “I think I know what you mean,” he said, “but they were just as much my concern as yours.”

  “Wouldn’t it have been better form, old boy, to have mentioned to me you were going to see him?”

  “I saw no cause to do so,”

  Widmerpool was not at all at ease.

  “Anyway,” said Farebrother mildly, “the M.G.A., rightly or wrongly, feels you misled him about various scraps of unofficial information you tendered, especially as he had no idea at the time that you were pressing in other quarters for a certain officer to be appointed to a command then still vacant.”

  “How did he find that out?”

  “I told him,” said Farebrother, simply.

  “But look here …” said Widmerpool.

  He was too furious to finish the sentence.

  “The long and the short of it was the M.G.A. said he was going to get in touch with your General about the whole matter.”

  “But I behaved in no way incorrectly,” said WidmerpooL “There is not the smallest reason to suggest…”

  “Believe me, Kenneth, I’m absolutely confident you did nothing to which official exception could possibly be taken,” said Farebrother. “On my heart. That’s why I thought it best to put my own cards on the table. The M.G.A. is sometimes hasty. As you know well, amateur soldiers like you and me tend to go about our business in rather a different way from the routine a Regular gets accustomed to. We like to get things done expeditiously. I just thought it was a pity myself you went and told the M.G.A. all those things about me. That was why I decided he ought to know more about you and your own activities. I’m sure everything will be all right in the end, but I believed it right to warn you – as I was coming to say good-bye anyway – simply that my General might be getting in touch with your General about all this.”

  Farebrother’s quiet, reassuring tone did not at all soothe Widmerpool, who now looked more disturbed than ever. Farebrother rose to his feet. He squared his shoulders and smiled kindly, pleased, as well he might be, with the devastation his few minutes’ conversation had brought about in the promotion of Widmerpool’s plans. In his own way, as I learnt later, Farebrother was an efficient operator when he wanted something done; very efficient indeed. Widmerpool had made a mistake in trying to double-cross him in whatever matter the visit to the M.G.A. had concerned. He should have guessed that Farebrother, sooner or later, would find out. Perhaps he had disregarded that possibility, ruling out the risk of Farebrother turning to a formidable weapon at hand. However, with characteristic realism, Widmerpool grasped that something must be done quickly, if trouble, by now probably inevitable, was to be reduced in magnitude. He was not going to waste time in recrimination.

  “I’ll come with you to the door, Sunny,” he said. “I can explain all that business about going to the M.G.A. It wasn’t really aimed at you at all, though now I see it must look like that.”

  Farebrother turned towards me. He gave a nod.

  “Good-bye, Nicholas.”

  “Good-bye, sir.”

  They left the room together. The situation facing Widmerpool might be disagreeable, almost certainly was going to be. One thing at least was certain: whomsoever he had been trying to jockey into the position of commanding the Recce Unit would have done the job as well, if not better, than anyone else likely to be appointed. Widmerpool’s candidate – if only for Widmerpool’s own purposes – would, from no aspect, turn out unsuitable. If his claims were pressed by Widmerpool, he would be a first-class officer, not a personal friend whose competence was no more than adequate. That had to be said in fairness to Widmerpool methods, though I had no cause to like them. So far as that went, Farebrother’s man, Ivo Deanery, as it turned out, made a good job of the command too. He led the Divisional Recce Corps, with a great deal of dash, until within a few days of the German surrender; then was blown up when his jeep drove over a landmine. However, that is equally by the way. The immediate point was that Widmerpool, even if his machinations had not actually transgressed beyond what were to be regarded as the frontiers of discipline, could, at the same time, well have allowed himself liberties with the established scope permissible to an officer of his modest rank, which, if brought to light, would seriously affront higher authority. Probably
his original contact with the Major-General at Corps had been on the subject of a petty contention with Farebrother; something better not arranged – certainly better not arranged behind Farebrother’s back; at the same time trivial enough. Widmerpool had no scruples about conduct of that sort.

  “No good being too gentlemanly,” he had once said.

  The next stage might be guessed. Having gained access to the M.G.A. on this pretext, opportunity had been found to link the subject in hand with matters relating to the Recce Unit. Possibly the M.G.A. was even glad to be provided with one or other of those useful items of miscellaneous private information which Widmerpool was so pre-eminent in storing up his sleeve for use at just that sort of interview. Then, so it seemed, something had gone wrong. The M.G.A. had allowed Farebrother to find out, or at least make a good guess, that Widmerpool had been brewing up trouble for him. Like so many individuals who believe in being “ungentlemanly”, Widmerpool did not allow sufficiently for the eventuality of other people practising the same doctrine. Indeed, he used to complain bitterly if they did. Farebrother was an example of a man equally unprejudiced by scruple. No doubt he had pointed out to the M.G.A. that Widmerpool’s suggested line included contrivances that, when examined in the light of day, revealed – perhaps only to an over-fastidious sense of how things should be done – shreds of what might be regarded as the impertinent intrigue of a junior officer. That, at least, seemed to have been just how the M.G.A. had seen the matter. He had become angry. Now, as Farebrother said, there was going to be the hell of a row; this at a most awkward juncture in Widmerpool’s career. He was evidently having a longish talk with Farebrother on the doorstep. Before he returned Greening looked in.

  “D.A.A.G. about?”

  “Just gone down the stairs to have a final word with his opposite number from Command. He’ll be back in a second.”

  “His Nibs wants Major Widmerpool at once.”

  “Shall I tell him?”

  “I’ll wait. His Nibs is far from pleased. Absolutely cheesed off, in fact. I don’t dare go back without my man – like the North-West Mounted Police.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “No idea.”

  It looked as if the trouble in question was about to begin. Greening and I had a game of noughts and crosses. Widmerpool returned. Greening delivered his summons. Widmerpool, who was looking worried already, gave a slight twitch, but made no comment. He and Greening went off together in the direction of the General’s room. In the army, long tracts of time when nothing whatever seems to happen are punctuated by sudden unexpected periods of upheaval and change. That is traditional. We had been all at once sucked into one of those whirlpools. Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson was the next person to enter the room. This was a rare occurrence, of which the most likely implication was that some sudden uncontrollable rage was too great to allow him to remain inactive while Widmerpool was summoned by telephone to his own presence. He must have come charging up the passage to prevent it boiling over without release, thereby perhaps doing him some internal injury. However, that turned out to be a wrong guess. The Colonel was, on the contrary, in an unusually good humour.

  “Where’s the D.A.A.G.?”

  “With the Divisional Commander, sir.”

  Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson took the chair on which Farebrother had been sitting a moment before. To remain was as unexpected as arrival here. There could be no doubt he was specially pleased about something. It might well be he already knew Widmerpool was in hot water. He pulled at his short, bristly, dun-coloured moustache.

  “Aren’t you some sort of a literary bloke in civilian life?” he asked.

  I agreed that was the case.

  “The General said something of the kind the other day.”

  Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson emitted that curious sound, a kind of hissing gulp issuing from the corner of his mouth, after this comment, apparently, on this occasion, to express the ease he himself felt in the presence of the arts.

  “I once wrote rather a good parody myself,” he said.

  “You did, sir?”

  “On Omar Khayyám.”

  I indicated respectful interest.

  “Quite amusing, it was,” said Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson, without apology.

  I was about to entreat him to recite, if not all, at least a few quatrains of what promised to be an essay in pastiche well worth hearing, when Widmerpool’s return prevented further exploration of the Colonel’s Muse.

  “Ah, Kenneth,” said Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson, assuming his most unctuous manner, “I was hoping you would spare me a moment of your valuable time,”

  Widmerpool looked even less pleased to see Hogbourne-Johnson than at Farebrother’s visit. He was by now showing a good deal of wear and tear from the blows raining down on him.

  “Yes, sir?” he answered tonelessly.

  “Mr. Diplock …” said Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson. “No, you need not go, Nicholas.”

  He sat on the chair banging his knees with his clenched fists, taking his time about what he wanted to say. It looked as if he desired a witness to be present at what was to be his humiliation of Widmerpool over the Diplock affair. Use of my own christian name indicated an exceptionally good humour.

  “Yes, sir?” repeated Widmerpool.

  “I’m afraid you’re going to be proved to have made a big mistake, my son,” said Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson.

  He snapped the words out like an order on the parade ground. Widmerpool did not speak.

  “Barking up the wrong tree,” said Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson.

  Widmerpool pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows. Even in the despondent state to which he had been reduced, he was still capable of anger.

  “You brought a series of accusations against an old and tried soldier,” said Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson, “by doing so causing a great deal of unpleasantness, administrative dislocation and unnecessary work.”

  Widmerpool began to speak, but the Colonel cut him short.

  “I had a long talk with Diplock yesterday,” he said, “and I am now satisfied he can clear himself completely. With that end in view, I sanctioned a day’s leave for him to collect certain evidences. Now, I understand you may be leaving us?”

  “I …”

  Widmerpool hesitated. Then he pulled himself together.

  “Yes, sir,” he said. “I’m certainly leaving the Division.”

  “Before you go,” said Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson, “I consider it will be necessary for you to make an apology.”

  “I don’t yet know, sir,” said Widmerpool, “the new facts which have come to light that should so much alter what appeared to be incontrovertible charges. I have been with A. & Q. earlier this afternoon, who told me you had made the arrangement you mention. He had informed the D.A.P.M., thinking Diplock should be kept under some general supervision.”

  Even though he said that in a fairly aggressive tone, Widmerpool’s manner still gave the impression that his mind was on other things. No doubt – his own fate in the balance – he found difficulty in concentrating on the Diplock case. It looked as if Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson, like a cat with a mouse, wanted to play with Widmerpool for a while before releasing information, because, instead of communicating anything he might know that had fresh bearing on Diplock and his goings-on, he changed the subject.

  “Then there’s another matter,” he said. “Certain moves made with regard to the Reconnaissance Battalion.”

  “The General has just been speaking on that subject too,” said Widmerpool.

  Hogbourne-Johnson was plainly surprised at this admission. His expression showed he had no knowledge of the disturbance proceeding, at a higher level than his own, on the subject of Widmerpool’s Recce Unit intrigues.

  “To you?”

  “Yes,” said Widmerpool bluntly. “The General told me a Major – now, of course, Lieutenant-Colonel – Deanery has been appointed to that command.”

  If he had hoped to score off Widmerpool in the Re
cce Unit sphere, it seemed Hogbourne-Johnson had overreached himself. He reddened. No doubt he knew Widmerpool had been fishing in troubled waters, but was not up to date as to the outcome. If Widmerpool’s candidate had been turned down, so too, it now appeared, had his own. This fact was most unacceptable to the Colonel. His manner changed from a peculiar assertive, sneering self-assurance, to mere everyday bad temper.

  “Ivo Deanery?”

  “A cavalryman.”

  “That’s the one.”

  “He’s got the command.”

  “I see.”

  For the moment, Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson had nothing to say. He was absolutely furious, but could not very well admit he had just heard news that showed his own secret plans, whatever they were, had miscarried. That Widmerpool, whom he had come to harass, should be the vehicle of this particular item of information must have been additionally galling. However, something much worse from Hogbourne-Johnson’s point of view, also much more dramatic, happened a second later. The door opened and Keef, the D.A.P.M., came into the room. He was excited about something. Clearly looking for Widmerpool, not at all expecting to find Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson there, Keef appeared taken aback. A gnarled, foxy little man – like most D.A.P.M.s, not a particularly agreeable figure – he was generally agreed to handle soundly his section of Military Police, always difficult personnel of whom to be in charge. Now, he hesitated for a moment, trying to decide, so it seemed, whether, there and then, to make some disclosure he had on his mind, or preferably concoct an excuse, and retire until such time as he could find Widmerpool alone. Keef must have come to the conclusion that immediate announcement of unwelcome tidings would be best, because, straightening himself almost to the position of attention, he addressed Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson, as if it were Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson himself he had been looking for all the time. The reason for his momentary reluctance was revealed only too soon.

  “Excuse me, sir.”

  “Yes?”

  “A serious matter has come through on the telephone, sir.”

  “Well, what is it?”