Dance to the Music of Time, Volume 3

by Anthony Powell

  ‘Ever been to Paris, Captain Gwatkin?’ he asked.

  Gwatkin shot out a glance of profound disapproval.

  ‘No,’ he said sharply.

  The answer conveyed that Gwatkin considered the question a ridiculous one, as if Bithel had asked if he had ever visited Lhasa or Tierra del Fuego. He continued to lecture Kedward on the principles of mobile warfare.

  ‘I’ve been to Paris,’ said Bithel.

  He made a whistling sound with his lips to express a sense of great conviviality.

  ‘Went there for a weekend once,’ he said.

  Gwatkin looked furious, but said nothing. A Mess waiter appeared and began to collect glasses on a tray. He was, as it happened, the red-faced, hulking young soldier, who, weeping and complaining his back hurt, had made such a disturbance outside the Company Office. Now, he seemed more cheerful, answering Bithel’s request for a final drink with the information that the bar was closed. He said this with the satisfaction always displayed by waiters and barmen at being in a position to make that particular announcement.

  ‘Just one small Irish,’ said Bithel. ‘That’s all I want.’

  ‘Bar’s closed, sir.’

  ‘It can’t be yet.’

  Bithel tried to look at his watch, but the figures evidently eluded him.

  ‘I can’t believe the bar’s closed.’

  ‘Mess Sergeant’s just said so.’

  ‘Do get me another, Emmot – it is Emmot, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s right, sir.’

  ‘Do, do get me a whiskey, Emmot.’

  ‘Can’t sir. Bar’s closed.’

  ‘But it can be opened again.’

  ‘Can’t, sir.’

  ‘Open it just for one moment – just for one small whiskey.’

  ‘Sergeant says no, sir.’

  ‘Ask him again.’

  ‘Bar’s closed, sir.’

  ‘I beseech you, Emmot.’

  Bithel rose to his feet. Afterwards, I was never certain what happened. I was sitting on the same side as Bithel and, as he turned away, his back was towards me. He lurched suddenly forward. This may have been a stumble, since some of the floorboards were loose at that place. The amount he had drunk did not necessarily have anything to do with Bithel’s sudden loss of balance. Alternatively, his action could have been deliberate, intended as a physical appeal to Emmot’s better feelings. Bithel’s wheedling tone of voice a minute before certainly gave colour to that interpretation. If so, I am sure Bithel intended no more than to rest his hand on Emmot’s shoulder in a facetious gesture, perhaps grip his arm. Such actions might have been thought undignified, bad for discipline, no worse. However, for one reason or another, Bithel lunged his body forward, and, either to save himself from falling, or to give emphasis to his request for a last drink, threw his arms round Emmot’s neck. There, for a split second, he hung. There could be no doubt about the outward impression this posture conveyed. It looked exactly as if Bithel were kissing Emmot – in farewell, rather than in passion. Perhaps he was. Whether or not that were so, Emmot dropped the tray, breaking a couple of glasses, at the same time letting out a discordant sound. Gwatkin jumped to his feet. His face was white. He was trembling with rage.

  ‘Mr Bithel,’ he said, ‘consider yourself under arrest.’

  I had begun to laugh, but now saw things were serious. This was no joking matter. There was going to be a row. Gwatkin’s eyes were fanatical.

  ‘Mr Kedward,’ he said, ‘go and fetch your cap and belt.’

  The alcove where we had been sitting was not far from the door leading to the great hall. There, on a row of hooks, caps and belts were left, before entering the confines of the Mess, so Kedward had not far to go. Afterwards, Kedward told me he did not immediately grasp the import of Gwatkin’s order. He obeyed merely on the principle of not questioning an instruction from his Company Commander. Meanwhile, Emmot began picking up fragments of broken glass from the floor. He did not seem specially surprised by what had happened. Indeed, considering how far I knew he could go in the direction of hysterical loss of control, Emmot carried off the whole situation pretty well. Perhaps he understood Bithel better than the rest of us. Gwatkin, who now seemed to be in his element, told Emmot to be off quickly, to clear up the rest of the debris in the morning. Emmot did not need further encouragement to put an end to the day’s work. He retired from the ante-room at once with his tray and most of the broken glass. Bithel still stood. As he had been put under arrest, this position was no doubt militarily correct. He swayed a little, smiling to himself rather foolishly. Kedward returned, wearing his cap and buckling on his Sam Browne.

  ‘Escort Mr Bithel to his room, Mr Kedward,’ said Gwatkin. ‘He will not leave it without permission. When he does so, it will be under the escort of an officer. He will not wear a belt, nor carry a weapon.’

  Bithel gave a despairing look, as if cut to the quick to be forbidden a weapon, but he seemed to have taken in more or less what was happening, even to be extracting a certain masochistic zest from the ritual. Gwatkin jerked his head towards the door. Bithel turned and made slowly towards it, moving as if towards immediate execution. Kedward followed. I was relieved that Gwatkin had chosen Kedward for this duty, rather than myself, no doubt because he was senior in rank, approximating more nearly to Bithel’s two pips. When they were gone, Gwatkin turned to me. He seemed suddenly exhausted by this output of disciplinary energy.

  ‘There was nothing else I could do,’ he said.

  ‘I wasn’t sure what happened.’

  ‘You did not see?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Bithel kissed an Other Rank.’

  ‘Are you certain?’

  ‘Haven’t you got eyes?’

  ‘I could only see Bithel’s back. I thought he lost his balance.’

  ‘In any case, Bithel was grossly drunk.’

  ‘That’s undeniable.’

  ‘To put him under arrest was my duty. It was the only course I could follow. The only course any officer could follow.’

  ‘What’s the next step?’

  Gwatkin frowned.

  ‘Cut along to the Company Office, Nick,’ he said in a rather calmer tone of voice. ‘You know where the Manual of Military Law is kept. Bring it to me here. I don’t want Idwal to come back and find me gone. He’ll think I’ve retired to bed. I must have a further word with him.’

  When I returned with the Manual of Military Law, Gwatkin was just finishing his instructions to Kedward. At the end of these he curtly said good night to us both. Then he went off, the Manual under his arm, his face stern. Kedward looked at me and grinned. He was evidently surprised, not absolutely staggered, by what had taken place. It was all part of the day’s work to him.

  ‘What a thing to happen,’ he said.

  ‘Going to lead to a lot of trouble.’

  ‘Old Bith was properly pissed.’

  ‘He was.’

  ‘I could hardly get him up the stairs.’

  ‘Did you have to take his arm?’

  ‘Heaved him up somehow,’ said Kedward. ‘Felt like a copper.’

  ‘What happened when you arrived in his room?’

  ‘Luckily the other chap there went sick and left the course yesterday. Bith’s got the room to himself, so things weren’t as awkward as they might have been. He just tumbled on to the bed, and I left him. Off to bed myself now. You’re for the Company Office tonight, aren’t you?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Good night, Nick.’

  ‘Good night, Idwal.’

  The scene had been exhausting. I was glad to retire from it. Confused dreams of conflict pursued throughout the night. I was in the middle of explaining to the local builder at home – who wore a long Chinese robe and had turned into Pinkus, the Castlemallock Adjutant-Quartermaster – that I wanted the front of the house altered to a pillared façade of Isobel’s own design, when a fire-engine manned by pygmies passed, ringing its bell furiously. The bell continued in
my head. I awoke. It had become the telephone. This was exceptional in the small hours. There were no curtains to the room, only shutters for the blackout, which were down, so that, opening my eyes, I saw the sky was already getting light above the outbuildings of the yard. I grasped the instrument and gave the designation of the unit and my name. It was Maelgwyn-Jones, Adjutant of our Battalion.

  ‘Fishcake,’ he said.

  I was only half awake. It was almost as if the dream continued. As I have said, Maelgwyn-Jones’s temper was not of the best. He began to get very angry at once, as it turned out, with good reason.

  ‘Fishcake . . .’ he repeated. ‘Fishcake – fishcake – fishcake . . .’

  Obviously ‘Fishcake’ was a codeword. The question was: what did it mean? I had no recollection ever of having heard it before.

  ‘I’m sorry, I—’

  ‘Fishcake!’

  ‘I heard Fishcake. I don’t know what it means.’

  ‘Fishcake, I tell you . . .’

  ‘I know Leather and Toadstool . . .’

  ‘Fishcake has taken the place of Leather – and Bathwater of Toadstool. What the hell are you dreaming about?’

  ‘I don’t think—’

  ‘You’ve bloody well forgotten.’

  ‘First I’ve heard of Fishcake.’

  ‘Rot.’

  ‘Sure it is.’

  ‘Do you mean to say Rowland hasn’t told you and Kedward? I gave him Bathwater a week ago – in person – when he came over to the Orderly Room to report.’

  ‘I don’t know about Fishcake or Bathwater.’

  ‘Oh, Christ, is this one of Rowland’s half-baked ideas about security? I suppose so. I told him the new code came into force in forty-eight hours from the day before yesterday. Didn’t he mention that?’

  ‘Not a word to me.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus. Was there ever such a bloody fool commanding a company. Go and get him, and look sharp about it.’

  I went off with all speed to Gwatkin’s room, which was in the main part of the house. He was in deep sleep, lying on his side, almost at the position of attention. Only the half of his face above the moustache appeared over the grey-brown of the blanket. I agitated his shoulder. As usual, a lot of shaking was required to get him awake. Gwatkin always slept as if under an anaesthetic. He came to at last, rubbing his eyes.

  ‘The Adjutant’s on the line. He says it’s Fishcake. I don’t know what that means.’

  ‘Fishcake?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Gwatkin sat upright in his camp-bed.

  ‘Fishcake?’ he repeated, as if he could hardly believe his ears.

  ‘Fishcake.’

  ‘But we were not to get Fishcake until we had been signalled Buttonhook.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of Buttonhook either – or Bathwater. All I know are Leather and Toadstool.’

  Gwatkin stepped quickly out of bed. His pyjama trousers fell from him, revealing sexual parts and hairy brown thighs. The legs were small and boney, well made, their nakedness suggesting something savage and untaught, yet congruous to his nature. He grabbed the garments to him and held them there, standing scratching his head with the other hand.

  ‘I believe I’ve made a frightful balls,’ he said.

  ‘What’s to be done?’

  ‘Didn’t I mention the new codes to you and Idwal?’

  ‘Not a word.’

  ‘God, I remember now. I thought I’d leave it to the last moment for security reasons – and then I went out with Maureen, and forgot I’d never told either of you.’

  ‘Well, I should go along to the telephone now, or Maelgwyn-Jones will have apoplexy.’

  Gwatkin ran off quickly down the passage, still holding up with one hand the untied pyjama trousers, his feet bare, his hair dishevelled. I followed him, also running. We reached the Company Office. Gwatkin took up the telephone.

  ‘Gwatkin . . .’

  There was the hum of the Adjutant’s voice at the other end. He sounded very angry, as well he might.

  ‘Jenkins didn’t know . . .’ Gwatkin said, ‘I thought it best not to tell junior officers until the last moment . . . I didn’t expect to get a signal the first day it came into operation . . . I was going to inform them this morning . . .’

  This answer must have had a very irritating effect on Maelgwyn-Jones, whose voice crepitated for several minutes. I could tell he had begun to stutter, a sure sign of extreme rage with him. Whatever the Adjutant was asserting must have taken Gwatkin once more by surprise.

  ‘But Bathwater was to take the place of Walnut,’ he said, evidently appalled.

  Once more the Adjutant spoke. While he listened, Gwatkin’s face lost its colour, as always when he was agitated.

  ‘To take the place of Toadstool? Then that means—’

  There was another burst of angry words at the far end of the line. By the time Maelgwyn-Jones had ceased to speak, Gwatkin had recovered himself sufficiently to reassume his parade ground manner.

  ‘Very good,’ he said, ‘the Company moves right away.’

  He listened for a second, but Maelgwyn-Jones had hung up. Gwatkin turned towards me.

  ‘I had to tell him that.’

  ‘Tell him what?’

  ‘That I had confused the codewords. The fact is, I forgot, as I said to you just now.’

  ‘Forgot to pass on the new codewords to Idwal and me?’

  ‘Yes – but not only are the codewords new, the instructions that go with them are amended in certain respects too. But what I said was partly true. I had muddled them in my own mind. I’ve been thinking of other things. God, what a fool I’ve made of myself. Anyway, we mustn’t stand here talking. The Company is to march on the Battalion right away. Wake Idwal and tell him that. Send the duty NCO to CSM Cadwallader, and tell him to report to me as soon as the men are roused – he needn’t bother to be properly dressed. Get your Platoon on parade, Nick, and tell Idwal to do the same.’

  He hurried off, shaking up NCOs, delivering orders, amplifying instructions altered by changed arrangements. I did much the same, waking Kedward, who took this disturbance very well, then returning to the Company Office to dress as quickly as possible.

  ‘This is an imperial balls-up,’ Kedward said, as we were on the way to inspect our platoons. ‘What the hell can Rowland have been thinking about?’

  ‘He had some idea of keeping the codeword up his sleeve till the last moment.’

  ‘There’ll be a God Almighty row about it all.’

  I found my own Platoon pretty well turned out considering the circumstances. With one exception, they were clean, shaved, correctly equipped. The exception was Sayce. I did not even have to inspect the Platoon to see what was wrong. It was obvious a mile off. Sayce was in his place, no dirtier than usual at a casual glance, even in other respects properly turned out, so it appeared, but without a helmet. In short, Sayce wore no headdress at all. His head was bare.

  ‘Where’s that man’s helmet, Sergeant?’

  Sergeant Basset had replaced Sergeant Pendry as Platoon Sergeant, since Corporal Gwylt, with his many qualities, did not seriously aspire to three stripes. Basset, basically a sound man, had a mind which moved slowly. His small pig eyes set in a broad, flabby face were often puzzled, his capacities included none of Sergeant Pendry’s sense of fitness. Sergeant Pendry, even at the time of worst depression about his wife, would never have allowed a helmetless man to appear on parade, much less fall in. He would have found a helmet for him, told him to report sick, put him under arrest, or devised some other method of disposing of him out of sight. Sergeant Basset, bull-necked and worried, began to question Sayce. Time was getting short. Sayce, in a burst of explanatory whining, set forth a thousand reasons why he should be pitied rather than blamed.

  ‘Says somebody took his helmet, sir.’

  ‘Tell him to fall out and find it in double-quick time, or he’ll wish he’d never been born.’

  Sayce went off at a run. I hoped that was the last
we should see of him that day. He could be dealt with on return. Anything was better than the prospect of a helmetless man haunting the ranks of my platoon. It would be the last straw as far as Gwatkin was concerned, no doubt Maelgwyn-Jones too. However, while I was completing the inspection, Sayce suddenly appeared again. This time he was wearing a helmet. It was too big for him, but that was an insignificant matter. This was no time to be particular, still less to ask questions. The platoon moved off to take its place with the rest of the Company. Gwatkin, who looked worried, but had now recovered his self-possession, made a rapid inspection and found nothing to complain of. We marched down the long drives of Castlemallock, out on to the road, through the town. As we passed the alley leading to Maureen’s pub, I saw Gwatkin cast an eye in that direction, but it was too early in the morning for Maureen herself, or anyone else much, to be about.

  ‘Something awful are the girls of this town,’ said Corporal Gwylt to the world at large, ‘never did I see such a way to go on.’

  When we reached Battalion Headquarters, there was a message to say the Adjutant wanted an immediate word with Captain Gwatkin. Gwatkin returned from this interview with a set face. It looked as if subordinates might be in for a bad time, such as that after the Company’s failure to provide ‘support’. However, Gwatkin showed no immediate desire to get his own back on somebody, though he must have had an unenjoyable ten minutes with Maelgwyn-Jones. We set out on the day’s scheme, marching and countermarching across the mountains, infiltrating the bare, treeless fields. From start to finish, things went badly. In fact, it was a disastrous day. Still, as Maelgwyn-Jones had said, it passed, like other days in the army, and we returned at length to Castlemallock, bad-tempered and tired. Kedward and I were on the way to our room, footsore, longing to get our boots off, when we met Pinkus, the Adjutant-Quartermaster, the malignant dwarf from the Morte d’Arthur. His pleased manner showed there was trouble in the air. He had a voice of horrible refinement, which must have taken years to perfect, and somewhat recalled that of Howard Craggs, the left-wing publisher.