Dance to the Music of Time, Volume 3

by Anthony Powell

  ‘Spuds uneatable again,’ said Biggs. ‘Like bloody golf balls. They haven’t been done long enough. That’s all about it. Here, waiter, tell the chef, with my compliments, that he bloody well doesn’t know how to cook water.’

  ‘I will, sir.’

  ‘And he can stick these spuds up his arse.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Repeat to him just what I’ve said.’

  ‘Certainly, sir.’

  ‘Where’s he to stick the spuds?’

  ‘Up his arse, sir.’

  ‘Bugger off and tell him.’

  So far as cooking potatoes went, I was wholly in agreement with Biggs. However, purely gastronomic considerations were submerged in confirmation of a preliminary impression; an impression upsetting, indeed horrifying, but correct. There could no longer be any doubt of that. What I had instantaneously supposed, then dismissed as inconceivable, was, on closer examination, no longer to be denied. The waiter was Stringham. He was about to go through to the kitchen to deliver Biggs’s message to the cook, when Soper stopped him.

  ‘Half a tick,’ said Soper. ‘Who laid the table?’

  ‘I did, sir.’

  ‘Where’s the salt?’

  ‘I’ll get some salt, sir.’

  ‘Why didn’t you put any salt out?’

  ‘I’m afraid I forgot, sir.’

  ‘Don’t forget again.’

  ‘I’ll try not to, sir.’

  ‘I didn’t say try not to, I said don’t.’

  ‘I won’t, sir.’

  ‘Haven’t they got any cruets in the Ritz?’ said Biggs. ‘Hand the pepper and salt round personally to all the guests, I suppose.’

  ‘Mustard, sir—French, English, possibly some other more obscure brands—so far as I remember, sir, rather than salt and pepper,’ said Stringham, ‘but handing round the latter too could be a good idea.’

  He went out of the room to find the salt, and tell the cook what Biggs thought about the cooking. Soper turned to Biggs. He was plainly glad of this opportunity to put the SOPT in his place.

  ‘Don’t show your ignorance, Biggy,’ he said. ‘Handing salt round at the Ritz. I ask you. You’ll be going into the Savoy next for a plate of fish and chips or baked beans and a cup o’ char.’

  ‘That’s no reason why we shouldn’t have any salt here, is it?’ said Biggs.

  He spoke belligerently, disinclined for once to accept Soper as social mentor, even where a matter so familiar to the DCO as restaurant administration was in question.

  ‘Something wrong with that bloke,’ he went on. ‘Man’s potty. You can see it. Hear what he said just now? Talks in that la-di-da voice. Why did he come to this Mess? What happened to Robbins? Robbins wasn’t much to look at, but at least he knew you wanted salt.’

  ‘Gone to hospital with rupture,’ said Soper. ‘This one’s a replacement for Robbins. Can’t be much worse, if you ask me.’

  ‘This one’ll have to be invalided too,’ said Biggs. ‘Only got to look at him to see that. Bet I’m right. No good having a lot of crazy buggers about, even as waiters. Got to get hold of blokes who are fit for something. Jesus, what an army.’

  ‘Always a business finding a decent Mess waiter,’ said Soper. ‘Can’t be picking and choosing all the time. Have to take what you’re bloody well offered.’

  ‘Don’t like the look of this chap,’ said Biggs. ‘Gets me down, that awful pasty face. Can’t stick it. Reckon he tosses off too much, that’s what’s wrong with him, I shouldn’t wonder. You can always tell the type.’

  From the rubber valve formed by pressure together of upper and lower lip, he unexpectedly ejected a small morsel of fat, discharging this particle with notable accuracy of aim on to the extreme margin of his plate, just beyond the potatoes left uneaten. It was a first-rate shot of its kind.

  ‘When did the new waiter arrive?’ I asked.

  Nothing was to be gained by revealing previous acquaintance with Stringham.

  ‘Started here at lunch today,’ said Soper.

  ‘I’ve run across him before,’ said Biggs.

  ‘At Div HQ?’

  ‘One of the fatigue party fixing up the boxing ring,’ said Biggs. ‘Ever so grand the way he talks, you wouldn’t believe. Needs taking down a peg or two in my opinion. That’s why I asked him about the Ritz. Don’t expect he’s ever been inside the Ritz more than I have.’

  Soper did not immediately comment. He stared thoughtfully at the scrap of meat rejected by Biggs, either to imply censure of too free and easy table manners, or, in official capacity as DCO, professionally assessing the nutritive value of that particular cube of fat—and its waste—in wartime. Macfie also gave Biggs a severe glance, rustling his typewritten report admonishingly, as he propped the sheets against the water jug, the better to absorb their contents while he ate.

  ‘He’ll do as a waiter so long as we keep him up to the mark,’ said Soper, after a while. ‘You’re always grousing about something, Biggy. If it isn’t one thing, it’s another. Why don’t you put a bloody sock in it?’

  ‘There’s enough to grouse about in this bloody Mess, isn’t there?’ said Biggs, his mouth full of beef and cabbage, but still determined to carry the war into Soper’s country. ‘Greens stewed in monkeys’ pee and pepper as per usual.’

  Stringham had returned by this time with the salt. Dinner proceeded along normal lines. Food, however unsatisfactorily cooked, always produced a calming effect on Biggs, so that his clamour gradually died down. Once I caught Stringham’s eye, and thought he gave a faint smile to himself. Nothing much was said by anyone during the rest of the meal. It came to an end. We moved to the ante-room. Later, when preparing to return to the DAAG’s office, I saw Stringham leave the house by the back door. He was accompanied by a squat, swarthy lance-corporal, no doubt the cook so violently stigmatised by Biggs. At Headquarters, when I got back there, Widmerpool was already in his room, going through a pile of papers. I told him about the appearance of Stringham in F Mess. He listened, showing increasing signs of uneasiness and irritation.

  ‘Why on earth does Stringham want to come here?’

  ‘Don’t ask me.’

  ‘He might easily prove a source of embarrassment if he gets into trouble.’

  ‘There’s no particular reason to suppose he’ll get into trouble, is there? The embarrassment is for me, having him as a waiter in F Mess.’

  ‘Stringham was a badly behaved boy at school,’ said Widmerpool. ‘You must remember that. You knew him much better than I did. He took to drink early in life, didn’t he? I recall at least one very awkward incident when I myself had to put him to bed after he had had too much.’

  ‘I was there too—but he is said to have been cured of drink.’

  ‘You can never be sure with alcoholics.’

  ‘Perhaps he could be fixed up with a better job.’

  ‘But being a Mess waiter is one of the best jobs in the army,’ said Widmerpool impatiently. ‘It’s not much inferior to sanitary lance-corporal. In that respect he has nothing whatever to grumble about.’

  ‘So far as I know, he isn’t grumbling. I only meant one might help in some way.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘I can’t think at the moment. There must be something.’

  ‘I have always been told,’ said Widmerpool, ‘—and rightly told—that it is a great mistake in the army, or indeed elsewhere, to allow personal feelings about individuals to affect my conduct towards them professionally. I mentioned this to you before in connexion with Corporal Mantle. Mind your own business is a golden rule for a staff officer.’

  ‘But you’re not minding your own business about who’s to command the Recce Corps.’

  ‘That is quite different,’ said Widmerpool. ‘In a sense the command of the Recce Corps is my business—though perhaps someone like yourself cannot see that. The point is this. Why should Stringham have some sort of preferential treatment just because you and I happen to have been at school with him? T
hat is exactly what people complain about—and with good reason. You must be aware that such an attitude of mind—that certain persons have a right to a privileged existence—causes a lot of ill feeling among those less fortunately placed. War is a great opportunity for everyone to find his level. I am a major—you are a second-lieutenant—he is a private. I have no doubt that you and I will achieve promotion. So far as you are concerned, you will in any case receive a second pip automatically at the conclusion of eighteen months’ service as an officer, which in your case cannot be far off by now. I think I can safely say that my own rank will not much longer be denoted by a mere crown. Of Stringham, I feel less certain. A private soldier he is, and, in my opinion, a private soldier he will remain.’

  ‘All the more reason for trying to find him a suitable billet. It can’t be much fun handing round the vegetables in F Mess twice a day.’

  ‘We are not in the army to have fun, Nicholas.’

  I accepted the rebuke, and said no more about Stringham. However, that night in bed, I reflected further on his arrival at Div HQ. We had not met for years; not since the party his mother had given for Moreland’s symphony—where all the trouble had started about Moreland and my sister-in-law, Priscilla. Priscilla, as it happened, was in the news once more, from the point of view of her family. Rumours were going round that, separated from Chips Lovell by the circumstances of war, she was not showing much discretion about her behaviour. A ‘fighter-pilot’ was said often to be seen with her, this figment, in another version, taking the form of a ‘commando’, loose use of the term to designate an individual, rather the unit’s collective noun. However, all that was by the way. The last heard of Stringham himself had been from his sister, Flavia Wisebite, who had described her brother as cured of drink and serving in the army. At least the second of these two statements was now proved true. It was to be hoped the first was equally reliable. Meanwhile, there could be no doubt it was best to conceal the fact that we knew each other. Widmerpool also agreed on this point, when he himself brought up the subject again the following day. He too appeared to have pondered the matter during the night.

  ‘So you think something else should be found for Stringham?’ he asked that afternoon.

  ‘I do.’

  ‘I’ll give my mind to it,’ he said, speaking more soberly than on the earlier occasion. ‘In the meantime, we are none of us called upon to do more than fulfil the duties of our respective ranks and appointments, vegetables or no vegetables. Now go and find out from the DAPM whether he has proceeded with the enquiries to be made in connexion with Diplock and his dealings. Get cracking. We can’t talk about Stringham all day.’

  So far as Stringham’s employment in F Mess was concerned, nothing of note happened during the next day or two. On the whole he did what was required of him with competence—certainly better than Robbins—though he would sometimes unsmilingly raise his eyebrows when waiting on me personally. For one reason or another, circumstances always prevented speech between us. I began to think we might not be able to find an opportunity to talk together before I went on leave. Then one evening, on the way back to F Mess from Headquarters, I saw Stringham coming towards me in the twilight. He saluted, looking straight ahead of him, was going to pass on, when I put out a hand.

  ‘Charles.’

  ‘Hullo, Nick.’

  ‘This is extraordinary.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Your turning up here.’

  ‘What makes you think so?’

  ‘Let’s get off the main road.’

  ‘If you like.’

  We went down into a kind of alley-way, leading to a block of office buildings or factory works, now closed for the night.

  ‘What’s been happening to you, Charles?’

  ‘As you see, I’ve become a waiter in F Mess. I always used to wonder what it felt like to be a waiter. Now I know with immense precision.’

  ‘But how did it all come about?’

  ‘How does anything come about in the army?’

  ‘When did you join, for instance?’

  ‘Too long ago to remember—right at the beginning of the Hundred Years War. After enlisting in my first gallant and glorious corps, and serving at their depot, I managed to exchange into the infantry, and got posted to this melancholy spot. You know how—to use a picturesque army phrase—one gets arsed around. I don’t expect that happens any less as an officer. When the Royal Army Ordnance Corps took me to its stalwart bosom, I was not medically graded A.I.—which explains why in the past one’s so often woken up feeling like the wrath of God—so I got drafted to Div HQ, a typical example of the odds and sods who fetch up at a place like that. Hearing there was a job going as waiter in F Mess, I applied in triplicate. My candidature was graciously confirmed by Captain Soper. That’s the whole story.’

  ‘But isn’t—can’t we find something better for you?’

  ‘What sort of thing?’

  That had been Widmerpool’s question too. Stringham asked it without showing the smallest wish for change, only curiosity at what might be put forward.

  ‘I don’t know. I thought there might be something.’

  ‘Don’t you feel I’m quite up to the mark as waiter?’ he said. ‘Nick, you fill me with apprehension. Surely you are not on the side of Captain Biggs, who, I realise, does not care for my personality. I thought I was doing so well. I admit failure about the salt. I absolutely acknowledge the machine broke down at that point. All the same, such slips befall the most practised. I remember when the Duke of Connaught lunched with my former in-laws, the Bridgnorths, the butler, a retainer of many years’ standing, no mere neophyte like myself, offered him macaroni cheese without having previously provided His Royal Highness with a plate to eat it off. I shall never forget my ex-father-in-law’s face, richly tinted at the best of times—my late brother-in-law, Harrison Wisebite, used to say Lord Bridgnorth’s complexion recalled Our Artist’s Impression of the Hudson in the Fall. On that occasion it was more like the Dutch bulb fields in bloom. No, forget about the salt, Nick. We all make mistakes. I shall improve with habit.’

  ‘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 connexion come about, anyway?’

  I explained my transference from battalion to Div HQ 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 DAAG’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 that 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?’