Officers and Gentlemen

by Evelyn Waugh

When Trimmer had followed GSO II (Planning) and Ian Kilbannock from the room, General Whale said to his ADC, ‘Well, he took that quite quietly.’

  ‘I gather there’s not much prospect of opposition.’

  ‘No. But McTavish didn’t know that, you know.’

  Trimmer remained quiet while he was ‘put in the picture’. It was significant, Ian Kilbannock reflected while he listened to the exposition of GSO II (Planning) that this metaphoric use of ‘picture’ had come into vogue at the time when all the painters of the world had finally abandoned lucidity. GSO II (Planning) had a little plastic model of the objective of ‘Popgun’. He had air photographs and transcripts of pilots’ instructions. He spoke of tides, currents, the phases of the moon, charges of gun-cotton, fuses and detonators. He drafted a move order. He designated with his correct initials the naval authority to whom Popgun Force should report. He gave the time of the train to Portsmouth and the place of accommodation there. He delivered a stern warning about the need for ‘security’. Trimmer listened agape but not aghast, in dreamland. It was as though he were being invited to sing in Grand Opera or to ride the favourite in the Derby. Any change from No. 6 Transit Camp, London District, was a change for the worse, but he had come that morning with the certainty that those paradisal days were over. He had expected, at the best, to be sent out to rejoin Hookforce in the Middle East, at the worst to rejoin his regiment in Iceland. Popgun sounded rather a lark.

  When the conference was over Ian said: ‘The Press will want to know something of your background when this story is released. Can you think up anything colourful?’

  ‘I don’t know. I might.’

  ‘Well, let’s get together this evening. Come to my house for a drink before the train. I expect you’ve got a lot to do now.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose I have.’

  ‘You haven’t by any chance lost that section of yours, have you?’

  ‘Not exactly. I mean, they must be somewhere around.’

  ‘Well, you’d better spend the day finding them, hadn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose I ought,’ said Trimmer gloomily.

  This was the day when the ladies in Eaton Terrace kept their weekly holiday. Kerstie had arranged substitutes so that all four could be at liberty together. They slept late, lunched in hotels, did their shopping, went out with men in the evenings. At half past six all were at home. The black-out was up; the fire lighted. The first sirens had not yet sounded. Brenda and Zita were in dressing-gowns. Zita’s hair was in curling-pins and a towel. Brenda was painting Kerstie’s toe-nails. Virginia was still in her room. Ian intruded on the scene.

  ‘Have we anything to eat?’ he asked. ‘I’ve brought a chap I’ve got to talk to and he’s catching a train at half past eight.’

  ‘Well, well, well,’ said Trimmer, entering behind him. ‘This is a surprise for all concerned.’

  ‘Captain McTavish,’ said Ian, ‘of No. X Commando.’

  ‘Oh, we know him.’

  ‘Do you? Do they?’

  ‘Behold a hero,’ said Trimmer. ‘Just off to death or glory. Do I understand one of you lovelies is married to this peer of the realm?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Kerstie, ‘I am.’

  ‘What is all this?’ asked Ian, puzzled.

  ‘Just old friends meeting.’

  ‘There’s nothing to eat,’ said Kerstie, ‘except some particularly nasty-looking fish. Brenda and Zita are going out and Virginia says she doesn’t want anything. There’s some gin.’

  ‘Does Mrs Troy live here too, then?’ asked Trimmer.

  ‘Oh yes. All of us. I’ll call her.’ Kerstie went to the door and shouted: ‘Virginia, look what’s turned up.’

  ‘There’s something here I don’t understand,’ said Ian.

  ‘Never mind, darling. Give Trimmer some gin.’

  ‘Trimmer?’

  ‘That’s what we call him.’

  ‘I think perhaps I won’t stay,’ said Trimmer, all the bounce in him punctured suddenly at the thought of Virginia’s proximity.

  ‘Oh rot,’ said Ian. ‘There’s a lot I want to ask you. We may not have time at Portsmouth.’

  ‘What on earth are you and Trimmer going to do at Portsmouth?’

  ‘Oh, nothing much.’

  ‘Really, how odd they are being.’

  Then Virginia joined them, modestly wrapped in a large bath-towel.

  ‘What’s this?’ she said. ‘Guests? Oh, you again? You do get around, don’t you?’

  ‘I’m just going,’ said Trimmer.

  ‘Virginia, you must be nicer to him. He’s off to death or glory, he says.’

  ‘That was just a joke,’ said Trimmer.

  ‘Obviously,’ said Virginia.

  ‘Virginia,’ said Kerstie.

  ‘I can get something to eat at the canteen,’ said Trimmer. ‘I ought to go and make sure that none of my fellows has given me the slip, anyway.’

  Ian concluded that he was in the presence of a mystery which like so many others, come war, come peace, was beyond his comprehension.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘If you must. We’ll meet at the sea-side tomorrow. I’m afraid you’ll never get a taxi here.’

  ‘It isn’t far.’

  So Trimmer went out into the darkness and the sirens began to wail.

  ‘Well, I must say,’ said Ian, returning to them. ‘That was all very awkward. What was the matter with you all?’

  ‘He’s a friend of ours. We somehow didn’t expect him here, that’s all.’

  ‘You weren’t awfully welcoming.’

  ‘He’s used to our little ways.’

  ‘I give it up,’ said Ian. ‘How about this horrible fish?’

  But later when he and Kerstie were alone in their room, she came clean.

  ‘… and what’s more,’ she concluded, ‘if you ask me, there’s something rum between him and Virginia.’

  ‘How do you mean rum?’

  ‘Darling, how is anything ever rum between Virginia and anyone?’

  ‘Oh, but that’s impossible.’

  ‘If you say so, darling.’

  ‘Virginia and McTavish?’

  ‘Well, didn’t they seem rum to you?’

  ‘Something was rum. You all were, it seemed to me.’

  After a pause Kerstie said: ‘Weren’t those bombs rather near?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Shall we go down?’

  ‘If you think that you’d sleep better.’

  They carried their sheets and blankets into the area kitchen where iron bedsteads stood along the walls. Brenda and Zita and Virginia were already there, asleep.

  ‘It’s important about his having been a hairdresser. A first-class story.’

  ‘Darling, you surely aren’t going to write about our Trimmer?’

  ‘I might,’ said Ian. ‘You never know. I might.’

  At Sidi Bishr camp in the brigade office, Tommy Blackhouse said:

  ‘Guy, what’s all this about your consorting with spies?’

  ‘What indeed?’ said Guy.

  ‘I’ve a highly confidential report here from Security. They have a suspect, an Alsatian priest, they’ve been watching. They’ve identified you as one of his contacts.’

  ‘The fat boy with the broom?’ said Guy.

  ‘No, no, an RC priest.’

  ‘I mean was it a fat boy with a broom who reported me?’

  ‘They do not as a rule include portraits of their sources of information.’

  ‘It’s true I went to confession in Alexandria on Saturday. It’s one of the things we have to do now and then.’

  ‘So I’ve always understood. But this report says that you went round to the house where he lives and tried to get hold of him out of school.’

  ‘Yes, that’s true.’

  ‘What a very odd thing to do. Why?’

  ‘Because as a matter of fact I thought he was a spy.’

  ‘Well, he was.’

  ‘Yes, I thought so
.’

  ‘Look here, Guy, this may be a serious matter. Why the devil didn’t you report it?’

  ‘Oh, I did, at once.’

  ‘Who to?’

  ‘The Brigade Major.’

  Major Hound, who was sitting at a neighbouring table relishing what he took to be Guy’s discomfiture, started sharply.

  ‘I received no report,’ he said.

  ‘I made one,’ said Guy.’ Don’t you remember?’

  *No. I certainly don’t.’

  ‘I told you myself.’

  ‘If you had, there would be a note of it in my files. I checked them this morning before you came in, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘The day the C-in-C gave me a lift home.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Hound, disconcerted. ‘That? I thought that you were trying to pull my leg.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake,’ said Tommy. ‘Did Guy make a report to you or didn’t he?’

  ‘I think he did say something,’ said Major Hound, ‘in the most irregular fashion.’

  ‘And you took no action?’

  ‘No. It was not an official report.’

  ‘Well, you’d better draft an official report to these jokers, letting Guy out.’

  ‘Very good, Colonel.’

  So Major Hound wrote in the finest Staff College language that Captain Crouchback had been investigated and the Deputy-Commander of Hookforce was satisfied that there had been no breach of security on the part of that officer. And this letter, together with the original report, was photographed and multiplied and distributed and deposited in countless tin boxes. In time a copy reached Colonel Grace-Groundling-Marchpole in London.

  ‘Do we file this under “Crouchback”?’

  ‘Yes, and under “Box-Bender” too, and “Mugg”. It all ties in,’ he said gently, sweetly rejoicing at the underlying harmony of a world in which duller minds discerned mere chaos.

  Trimmer and his section lay long at Portsmouth. The navy were hospitable, incurious, not to be hurried. Ian travelled up and down to London as the whim took him. The ladies in his house were full of questions. Trimmer had become a leading topic among them.

  ‘You’ll hear in good time,’ said Ian, further inflaming their interest.

  Trimmer’s Sergeant knew something about demolition. He made a successful trial explosion in an enclosed fold of the hills. The experiment was repeated a day or two later in the presence of GSO II (Planning) HOO HQ and one of the men was incapacitated. One day Popgun Force was embarked in a submarine and Trimmer explained the projected operation. An hour later they were put ashore again, on a report of new minelaying in the Channel. From that time they were placed virtually under close arrest in the naval barracks. Trimmer’s batman, a man long manifestly mutinous, took the occasion to desert. This information was badly received at HOO HQ.

  ‘Strictly speaking of course, sir,’ said GSO II (Planning) ‘Popgun should be cancelled. Security has been compromised.’

  ‘This is no time for strict speaking,’said DLFHOO, ‘—security.’

  ‘Quite, sir. I only meant McTavish will look pretty silly if he finds the enemy waiting for him.’

  ‘He looks pretty silly to me now.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Quite.’

  So eventually Popgun Force re-embarked, comprising Trimmer, his Sergeant, five men, and Ian. Even thus depleted they seemed too many.

  They sailed at midday. The ship submerged and immediately all sense of motion, all sense of being at sea, utterly ceased. It was like being in a tube train, Ian thought, stuck in the tunnel.

  He and Trimmer were invited to make themselves comfortable in the comfortless little cell that was called the ward-room. The Sergeant was in the Petty Officers’ mess. The men disposed among the torpedoes.

  ‘We shan’t be able to surface until after dark,’ said the Captain. ‘You may find it a bit close by then.’

  After luncheon the Third Hand distributed a specific against carbon dioxide poisoning.

  ‘I should try and get some sleep,’ he said.

  Ian and Trimmer lay on the hard padded seats and presently slept.

  Both awoke with headaches when the ship’s officers came in for dinner.

  ‘We ought to be at your island in about four hours,’ said the Captain.

  After dinner the sailors went back to the control-room and the engines. Ian drank. Trimmer composed a letter.

  Writing did not come easily to him and this was not an easy letter to write.

  I am leaving this to be sent to you in case I do not come back. When I said death or glory it wasn’t just a joke you see. I want you to know that I thought of you at the last. Ever since we met I’ve known I had found the real thing. It was good while it lasted.

  He filled three pages of his message pad. He signed it, after cogitation, ‘Gustave’. He read it through. As he did so he conjured up the image of Virginia, as he had seen her on the afternoon of his flight from Glasgow, as he had met her again in London; of Virginia not so much as he had seen her, but rather as she had seemed to see him. He re-read the letter under the imagined wide stare of those contemptuous eyes and that infinitesimal particle of wisdom that lay in Trimmer’s depths asserted itself. It just would not do, not for Virginia. He folded it small, tore it across and let the pieces fall to the steel deck.

  ‘I think I could do with a spot,’ he said to Ian.

  ‘No, no. Later. You have responsibilities ahead.’

  Time passed slowly. At last there came a sudden exhilaration. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Fresh air.’

  Presently the Captain came in and said: ‘Well, this is the time we ought to be coming in.’

  ‘Shall I go and stir my chaps up?’

  ‘No, leave them. I doubt if you’ll be able to land tonight.’

  ‘Why on earth not?’ asked Ian.

  ‘I seem to have lost your bloody island.’

  He left them.

  ‘What the hell’s he up to?’ said Trimmer. ‘We can’t go back now. They’ll all desert if they try and lock us up in those barracks again.’

  The Third Hand came into the wardroom.

  ‘What’s happening?’ asked Ian.

  ‘Fog.’

  ‘Surely with all the gadgets you can find an island?’

  ‘You might think so. We may yet. We can’t be far off.’

  The ship was on the surface and the trap open. The night had been chosen with the best meteorological advice. The little empty island should have shone out under a gibbous moon. But there was no moon visible that night, no stars, only mist curling into the flats.

  Half an hour passed. The ship seemed to be nosing about very slowly in the calm waters. The Captain returned to the wardroom.

  ‘Sorry. It looks as though we’ve got to pack it up. Can’t see anything. It may lift of course as quick as it came down. We’ve got some time in hand.’

  Ian filled his glass. Soon he began to yawn. Then to doze. The next thing he knew the Captain was with them again.

  ‘O.K.’, he said. ‘We’re in luck. Everything is clear as day and here’s your island straight ahead. I reckon you’ve an hour and a half for the job.’

  Trimmer and Ian awoke.

  Sailors dragged four rubber dinghies into the open night and inflated them on deck from cylinders of compressed air. The demolition stores were lowered. Popgun Force sat two and two, bobbing gently at the ship’s side. Low cliffs were clear before them, a hundred yards distant. Popgun Force paddled inshore.

  Orders were detailed and lucid, drafted at HOO HQ. Two men, the beach-party, were to remain with the boats. The Sergeant was to land the explosives and wait while Trimmer and Ian reconnoitred for the tower which, in the model, stood on the summit of the island half a mile inland. They would all be in sight of one another’s signalling-lamps all the time.

  As Ian climbed awkwardly over the rubber gunwale and stood knee deep in the water, which gently lapped the deep fringe of bladder-wrack, he felt the whisky benevolently stirring within
him. He was not a man of strong affections. Hitherto he had not greatly liked Trimmer. He had been annoyed at the factitious importance which seemed to surround him in Eaton Terrace. But now he felt a comradeship in arms.

  ‘Hold up, old boy,’ he said loudly and genially, for Trimmer had fallen flat.

  He gave a heave. Hand in hand he and Trimmer landed on enemy territory. Popgun Force stood on the beach.

  ‘All right to carry on smoking, sir?’ asked the Sergeant.

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Trimmer. ‘I don’t see why not. I could do with a fag myself.’

  Little flames spurted on the beach.

  ‘Well, carry on according to plan, Sergeant.’

  The cliffs presented no problem. They had fallen in half a dozen places and grassy slopes led up between them. Trimmer and Ian walked briskly forward and up.

  ‘We ought to be able to see the place on the skyline,’ said Trimmer rather plaintively. ‘It all seems much flatter than the model.’

  ‘“Very flat Norfolk,”’ said Ian in an assumed voice.

  ‘What on earth do you mean?’

  ‘Sorry. I was quoting from my favourite play.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘Nothing really, I suppose.’

  ‘It’s all very well to be funny. This is serious.’

  ‘Not to me, Trimmer.’

  ‘You’re drunk.’

  ‘Not yet. I daresay I shall be before the evening’s out. I thought it a wise precaution to bring a bottle ashore.’

  ‘Well, give me a go.’

  ‘Not yet, old boy. I have only your best interests at heart. Not yet.’

  He stood in the delusive moonlight and swigged. Trimmer stared anxiously about him. The gentle sound-effects of operation Popgun, the susurrus of the beach, the low mutter of the demolition party, the heavy breathing of the two officers as they resumed their ascent, were suddenly horrifically interrupted by an alien voice, piercing and not far distant. The two officers stopped dead.

  ‘For Christ’s sake,’ said Trimmer. ‘What’s that? It sounds like a dog.’

  ‘A fox perhaps.’

  ‘Do foxes bark like that?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘It can’t be a dog.’

  ‘A wolf?’

  ‘Oh, do try not to be funny.’