The Soldier's Art

by Anthony Powell

  “How severe you always are to human weakness, Nick.”

  We shook Bithel, who was again showing slight signs of revival, at least in so much that protests were wrong from him by this rough treatment.

  “… Don’t shake us, old man … don’t shake us like that … whatever are you doing it for? … makes me feel awful… I’ll throw up … I will really …”

  “Bith, you’ve got to pull yourself together, get back to your billet.”

  “What’s that you’re saying …”

  “Can you stand up? If so, we’ll hold you on either side.”

  “… Can’t remember your name, old man … didn’t see you in that last pub … couldn’t see any officers there … rather glad of that . . prefer talking to those young fellows without a lot of majors poking their noses in … keep in touch with the men … never go far wrong if you do that … take an interest in them off duty … then it got late … couldn’t find the way home…”

  “It is late, Bith. That’s why we’ve got to take you back to bed. It’s Nick Jenkins. We’re going to pilot you to G Mess.”

  “Nick Jenkins … in the Regiment together… Do you remember … Mr. Vice – the Loyal Toast … then, you …”

  “That’s it.”

  “The King …”

  Bithel shouted the words, turning on one elbow and making as if to raise a glass in the air.

  “The King, Bith.”

  “Loved the old Regiment… Give you The Regiment … no heelers… Age shall not … something … nor the years condemn …”

  “Come on, Bith, make an effort.”

  “… at the going down of the sun … that’s it… we shall remember them…”

  He suddenly began to sing in a thin piping voice, not unlike Max Pilgrim’s.

  “Fol-low, fol-low, we will fol-low Davies –

  We will follow Davies, everywhere he leads…”

  “Bith.”

  “Remember how we went romping all over the house that Christmas night after dinner … when the Mess was in those former bank premises … trailing along behind Colonel Davies … under the tables … over the chairs … couldn’t do it this moment for five pounds … God, I do really believe I’m going to throw up…”

  We got him to his feet with a tremendous heave. This sudden change of posture was too much for Bithel, who had rightly judged his own digestive condition. After much vomiting, he seemed appreciably more sober. We had allowed him to sink on all fours to the ground while relieving his stomach. Now we raised him again on his feet to prepare for the journey back to G Mess.

  “If you can walk, Bith, we’ll take you home now. Stringham, one of your own chaps, is here to help.”

  “String …”

  “Here, sir,” said Stringham, who had begun to laugh a lot. “Stringham of the Mobile Laundry, present and correct.”

  The name, coupled with that of his command, faintly animated Bithel. Perhaps it suggested to him the title of one of those adventure stories he had enjoyed as a boy; certainly the picaresque operation of a Mobile Laundry would have made an enthralling Henty volume.

  “That ’varsity man the D.A.A.G. sent to me?”

  “That’s the one, sir.”

  “Only good turn Major Widmerpool’s ever done me…”

  Stringham was now laughing so much we had to lower Bithel to the ground again.

  “I know just how you’re feeling, sir,” said Stringham. “Nobody better.”

  “Stringham’s a ’varsity man, like yourself, Nick … Did you know that? … good type … got some fine boys in the Laundry … proud to command them … Sergeant Ablett … splendid type… You should hear him sing The Man who broke the Bank at Monte Carlo … brings back the old music halls … but Stringham’s the only ’varsity man …”

  The access of emotion that had now descended on Bithel was in danger of changing once more to stupor. He began to breathe heavily. We tried to lift him again from the pavement.

  “One of the things I like about him,” said Stringham, “is the fact there’s so little difference when he’s sober. Drink doesn’t make him turn nasty. On the contrary. How well one knows the feeling of loving the whole world after downing a few doubles. As I no longer drink, I no longer love the whole world – nor, if it comes to that, even a small part of it.”

  “All the same, you took the trouble to be a Good Samaritan on this occasion.”

  “After all, he is my Commanding Officer – and has been very gracious to me. I still have some gratitude, even if no general goodwill towards mankind. I like gratitude, because it’s the rarest of virtues and a very difficult one to cultivate. For example, I never feel nearly grateful enough to Tuffy. In some respects, I’m ashamed to say I’m even conscious of a certain resentment towards her. Tonight’s good deed was just handed me on a plate. Such a conscience have I now developed, I even feel grateful to Widmerpool. That does me credit, doesn’t it? Do you know, Nick, he went out of his way to get me moved from F Mess to the Mobile Laundry – just as an act of pure kindness. Who’d have thought that of Widmerpool? I learnt the fact from Mr. Bithel himself, who was equally surprised at the D.A.A.G. finding suitable personnel for him. I must say I was at once attracted by the idea of widening my military experience. Besides, there are some real treasures in the Laundry. I don’t know how I can show Widmerpool gratitude. Keep out of the way, I suppose. The one thing I can’t understand is Mr. Bithel’s obsession with university life. I explained to him, when he brought up the subject, that my own college days had been among the most melancholic of a life not untinged by shadow.”

  All the time Stringham had been speaking, we were trying to galvanise Bithel from his spell of total collapse into a state of renewed awareness. We achieved this, finally bringing him into actual motion,

  “Now, if you’ll guide us, Nick, we’ll have the Lieutenant tucked up between sheets in no time.”

  Once we had Bithel traversing the pavement between us, the going was quite good in spite of Stygian darkness. In fact, we must have been within a hundred and fifty yards of G Mess before anything inopportune occurred. Then was disaster. The worst happened. Stringham and I were rounding a corner, Bithel mumbling incomprehensibly between us, when a figure, walking hurriedly from the other direction, collided violently with our party. The effect of this strong oncoming impact was for Stringham to let go of Bithel’s arm, so that, taken by surprise and unable to support the full weight alone, I too became disengaged from Bithel, who sank heavily to the ground. The person who had obstructed us also stumbled and swore, a moment later playing a torch on my face, so that I could not see him or anything else.

  “What the hell is happening?”

  The voice was undoubtedly Widmerpool’s, especially recognisable when angry. His quarters were also in this neighbourhood. He was on his way back to B Mess after dinner with his acquaintance from the Military Secretary’s branch. This was a most unfortunate encounter. The only thing to do was to fabricate as quickly as possible some obvious excuse for Bithel’s condition, and hope for the best.

  “This officer must have tripped in the black-out,” I said. “He had knocked himself out. We’re taking him back to his billet.”

  Widmerpool played his torch on each of us in turn.

  “Nicholas …” he said, “Bithel … Stringham …”

  He spoke Stringham’s name with surprise, not much approval. Since identities were now revealed, there was now no hope of proceeding without further explanation,

  “Charles Stringham found Bithel lying stunned. He got in touch with me. We’re taking him back to G Mess.”

  That might have sounded reasonably convincing, if only Bithel himself had kept quiet. However, the last fall seemed, if not to have sobered him, at least to have shaken off the coma into which he had sunk at an earlier stage. Now, without any help from the rest of us, he picked himself up off the pavement. He took Widmerpool by the arm.

  “Ought to go home …” he said. “Ought to go home … had too
much of that bloody porter … sickly stuff when you mix it with gin-and-italian … never do if we run into the A.P.M. …”

  Then he began to sing again, though in a lower key than before.

  “Fol-low, fol-low, we will follow Davies…”

  The words of the rest of the song were drowned at that moment by the sudden note of the Air-raid Warning. For me, the ululating call registered a routine summons not to be disregarded. Bithel’s troubles, however acute, must now be accepted as secondary to overseeing that the Defence Platoon reported for duty, without delay mounted their brens for aircraft action. A chance remained that this diversion might distract Widmerpool’s attention from the business of getting Bithel home. There was no reason for Widmerpool to hang about in the streets after the Warning had gone. His orderly mind might indicate that correct procedure for him was to take shelter. However, he made no such move, only disengaging himself from Bithel by pushing him against the wall. He must have grasped the situation perfectly, seen at once that the first thing to do was to get Bithel himself out of the way. Certainly he retained no doubts as to why Bithel had been found lying on the pavement, but accepted at the same time the fact that there was no point in making a fuss then and there. Disciplinary action, if required, was to be attended to later. This was neither the time nor the place.

  “I’ll have to leave him on your hands now. I’ve got to get those bren posts distributed forthwith.”

  “Yes, get off to the Defence Platoon right away,” said Widmerpool. “Look sharp about it. Stringham and I will get this sot back to bed. I’ll see this is the last time the army’s troubled with him. It will only be a matter of expediting matters already in hand. Take one side, Stringham.”

  Bithel was still leaning against the wall. Stringham once more took him by the arm. At the same time, he turned towards Widmerpool.

  “It’s interesting to recall, sir,” he said, “the last time we met, I myself was the inert frame. It was you and Mr. Jenkins who so kindly put me to bed. It shows that improvement is possible, that roles can be reversed. I’ve turned over a new leaf. Stringham is enrolled in the ranks of the sober, as well as the brave.”

  I did not wait to hear Widmerpool’s reply. The guns had started up. A helmet had to be collected before doing the rounds of the sections. After acquiring the necessary equipment, I set about my duties. The Defence Platoon got off the mark well that night.

  “They always come a Wednesday,” said Sergeant Harmer. “Might as well sit up for them.”

  As blitzes went, that night’s was not too bad a one. They went home early. We were in bed by half-past twelve.

  “No more news about me, I suppose, sir?” asked Corporal Mantle, before he marched away his section.

  I told him I would have another word with the D.A.A.G. As it happened, the following morning had to be devoted to Defence Platoon affairs, so I did not see Widmerpool until the afternoon. I was not sorry about that, because it gave a time for cooling off. After the Bithel affair, an ill humour, even a downright row, was to be expected. However, this turned out to be a wrong appraisal. When I arrived in the room Widmerpool gave the impression of being more than usually pleased with himself. He pushed away the papers in front of him, evidently intending to speak at once of what had happened the night before, rather than get through the afternoon’s routine, and institute a disagreeable post mortem on the subject at the end of the day’s work, a rather favourite practice of his when he wanted to make a fuss about something.

  “Well,” he said.

  “Did you deal with Bithel?”

  “I did.”

  “What happened?”

  I meant, by that question, to ask what had taken place over the next hundred yards or so of pavement leading to G Mess, how Bithel had been physically conveyed to his room. Widmerpool chose to understand the enquiry as referring to the final settlement of Bithel as a local problem.

  “I had a word with A. & Q. this morning,” he said.

  Bithel’s been sent on immediate leave. He will shortly be removed from the army.”

  “By court-martial?”

  “Unnecessary – purely administrative relegation to civilian life will save both time and trouble.”

  “That can be done?”

  “Bithel himself agrees it is the best way.”

  “You’ve seen him?”

  “I sent for him first thing this morning.”

  “How was he feeling?”

  “I have no idea. I am not concerned with the state of his health. I simply offered him the alternative of court-martial or acceptance of the appropriate report declaring him unsuitable for retention as an officer. The administrative documents releasing him from the army in the shortest possible period of time are now in motion. He wisely concurred, though not without an extraordinary scene.”

  “What sort of scene?”

  “Tears poured down his cheeks.”

  “He was upset?”

  “So it appeared.”

  The episode plainly struck Widmerpool as of negative interest. That he should feel no pity for Bithel was reasonable enough, but it was a mark of his absolute lack of interest in human beings, as such, that the several implications of the interview – its sheer physical grotesqueness, for example, in the light of what Bithel must have drunk the night before – had made no impression on him he thought worth repeating. On the other hand, the clean-cut line of action he had taken emphasised his ability in dealing decisively with a problem of the kind Bithel raised by his very existence. Widmerpool’s method was a contrast with that of my former Company Commander, Rowland Gwatkin, earlier confronted with Bithel in another of his unsatisfactory incarnations. When Bithel had drunk too much at the Castlemallock Gas School, Gwatkin had profitlessly put him under close arrest. Then he had omitted to observe the required formalities in relation to army arrest, with the result that the whole procedure collapsed. That, it was true, had not been entirely Gwatkin’s fault; nevertheless, from Gwatkin’s own point of view, the action had totally miscarried. With Widmerpool, on the other hand, there was no melodrama; only effective disposal of the body. The Bithel problem was at an end. If Bithel handicapped the war effort further, that would be in a civilian capacity.

  “A pity the Warning went off like that last night,” said Widmerpool, speaking rather savagely. “We could have frog-marched the brute back to his billet. I’ve seen it done with three.”

  “Who will command the Laundry?”

  “Another officer is already under orders. He will arrive this evening – may even have got here by now. I shall want to see him. There’s a slight flap on, as a matter of fact.”

  “What kind?”

  “The Mobile Laundry have been ordered to stand in readiness to move at forty-eight hours’ notice. This needs immediate attention with a new officer taking over only to-night. I was expecting the order in a week or two’s time, not quite so soon as it has come. As usual, things will have to be done in a hurry.”

  “Bithel was going anyway?”

  “Of course – but only to the I.T.C. Now he will leave the army.”

  “Is the Div. moving?”

  “The Laundry’s orders have nothing to do with this formation, as such. There’s been a call for Mobile Laundries. Between ourselves, I have reason to suppose this one is for the Far East, but naturally the destination is secret – and you are certainly not to mention that I hold that opinion.”

  “You’ve known for some time they were going to move?”

  “It came through to me when you were on leave.”

  “You knew when you transferred Stringham?”

  “That was precisely why I posted him to the Laundry.”

  “So he’ll go to the Far East?”

  “If that’s where the Laundry’s bound.”

  This was certainly arbitrary treatment of an old acquaintance.

  “Will he want to go?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Widmerpool looked at me blankly.

&n
bsp; “I suppose he could get out of it on grounds of age.”

  “Why should he want to get out of it?”

  “Well, he doesn’t look as if his health is too good. As you said the other day, he’s put away a good deal of drink in his time.”

  “But it was you who suggested shifting him from his job as Mess Waiter,” said Widmerpool, not without impatience. “That’s one of the reasons I acted in the matter. I thought it over and decided, on balance, that you were right in feeling Stringham should not be there – in fact should not be at these Headquarters at all. Now you seem dissatisfied at what has happened. Why should it be your job – still less mine – to keep Stringham wrapped in cotton-wool? In any case, you surely don’t envisage him remaining here after he and two of Div. H.Q.’s officers, one of them its D.A.A.G., have been collectively concerned in putting another officer to bed because he has been found drunk in the street. You assured me Stringham would not be an embarrassment to us. That is exactly what has taken place.”

  “But Stringham is quite used to the idea of drunks being put to bed. As he said last night, the pair of us once had to put him to bed ourselves. It couldn’t conceivably affect Stringham’s behaviour that he helped with Bithel – especially as Bithel’s gone.”

  “That has nothing to do with it.”

  “What has then?”

  “Nicholas, have you never heard of the word discipline?”

  “But nobody knows except us – or was Barker-Shaw or somebody about when you got Bithel to G Mess?”

  “No one – as it fortunately turned out. But that makes no difference whatever. Stringham could certainly not remain here after an incident of that kind. I applaud my own forethought in making the arrangement about him I did. So far as these Headquarters are concerned, the farther afield he is sent the better. Let me add that all this is entirely a matter of principle. Stringham’s presence would no longer affect me personally.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I am leaving this formation.”

  That piece of information brought a new, disturbing element into the conversation. I was annoyed, even disgusted, by Widmerpool’s attitude towards Stringham, this utter disregard for what might happen to him, posted away to God knows where. However, worse now threatened. Self-interest, equally unattractive in outer guise and inner essence, is, all the same, a necessity for individual survival. It should perhaps not be too much despised, if only for that reason. Despised or not, its activities are rarely far from the surface. Now, at Widmerpool’s words about leaving, I was unwelcomely conscious of self-interested anxieties throbbing hurriedly into operation. What was Widmerpool’s present intention towards myself, if he were to go elsewhere? Would my fate be as of little interest to him as Stringham’s? That was my instant thought.