“Diplock’s deserted, sir.”
This message was so unexpected that Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson, already sufficiently provoked by the appointment of Ivo Deanery to the command of the Recce Unit, could find no words at first to register the fact that he fully comprehended what Keef had to report. The awfulness of the silence that followed must have told on Keef’s nerves. Still standing almost to attention, it was he who spoke first.
“Just come through, sir,” he repeated. “A. & Q. issued an order to keep an eye on him, but it was too late. The man’s known to have made his way across the Border. He’s in neutral territory by this time.”
To have trusted Diplock, to have stood by him when accused of peculation, was, so far as I knew from my own experience of Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson, the only occasion when he had ever shown a generous impulse. Of course that was speaking from scarcely any knowledge of him at all. In private life he may have displayed qualities concealed during this brief observation of his professional behaviour. Even if that were not so, and he were as un-engaging to his friends and family as to his comrades in arms, even if, with regard to Diplock, his conduct had been dictated by egoism, prejudice, pig-headedness, the fact remained that he had believed in Diplock, had trusted him. He had, for example, called Widmerpool to order for describing the chief clerk as an old woman, simply because he respected the fact that Diplock, years before, had been awarded the Military Medal. Now he had been thoroughly let down. The climax had not been altogether deserved. Widmerpool had been wrong too. Diplock might be an old woman when he fiddled about with Army Forms; not when it came to evading his desserts. Still, that was another matter. It was Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson who had been betrayed. Possibly he felt that himself. He rose to his feet, in doing so managing to sweep to the floor some of the papers from the pile of documents on Widmerpool’s table. Giving a jerk of his head to indicate Keef was to follow him, he left the room. Their steps could be heard thudding down uncarpeted passages. Widmerpool shut the door after them. Then he stopped and laboriously recovered several Summaries of Evidence from the floor. Anxiety about his own future was evidently too grave to allow any satisfaction at Hogbourne-Johnson’s discomfiture. In fact, I had not seen Widmerpool so upset, so reduced to utter despair, since the day, long past, when he had admitted to paying for Gypsy Jones’s “operation.”
“There’s been the devil of a row,” he said.
“What’s happened?”
“The General’s livid with rage.”
“About what Sunny Farebrother said?”
“That bloody M.G.A.’s given him a totally false picture of what I said.”
“What’s the upshot?”
“General Liddament says he’s going to make further enquiries. If he’s satisfied I’ve behaved in a way of which he disapproves, he won’t keep me on his staff. Of course I don’t mind that, as I’m leaving anyway. What I’m worried about is he may take it into his head to ruin my chance of this much better job, when he gets official notification. He seemed to have forgotten that was in the air.”
“Does he know Hogbourne-Johnson was playing about with the same matter?”
“Of course not. Hogbourne-Johnson will be able to cover his tracks now.”
“And Diplock?”
“Oh, yes, Diplock,” said Widmerpool, cheering up a little. “I’d forgotten about Diplock. Well, it was just as I said, though I’d never have guessed he’d go as far as to desert. Perhaps he wouldn’t have deserted, if there hadn’t been a frontier so conveniently near. This is all very worrying. Still, we must get on with some work. What have you got there?”
“The question of Mantle’s name being entered for a commission has come up again.”
Widmerpool thought for a moment.
“All right,” he said, “we’ll by-pass Hogbourne-Johnson and send it in.”
He took the paper from me.
“And Stringham?”
“What about him?”
“If the Mobile Laundry are to be pushed off to the Far East, as you think—”
“Oh, bugger Stringham,” said Widmerpool, his mood suddenly changing. “Why are you always fussing about Stringham? If he wants to get out of going overseas, he can probably do so at his age. That’s his affair. Which reminds me, the officer replacing Bithel in charge of the Mobile Laundry should be reporting in an hour or so. I shall want you to take him round there and give him a preliminary briefing. I’ll go into things myself in more detail later. He’s called Cheesman.”
Nothing much else happened that afternoon. Widmerpool uttered one or two sighs to himself, but did not discuss his own predicament further. As he had said, there was nothing to be done. He could only wait and see how matters shaped. No one knew better than Widmerpool that, in the army, all things are possible. He might ride the storm. On the other hand, he could easily find himself packed off to a static appointment in West Africa, or another distant post unlikely to lead to the sort of promotion he had at present in mind. When Cheesman appeared later on, it was immediately clear that the Laundry, when proceeding overseas, was to have a very different commander from Bithel.
“I’m afraid I’m not quite so punctual as I intended, sir,” he said, “but I’m anxious to get to work as soon as possible.”
Cheesman told me later he was thirty-nine. He looked quite ageless. Greying hair and wire spectacles suited his precise, rather argumentative manner of speech, in which he had not allowed the smallest trace of an army tone to alloy indefectibly civilian accents. Indeed, he spoke as if he had just arrived from a neighbouring firm to transact business with our own. He treated Widmerpool respectfully, as if a mere representative was meeting a managing director, but nothing in the least military supervened. Widmerpool might sometimes behave like this, but he also prided himself on the crispness of his own demeanour as a staff officer, and obviously did not greatly take to Cheesman. However, from whatever reports he had received about Cheesman’s ability, he had evidently satisfied himself the job would be done in an efficient manner. After exchanging a few sentences regarding the taking-over of the Laundry, he told me to act as guide, after Cheesman’s baggage had been delivered to G Mess. No doubt, in the prevailing circumstances, Widmerpool was glad to be left alone for a time to think things over.
“I’ll have a word with you to-morrow, Cheesman,” he said, “when you’ve a better idea of the Laundry’s personnel and equipment, in relation to a move.”
“I shall be glad to have a look round, sir,” said Cheesman.
He and I set off together for the outer confines of the billeting area, where the Mobile Laundry had its being during spells at H.Q. Cheesman told me he was an accountant in civilian life. He had done a good deal of work on laundry accounts at one time or another, accordingly, after getting a commission, had put in for a Mobile Laundry command.
“They seemed surprised I wanted to go to one,” he said. “It struck me as only logical. The O.C. of my O.C.T.U. roared with laughter. He used to do that anyway when I spoke with him. He agreed I was too old for an infantry second-lieutenant and wanted me to go to the Army Pay Corps, or to train as a cipher officer, but in the end I got a Laundry. I hoped to command men. I was transferred to this one because my work seems to have been thought well of. I felt flattered,”
“You’ve got a first-rate sergeant in Ablett.”
“That’s good news. My last one wasn’t always too reliable.”
Sergeant Ablett was waiting for us. As Bithel had asserted in his drunken delirium, the Sergeant added to his qualities as an unusually efficient N.C.O. those required for performing as leading comedian at the Divisional Concert, where he would sing forgotten songs, crack antediluvian jokes and dance unrestrainedly about the stage wearing only his underclothes. Ablett’s was always the most popular turn. Now, however, this talent for vaudeville had been outwardly subdued, in its place assumed the sober, positively severe bearing of an old soldier, whose clean-shaven upper lip, faintest possible proliferation of side-whisker, perhaps consciously c
haracterised a veteran of Wellington’s campaigns. Contact was made between Cheesman and Ablett. It struck me that now would be a good opportunity to try and speak with Stringham.
“There’s a man in your outfit I want a word with. May I do that while the Sergeant is showing you round?”
“By all means,” said Cheesman. “Some personal matter?”
“He’s a chap I know in civilian life.”
Cheesman was the sort of person to be trusted with that information. Anyway, the unit was moving. Sergeant Ablett summoned a corporal. I went off with him to find Stringham, leaving Cheesman to get his bearings.
“Last saw Stringy on his bed in the barrack room,” said the corporal, a genial bottle-nosed figure, who evidently did not take military formalities too seriously.
He went off through a door. I waited in a kind of yard, where the Mobile Laundry’s outlandish vehicles were parked. In a minute or two the corporal appeared again. He was followed by Stringham, who looked as if the unexpected summons had made him uneasy. He was not wearing a cap. When he saw me, his face cleared. He came to attention.
“Thank you, Corporal.”
“You’re welcome, sir.”
The bottle-nosed corporal disappeared.
“You gave me quite a turn, Nick,” Stringham said. “I was lying on my bed musing about Tuffy and what a strange old girl she is. I was reading Browning, which always makes me think of her. Browning’s her favourite poet. Did I tell you that? Of course I did, I’m getting hopelessly forgetful. He always makes me feel rather jumpy. That was why I got in a flap when Corporal Treadwell said I was wanted by an officer.”
“I’ve just brought your new bloke round who’s taken Bithel’s place.”
“Poor Bith. That was an extraordinary evening last night. What’s happened to him?”
“Widmerpool’s shot him out.”
“Dear me. Just as well, perhaps, for the army’s sake, but I shall miss him. What’s this one like?”
“He’s called Cheesman. Should be easy to handle if you stay with him.”
“Why shouldn’t I stay with him? I’m wedded to the Laundry by this time. I’ve really begun to know the meaning of esprit de corps, something lamentably lacking in me up to now.”
“I want to talk about all that.”
“Esprit de corps?”
“Can’t we take a stroll for a couple of minutes while Cheesman deals with your Sergeant?”
“Ablett’s a great favourite of mine too,” said Stringham. “I’m trying to memorise some of his jokes for use at dinner parties after the war, if I’m ever asked to any again – indeed, if any are given après la guerre. Ablett’s jokes have an absolutely authentic late nineteenth-century ring that fills one with self-confidence. Wait a moment, I’ll get a cap.”
When he returned, wearing a side-cap, he carried in his hand a small tattered volume. We walked slowly up an endless empty street of small redbrick houses. The weather, for once, was warm and sunny. Stringham held up the book.
“Before we part, Nick,” he said, “I must read you something I found here. I can’t make out just what all of it means, but some has obvious bearing on army life.”
“Charles, you’ve got to do some quick thinking. The Mobile Laundry is due to move,”
“So we heard.”
“There’ve been rumours?”
“One always knows these things first in the ranks. That’s one of the advantages. Where’s it to be?”
“Of course that’s being kept secret, but Widmerpool thinks – for what it’s worth – the destination is probably the Far East.”
“We heard that too.”
“Then you know as much as me.”
“We seem to. Of course, security may be so good, it will really turn out to be Iceland. That sort of thing is always happening.”
“The point is, you could probably – certainly – get out of being sent overseas on grounds of age and medical category.”
“I agree I’m older than the rocks amongst which I sit, and have died infinitely more times than the vampire. Even so, I’d quite like to see the gorgeous East – even the Icelandic geysers, if it comes to that.”
“You’ll go through with it?”
“Not a doubt.”
“I just thought I ought to pass on what was being said – strictly against all the rules.”
“That shan’t go any further. Depend upon it. I suppose Widmerpool saw this coming?”
“So I gather.”
“And all that altruism about F Mess was to get me on the move?”
“That’s about it.”
“He couldn’t have done me a better turn,” said Stringham. “The old boy’s a marvellous example of one of the aspects of this passage I want to read you. Like everything that’s any good, it has about twenty different meanings.”
He stopped and began turning the pages of the book he had brought with him. We stood beside a pillar-box. When he found the place, he began to read aloud:
“I shut my eyes and turned them on my heart.
As a man calls for wine before he fights,
I asked one draught of earlier, happier sights
Ere fitly I could hope to play my part.
Think first, fight afterwards – the soldier’s art;
One taste of the old time sets all to rights.”
“Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came?”
“Childe Stringham – in this case.”
“I’m never sure what I feel about Browning.”
“He always gives the impression of writing about people who are wearing very expensive fancy dress. All the same, there’s a lot in what he says. Not that I feel in the least nostalgic about earlier, happier sights. I can’t offhand recall many. The good bit is about thinking first and fighting after.”
“Let’s hope the High Command have taken the words to heart.”
“Odd that Browning should know that was so important.”
“Perhaps he should have been a general.”
“It ought to be equally borne in mind by all ranks. There might be an Order of the Day on the subject. Can’t Widmerpool arrange that?”
“Widmerpool’s leaving Div. H.Q. too.”
“To become a colonel?”
“The Divisional Commander may bitch that up. He’s tumbled on some of Widmerpool’s intriguing and doesn’t approve, but Widmerpool will go either way.”
“How very dramatic.”
“Isn’t it.”
“Then what will happen to you?”
“God knows. The I.T.C., I imagine. Look, I shall have to go back to Cheesman soon, but I must tell you about the hell of a business on my leave the other day.”
I gave some account of the bombing of the Madrid and the Jeavons house.
“The Madrid, fancy that. I once took Peggy there in the early days of our marriage. The evening was a total frost. And then where I used to live in that top floor flat with Tuffy looking after me – where I learnt to be sober. Where Tuffy used to read Browning. Is it all in ashes?”
“Not in the least. The outside of the house looks just the same as usual.”
“Poor Lady Molly – she ought to have stayed doing that job at Dogdene.”
“Much too quiet for her.”
“Poor Ted, too. What on earth will he do with himself now? I used to enjoy occasionally sneaking off to the pub with Ted.”
“He’s going on as before. Camping out in the house and carrying on as an air-raid warden.”
“I chiefly remember your sister-in-law, Priscilla, as making rather good going with some musician for whom my mother once gave an extraordinary party. Weren’t you there, Nick? I associate that night with an odd little woman covered in frills like Little Bo-Peep. I made some sort of dive at her.”
“She was called Mrs. Maclintick. She’s now living with the musician for whom your mother gave the party – Hugh Moreland.”
“Moreland, that was the name. She’s living with him, is she? What lax morals people have
these days. The war, I suppose. I do my best to set an example, but no one follows me in my monastic celibacy. That was a strange night. Tuffy arrived to drive me home. It comes back to me fairly clearly, in spite of a great deal too much to drink. That’s a taste of old times, if ever there was one. Makes one ready to fight anybody.”
“Charles, I shall have to get back to Cheesman. You’ve absolutely decided to stick to the Mobile Laundry, come what may?”
“Quis separabit? – that’s the Irish Guards, isn’t it? The Mobile Laundry shares the motto.”
“Are you returning to the billet?”
“I think I’ll go for a stroll. Don’t feel like any more poetry reading at the moment. Poetry always rather disturbs me. I think I shall have to give it up – like drink. A short walk will do me good. I’m off duty till nine o’clock.”
“Good-bye, Charles – if we don’t meet before the Laundry moves.”
“Good-bye, Nick.”
He smiled and nodded, then went off up the street. He gave the impression of having severed his moorings pretty completely with anything that could be called everyday life, army or otherwise. I returned to Cheesman and Sergeant Ablett. They seemed to have got on well together and were still vigorously discussing vehicle maintenance.
“Find that man all right, sir?” asked the Sergeant.
“Had a word with him. Know him in civilian life.”
“Thought you might, sir. He could have been of use in the concert, but now it looks as if we’re moving and there won’t be any concert.”
“I expect you’ll put on a show wherever you go. We shall miss your trouserless tap-dance next time, Sergeant.”
“That’s always a popular item,” said Sergeant Ablett, without false modesty.
I took Cheesman back to G Mess. His mildness did not prevent him from being argumentative about every subject that arose.
“That’s what you think,” he said, more than once, “but there’s another point of view entirely.”
This determination would be useful in running the Laundry, subject, like every small, more or less independent entity, to all sorts of pressures from outside.
“Wait a moment,” he said. “Before I forget, I’d like to make a note of your name, and the Sergeant’s, and the D.A.A.G.’s.”
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