The Military Philosophers

by Anthony Powell

  Stevens was not to be silenced so easily.

  ‘She meant so much to me,’ he said.

  ‘Who did?’ asked Pamela.

  ‘Someone who was killed in an air-raid.’

  He put considerable emotion into his voice when he said that. Perhaps Priscilla had, indeed, ‘meant a lot’ to him. I did not care. I saw no reason to be dragged in as a kind of prop to his self-esteem, or masochistic pleasure in lacking it. Besides, I wanted to get on to the Szymanski story.

  ‘You’re always telling me I mean more to you than any other girl has,’ said Pamela. ‘At least you do after a couple of drinks. You’ve the weakest head of any man I’ve ever met.’

  She spoke in that low almost inaudible mutter employed by her most of the time. There was certainly a touch of Audrey Maclintick about her, at least enough to explain why Stevens and Mrs Maclintick had got on so comparatively well together that night in the Café Royal. On the other hand, this girl was not only much better looking, but also much tougher even than Mrs Maclintick. Pamela Flitton gave the impression of being thoroughly vicious, using the word not so much in the moral sense, but as one might speak of a horse – more specifically, a mare.

  ‘I don’t claim the capacity for liquor of some of your Slav friends,’ said Stevens laughing.

  He sounded fairly well able to stand up to her. This seemed a suitable moment to change the subject.

  ‘You were in the news locally not so long ago – where I work, I mean – about one Szymanski.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re with the Poles, Nicholas?’

  ‘I’d left them by the time you got up to your tricks.’

  Pamela showed interest at the name Szymanski.

  ‘I sent you a message,’ she said. ‘Did you get it?’

  When she smiled and spoke directly like that, it was possible to guess at some of her powers should she decide to make a victim of a man.

  ‘I got it.’

  ‘Then you were in on the party?’ asked Stevens.

  ‘I saw some of the repercussions.’

  ‘God,’ he said. ‘That was a lark.’

  ‘Not for those engaged in normal liaison duties.’

  One’s loyalties vary. At that moment I felt wholly on the side of law and order, if only to get some of my own back for his line of talk about the Lovells.

  ‘Oh, bugger normal liaison duties. Even you must admit the operation was beautifully executed. Look here …’

  He took my arm, and, leaving Pamela sitting sullenly by herself on a bench, walked me away to a deserted corner of the hall. When we reached there, he lowered his voice.

  ‘I’m due for a job in the near future not entirely unconnected with Szymanski himself.’

  ‘Housebreaking?’

  Stevens yelled with laughter.

  ‘That’ll be the least of our crimes, I’d imagine,’ he said. ‘That is, the least of his – which might easily not stop at manslaughter, I should guess. Actually, we’re doing quite different jobs, but more or less in the same place.’

  ‘Presumably it’s a secret where you’re conducting these activities.’

  ‘My present situation is being on twenty-four call to Cairo. I’ll release something to you, as an old pal, in addition to that. The plot’s not unconnected with one of Pam’s conquests. Rather a grand one.’

  ‘You remind me of the man who used to introduce his wife as ancienne maîtresse de Lord Byron.’’

  ‘This is classier than a lord – besides Pam and I aren’t married yet.’

  ‘You don’t have to spell the name out.’

  I was not impressed by Stevens’s regard for ‘security,’ always a risk in the hands of the vain. All the same, not much damage would be done by my knowing that at last some sort of assistance was to be given to the Resistance in Prince Theodoric’s country; and that Stevens and Szymanski were involved. That was certainly interesting.

  ‘I’ll be playing for the village boys,’ he said. ‘Rather than the team the squire is fielding.’

  ‘A tricky situation, I should imagine.’

  ‘You bet.’

  ‘I saw Sunny Farebrother yesterday, who took the rap in the Szymanski business.’

  ‘Cunning old bugger. They pushed him off to a training centre for a bit, but I bet he’s back on something good.’

  ‘He thinks so. Was Szymanski a boy-friend of Pamela’s?’

  I thought I had a right to ask that question after the way Stevens had talked. For once he seemed a shade put out.

  ‘Who can tell?’ he said. ‘Even if there’s still a Szymanski. They may have infiltrated him already and he may have been picked up. I hope not. The great thing is he knows the country like the back of his hand. What are you doing yourself, old boy?’

  The change of mood, sudden fear for Szymanski – and by implication for himself – was characteristic. I told him about my job, also explaining how I knew Pamela.

  ‘Won’t she be cross if we leave her much longer?’

  ‘She’s cross all the time. Bloody cross. Chronic state, thrives on it. Her chief charm. Makes her wonderful in bed. That is, if you like temper.’

  Emphasis expressed as to the high degree of sexual pleasure to be derived from a given person is, for one reason or another, always to be accepted with a certain amount of suspicion, so far as the speaker is concerned, especially if referring to a current situation. Stevens sounded as if he might be bolstering himself up in making the last statement.

  ‘She’s the hell of a girl,’ he said.

  I wondered whether he had run across Pamela with Szymanski in the first instance. In any case, people like that gravitate towards each other at all times, almost more in war than in peace, since war – though perhaps in a more limited sense than might be supposed – offers obvious opportunities for certain sorts of adventure. Stevens, whose self- satisfaction had if anything increased, seemed to have no illusions about Pamela’s temperament. He accepted that she was a woman whose sexual disposition was vested in rage and perversity. In fact, if he were to be believed, those were the very qualities he had set out to find. We returned to where she was sitting.

  ‘Where the hell have you two been?’

  She spoke through her teeth. There was still a lot of noise going on outside. We all three sat on the bench together. Clanwaert strolled past. He glanced in our direction, slightly inclining his head towards Pamela, who took no perceptible notice of him. He had evidently decided to return to bed and said goodnight to me.

  ‘That was the Belgian officer who gave me your message about Szymanski.’

  ‘Ask him if he’s got a cigarette.’

  I called after Clanwaert. He turned back and came towards us. I enquired if he had a cigarette for Pamela, saying I believed they had met. He took a case from his dressing-gown pocket and handed it round. Pamela took one, looking away as she did so. Clanwaert showed himself perfectly at ease under this chilly treatment.

  ‘We could have met at the Belgian Institute,’ he said. ‘Was it with one of our artillery officers – Wauthier or perhaps Ruys?’

  ‘Perhaps it was,’ she said. ‘Thanks for the smoke.’

  Clanwaert smiled and retired.

  ‘One of your braves Belges?’ asked Stevens. ‘Since you’ve lived here some time, you’ve probably come across the old girl standing by the door. She’s called Mrs Erdleigh. The other evening, I saw her burning something on the roof. I thought she was sending up smoke signals to the enemy – it wasn’t yet dark – but it turned out to be just incense, which seems to play some part in her daily life, as she’s a witch. We got on rather well. In the end she told my fortune and said I was going to have all sorts of adventures and get a lot of nice presents from women.’

  ‘Not me,’ said Pamela. ‘You’ll have to go elsewhere if you want to be kept.’

  Mrs Erdleigh was, indeed, looking out into the street through the glass doors at the other end of the hall. Her age as indeterminate as ever from her outward appearance, she was smili
ng slightly to herself. This was the first time I had seen her since living in the flats. A helmet was set very squarely on her head and she wore a long coat or robe, a pushteen or similar garment, woolly inside, skin without, the exterior ornamented with scrolls and patterns of Oriental design in bright colours. She was carrying a small black box under one arm. Now she set this on the ground and removed the helmet, revealing a coiffure of grey-blue curls that had been pressed down by the weight of the tin hat. These she ruffled with her fingers. Then she took the helmet between her hands, and, as if in deep thought, raised it like a basin or sacrificial vessel, a piece of temple equipment for sacred rites. Her quiet smile suggested she was rather enjoying the raid than otherwise. Nothing much seemed to be happening outside, though the row continued unabated.

  ‘She was mixed up with an uncle of mine – in fact he left her his money, such as it was.’

  The bequest had caused great annoyance in the family, almost as much on account of Uncle Giles turning out to own a few thousands, as because of the alienation of the capital sum.

  ‘Must have made it quite lately as the result of some very risky speculation,’ my father had said at the time. ‘Never thought Giles had a penny to bless himself with.’

  ‘Let’s go over and talk to her,’ said Stevens. ‘She’s good value.’

  He had that taste, peculiar to certain egotists, to collect together close round him everyone he might happen to know in any given area.

  ‘Oh, God,’ said Pamela. ‘Need we? I suppose she flattered you.’

  ‘Go on, Nicholas,’ he said. ‘Ask Mrs Erdleigh to join us, if you know her as well.’

  I agreed to do this, more from liking the idea of meeting Mrs Erdleigh again than to please Stevens. As I approached, she herself turned towards me.

  ‘I wondered when you would speak,’ she said gently.

  ‘You’d already seen me in the hall?’

  ‘Often in this building. But we must not anticipate our destinies. The meeting had to wait until tonight.’

  From the way she spoke, it was to be assumed that she was so far above material contacts that the impetus of our reunion must necessarily come from myself. The magical course of events would no doubt have been damaged had she taken the initiative and addressed me first.

  ‘What a night.’

  ‘I could not sleep,’ she said, as if that were a matter for surprise. ‘The omens have not been good for some days past, though in general better than for many months. I can see at once from your face that you are well situated. The Centaur is friend to strangers and exiles. His arrow defends them.’

  ‘Come and talk to us. There’s a young man called Odo Stevens, who has done rather well as a soldier – been very brave, I mean – and a girl called Pamela Flitton. He says he knows you already.’

  ‘I met your young army friend on the roof when I was engaged in certain required exsufflations. He is under Aries, like your poor uncle, but this young man has the Ram in far, far better aspect, the powerful rays of Mars favouring him rather than the reverse, as they might some – your uncle, for example.’

  I told her I had seen the Ufford – where we had first met – now in such changed circumstances. She was not at all interested, continuing to speak of Stevens, who had evidently made an impression on her.

  ‘It is the planet Mars that connects him with that very beautiful young woman,’ she said. ‘The girl herself is under Scorpio – like that unhappy Miss Wartstone, so persecuted by Saturn – and possesses many of the scorpion’s cruellest traits. He told me much about her when we talked on the roof. I fear she loves disaster and death – but he will escape her, although not without an appetite for death himself.’

  Mrs Erdleigh smiled again, as if she appreciated, even to some extent approved, this taste for death in both of them.

  ‘Lead me to your friends,’ she said. ‘I am particularly interested in the girl, whom I have not yet met.’

  She picked up the black box, which presumably contained spells and jewellery, carrying the helmet in her other band. We returned to Stevens and Pamela. They were having words about a bar of chocolate, produced from somewhere and alleged to have been unfairly divided. Stevens jumped up and seized Mrs Erdleigh by the hand. It looked as if he were going to kiss her, but he stopped short of that. Pamela put on the helmet that had been lying beside her on the seat. This was evidently a conscious gesture of hostility.

  ‘This is Miss Flitton,’ said Stevens.

  Pamela made one of her characteristically discouraging acknowledgments of this introduction. I was curious to see whether Mrs Erdleigh would exercise over her the same calming influence she had once exerted on Mona, Peter Templer’s first wife, when they had met. Mona, certainly a far less formidable personality than Pamela, had been in a thoroughly bad mood that day – without the excuse of an air-raid being in progress – yet she had been almost immediately tranquillized by Mrs Erdleigh’s restorative mixture of flattery, firmness and occultism. For all one knew, air-raids might positively increase Mrs Erdleigh’s powers. She took Pamela’s hand. Pamela withdrew it at once.

  ‘I’m going to have a walk outside,’ she said. ‘See what’s happening.’

  ‘Don’t be a fool,’ said Stevens. ‘You’re not allowed to wander about during raids, especially one like this.’

  ‘My dear,’ said Mrs Erdleigh, ‘I well discern in your heart that need for bitter things that knows no assuagement, those yearnings for secrecy and tears that pursue without end, wherever you seek to fly them. No harm will come to you, even on this demonic night, that I can tell you. Nevertheless stay for a minute and talk with me. Death, it is true, surrounds your nativity, even though you yourself are not personally threatened – none of us is tonight. There are things I would like to ask you. The dark unfathomable lake over which you glide – you are under a watery sign and yet a fixed one – is sometimes dull and stagnant, sometimes, as now, angry and disturbed.’

  Pamela was certainly taken aback by this confident approach, so practised, so self-assured, the tone at once sinister and adulatory, but she did not immediately capitulate, as Mona had done. Instead, she temporized.

  ‘How do you know about me?’ she asked. ‘Know when I was born, I mean.’

  She spoke in a voice of great discontent and truculence. Mrs Erdleigh indicated that Stevens had been her informant. Pamela looked more furious than ever.

  ‘What does he know about me?’

  ‘What do most people know about any of their fellows?’ said Mrs Erdleigh quietly. ‘Little enough. Only those know, who are aware what is to be revealed. He may have betrayed the day of your birth. I do not remember. The rest I can tell from your beautiful face, my dear. You will not mind if I say that your eyes have something in them of the divine serpent that tempted Eve herself.’

  It was impossible not to admire the method of attack. Stevens spoiled its delicacy by blundering in.

  ‘Tell Pam’s fortune,’ he said. ‘She’d love it – and you were wonderful with me.’

  ‘Why should I want my fortune told? Haven’t I just said I’m going to have a look round outside?’

  ‘Wiser not, my dear,’ said Mrs Erdleigh. ‘As I said before, my calculations tell me that we are perfectly safe if we remain here, but one cannot always foresee what may happen to those who ride in the face of destiny. Why not let me look at your hand? It will pass the time.’

  ‘If you really want to. I don’t expect it’s very interesting.’

  I think Mrs Erdleigh was not used to being treated in such an ungracious manner. She did not show this in the smallest degree, but what she went on to say later could be attributed to a well controlled sense of pique. Perhaps that was why she insisted that Pamela’s hand should be read by her.

  ‘No human life is uninteresting.’

  ‘Have a look then – but there’s not much light here.*

  ‘I have my torch.’

  Pamela held out her palm. She was perhaps, in fact, more satisfied than the reverse at
finding opposition to her objections overruled. It was likely she would derive at least some gratification in the anodyne process. However farouche, she could scarcely be so entirely different from the rest of the world. On the other hand, some instinct may have warned her against Mrs Erdleigh, capable of operating at as disturbing a level as herself. Mrs Erdleigh examined the lines.

  ‘I would prefer the cards,’ she said. ‘I have them with me in my box, of course, but this place is really too inconvenient … As I guessed, the Mount of Venus highly developed … and her Girdle … You must be careful, my dear … There are things here that surprise even me … les tentations lubriques sont bien prononcées … You have found plenty of people to love you … but no marriage at present … no… but perhaps in about a year…’

  ‘Who’s it going to be?’ asked Stevens. ‘What sort of chap?’

  ‘Mind your own business,’ said Pamela.

  ‘Perhaps it is my business.’

  ‘Why should it be?’

  ‘A man a little older than yourself,’ said Mrs Erdleigh. ‘A man in a good position.’

  ‘Pamela’s mad about the aged,’ said Stevens. ‘The balder the better.’

  ‘I see this man as a jealous husband,’ said Mrs Erdleigh. ‘This older man I spoke of … but … as I said before, my dear, you must take good care … You are not always well governed in yourself … your palm makes me think of that passage in Desbarrolles, the terrible words of which always haunt my mind when I see their marks in a hand shown to me … la débauche, l’effronterie, la licence, le dévergondage, la coquetterie, la vanité, l’esprit léger, l’inconstance, la paresse … those are some of the things in your nature you must guard against, my dear.’

  Whether or not this catalogue of human frailties was produced mainly in revenge for Pamela’s earlier petulance was hard to know. Perhaps not at all. Mrs Erdleigh was probably speaking no more than the truth, voicing an analysis that did not require much occult skill to arrive at. In any case, she never minded what she said to anyone. Whatever her intention, the words had an immediate effect on Pamela herself, who snatched her hand away with a burst of furious laughter. It was the first time I had heard her laugh.