‘Open now the crystal fountain,
Whence the healing stream doth flow:
Let the fire and cloudy pillar
Lead me all my journey through:
Strong Deliverer, Strong Deliverer
Be thou still my strength and shield.’
‘What a mournful row,’ said the L. of C. captain, ‘I’ve heard them chant that one before. It’s a hymn.’
Finn was already rounding up the military attachés when we reached the place where the convoy was parked. In preparation for the visit to the Field-Marshal’s Tactical Headquarters, some of our party were already wearing their pullovers in a manner popularized by the Field-Marshal himself – though not generally accepted as correct army turn-out – that is to say showing several inches below the battledress blouse. Among those thus seeking to be in the height of military fashion were Bobrowski and Van der Voort.
‘I think I keep mine inside,’ said Chu.
There was remarkably little fuss about the approach – no hint of Trimalchio here – security merely kept at its essential minimum. The accommodation for the Headquarters was a medium-sized house, built within the last ten or twelve years, one would guess, dark red brick, set amongst a few trees. The place had little or no character of its own. It might have been a farm, but had none of the farm’s picturesque aspects. The fact was, it seemed prophetically built to house a Tactical Headquarters. By an inner wall stood the Field-Marshal’s two long motor-caravans, sleeping apartment and office respectively. Here everything seemed quieter, far less exhibitionistic than at Main.
‘Will you line up, please, gentlemen,’ said Finn, ‘in order of seniority of your appointment.’
The prelude to almost all happenings in the army, small and great, is an inspection. This visit was to be no exception. The military attachés were drawn up in a single row facing the caravans. Colonel Hlava, their doyen, was at one end: Gauthier de Graef, the most junior, at the other; with myself rounding off the party. There was a moment’s pause, while we stood at ease. Then the Field-Marshal appeared from one of the caravans. He had his hands in his pockets, but removed them as he approached. It was instantaneously clear that he no longer chose to wear his pullover showing under his battledress blouse. Indeed, he had by now, it was revealed, invented a form of battledress peculiar to himself, neatly tailored and of service-dress cloth. There was a moment when we were at attention; then at ease again. The last movement was followed by some rapid fidgeting and tucking up of clothes on the part of Bobrowski, Van der Voort and others with too keen a wish to be in the mode. Finn, out in front, was beaming with excitement. This was the sort of occasion he loved. There was a moment’s conference. Then the Field-Marshal proceeded down the line, Finn at his side, presenting the military attachés, one by one. The Field-Marshal said a few words to each. It was quite a long time before he reached Gauthier.
‘Captain Gauthier de Graef,’ said Finn. ‘The Belgian assistant military attaché. Major Kucherman himself was prevented from taking part in the tour. He had to attend a meeting of the new Belgian Government, which he may be joining.’
At the word ‘Belgian’ the Field-Marshal had begun to look very stern.
‘You’re the Belgians’ man, are you?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Some of your people are showing signs of giving trouble in Brussels.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Gauthier.
He and Kucherman had often talked of difficulties with the Resistance elements. Gauthier knew the problem all right.
‘If they do give trouble,’ said the Field-Marshal. ‘I’ll shoot ’em up. Is that clear? Shoot ’em up.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Gauthier.
‘It is?’
‘Quite clear, sir.’
Gauthier de Graef replied with the deep agreement he certainly felt in taking firm measures. He had already complained of his own irritation with those of his countrymen whom he judged inadequately to appreciate their luck in having got rid of the Germans. The Field-Marshal moved on. He fixed his eyes on my cap badge.
‘Prince of Wales’s Volunteers?’
The slip was a very permissible one. The two crests possessed a distinct similarity in design. I named the Regiment. He showed no animus, as some generals might, at such a disavowal, however unavoidable.
‘Any of ’em here?’
‘Yes, sir – one of them got a VC a few weeks ago.*
The Field-Marshal considered the point, but made no move to develop it. Finn smiled very briefly to himself, almost invisibly to those who did not know him, either contemplating the eternal satisfaction his own bronze Maltese cross gave him; more probably, in the same connexion, appreciating this opportunity of recalling a rumour that the Field-Marshal was said to be not in the least impressed by the mystique of that particular award; indeed, alleged to declare its possession hinted at an undesirable foolhardiness on the part of the wearer. Finn, from his personal viewpoint, may even have seen my statement as a disciplined, if deserved, call to order, should that rumour have any basis in truth.
‘Speak all these languages?*
‘Only a little French, sir.’
‘Don’t speak any of ’em.’
‘No, sir.’
He laughed, seeming pleased by that
‘Now I thought we’d all be photographed,’ he said. ‘Good thing on an occasion like this. I’ll sign ’em for you.’
Smiling like the Cheshire Cat, a sergeant holding a small camera suddenly came into being. There had been no sign of him a moment before. He seemed risen from the ground or dropped from a tree. We broke ranks and formed up again, this time on either side of the Field-Marshal, who took up a convenient position for this in front of one of the caravans. There was rather a scramble to get next to him, in which Chu and Bobrowski achieved flanking places. Van der Voort, elbowed out of the way by Chu, caught my eye and winked. Photography at an end, we were taken over the caravans, a visit personally conducted by the Field- Marshal, whose manner perfectly fused the feelings of a tenant justly proud of a perfectly equipped luxury flat with those of the lord of an ancient though still inhabited historical monument. Two dogs, not unlike General Liddament’s, were making themselves very free of the place, charging about and disregarding the Field-Marshal’s shouts. When this was over, the military attachés were led to a spot where a large map hung on a kind of easel.
‘You’ll want me to put you in the picture.’
With unexpectedly delicate movements of the hands, the Field-Marshal began to explain what had been happening. We were in an area, as I have said, immemorially campaigned over. In fact the map was no less than a great slice of history. As the eye travelled northward, it fell on Zutphen, where Sir Philip Sidney had stopped a bullet in that charge against the Albanian cavalry. One wondered why Albanians should be involved in this part of the world at such a time. Presumably they were some auxiliary unit of the Spanish Command, similar to those exotic corps of which one heard rumours in the current war, anti-Soviet Caucasians enrolled in a German formation, American-Japanese fighting with the Allies. The thought of Sidney, a sympathetic figure, distracted attention from the Field-Marshal’s talk. One felt him essentially the kind of soldier Vigny had in mind when writing of the man who, like a monk, submitted himself to the military way of life, because he thought it right, rather than because it appealed to him. Available evidence, where Sidney was concerned, pointed to quite other than military preoccupations:
‘Within those woods of Arcadie
He chief delight and pleasure took,
And on the mountain Parthenie,
Upon the crystal liquid brook
The Muses met him every day
That taught him sing, to write and say.’
The Field-Marshal pursued his exposition with the greatest clarity, but the place-names of the map continued to stimulate daydreams of forgotten conflicts. Maastricht, for example. It took a moment or two to recall the connexion. Then, oddly enough, another beau monde poet was in question, thoug
h one of a very different sort to Sidney. Was it Rochester? Certainly a Restoration figure. Something about the moulding of a drinking-cup – boy’s limbs entwined, a pederast, and making rather a point of it – with deliberations as to what scenes were to be represented on the vessel? The poet, certainly Rochester, expressed in the strongest terms his disapprobation of army life even in art:
‘Engrave not battle on his cheek:
With war I’ve naught to do.
I’m none of those that took Maestrich,
Nor Yarmouth leaguer knew.’
This feeling that war was something to be avoided at all costs for personal reasons was very understandable; more acceptable, indeed, than many of the sometimes rather suspect moral objections put forward. The references, the engagement at Maastricht and ‘Yarmouth leaguer’ were obscure to me. The latter was presumably a sort of transit camp, the kind of establishment Dicky Umfraville had formerly been in charge of. Then some memory swam to the surface that d’Artagnan’s historical prototype had fallen at Maastricht, though details of the particular campaign remained latent. D’Artagnan was, on the whole, rather a non-Vigny figure, anyway on the surface, insomuch as there seemed little or no reason to suppose he was particularly to the fore when it came to disagreeable and unglamorous army jobs. Musing of this sort had reached Marlborough, his taste for being kept by women, remarks made on that subject to Odo Stevens by Pamela Flitton, the connexion between sex and war in this particular aspect, when the Field-Marshal’s discourse terminated. By that time the photographs had been developed. They were signed and handed round. Colonel Hlava, as doyen, made a little speech of thanks on behalf of all the military attachés. The Field-Marshal listened gravely. Then he gave a nod of dismissal. Finn and I packed them once more into the cars.
On the way to Brussels we passed a small cart pulled by a muscular-looking dog.
‘Once you would have seen that in my country,’ said Hlava. ‘Now our standards have risen. Dogs no longer work.’
‘That one seems positively to like it’
This particular dog was making a great parade of how well he was accomplishing his task.
‘Dogs are so ambitious,’ agreed Hlava.
‘The Field-Marshal’s dogs seemed so. Do you suppose they were pressing for promotion?’
‘A great man, I think,’ said Hlava.
I tried to reduce to viable terms impressions of this slight, very exterior contact. On the one hand, there had been hardly a trace of the almost overpowering physical impact of the CIGS, that curious electric awareness felt down to the tips of one’s fingers of a given presence imparting a sense of stimulation, also the consoling thought that someone of the sort was at the top. On the other hand, the Field-Marshal’s outward personality offered what was perhaps even less usual, will-power, not so much natural, as developed to altogether exceptional lengths. No doubt there had been a generous basic endowment, but of not the essentially magnetic quality. In short, the will here might even be more effective from being less dramatic. It was an immense, wiry, calculated, insistent hardness, rather than a force like champagne bursting from the bottle. Observed in tranquillity, the former combination of qualities was not, within the terms of reference, particularly uplifting or agreeable, except again in the manner their synthesis seemed to offer dependability in utter self-reliance and resilience. One felt that a great deal of time and trouble, even intellectual effort of its own sort, had gone into producing this final result.
The eyes were deepset and icy cold. You thought at once of an animal, though a creature not at all in the stylized manner of the two colonels at my Divisional Headquarters, reminiscent respectively of the dog-faced and bird-faced Egyptian deities. No such artificial formality shaped these features, and to say, for example, they resembled those of a fox or ferret would be to imply a disparagement not at all sought. Did the features, in fact, suggest some mythical beast, say one of those encountered in Alice in Wonderland, full of awkward questions and downright statements? This sense, that here was perhaps a personage from an imaginary world, was oddly sustained by the voice. It was essentially an army voice, but precise, controlled, almost mincing, when not uttering some awful warning, as to Gauthier de Graef. There was a faint and faraway reminder of the clergy, too; parsonic, yet not in the least numinous, the tone of the incumbent ruthlessly dedicated to his parish, rather than the hierophant celebrating divine mysteries. At the same time, one guessed this parish priest regarded himself as in a high class of hierophancy too, whatever others might think.
From the very beginnings of his fame, the Field-Marshal had never ignored Chips Lovell’s often repeated reminder that it was a tailor’s war. The new spruceness that had now taken the place of the conscious informality of ready-to- hand garments appropriate to desert warfare – to the confusion of those military attachés obliged hurriedly to tuck up their pullovers – was clearly conceived at the same time to avoid any resemblance to the buttoned-up army officer of caricature. It lacked too, probably also deliberately, the lounging smartness of which, for example, Dicky Umfraville, or even in his own fashion, Sunny Farebrother, knew the secret. The Field-Marshal’s turn-out had to be admitted to fall short of any such elegance. Correct: neat: practical: unpompous: all that to perfection. Elegant, he was not. Why should he be? It was wholly unnecessary, probably a positive handicap in terms of personal propaganda. Besides, will-power exercised unrelentingly over a lifetime – as opposed to its display in brilliant flashes – is apt on the whole to be the enemy of elegance. One only had to think of the Dictators to see that. Few of the Great Captains of history, with the possible exception of Wellington, had shown themselves particularly elegant in victory; though there, of course, one moved into the world of moral elegance, and, in any case, victory was not yet finally attained.
The cock-sparrow captain, major-domo to VTPs, handed over the brandy bottles in a neat parcel when we arrived back at billets.
‘A chap from Civil Affairs was asking for you. I told him when your party was expected back. He said he’d look in again.’
‘What name?’
‘Duport – a captain. He talked about getting you out for a drink.’
I was off duty that night. Although I had never much liked Duport, an evening together, if he were free, would be better than one spent alone. If he were in Civil Affairs, it was possible that his branch had received an official notification of our being in Brussels and he wanted to discuss some Belgian matter. It could hardly be mere friendliness, as we scarcely knew each other. I asked where was a good place to go.
‘The big brasserie on the corner’s not too bad. You’ll find all ranks there, but not many senior officers. If you’re like me, and see a lot of them, that’s a bit of a holiday. What’s the food like in England now? Custard on everything when I was last on leave.’
Duport turned up later. I had not seen him since the Bellevue. His reddish hair receded from the forehead, getting grey by the ears. He looked tired, perceptibly older. Like Pennistone, he carried a General Service lion-and- unicorn in his cap, and had changed into service-dress. Uniform did not suit him. Instead of building him up, it diminished the aggressive energy his civilian appearance had always indicated. This lessening of aggression was also signified by a more subdued manner. The war had undoubtedly quieted Duport down.
‘I saw your name as Belgian Liaison Officer in London on some document passed to us,’ he said. ‘Then found you were personally conducting this flight of swans. We run here parallel in a curious way with Army Group, and there are one or two things that could be straightened out if we had a talk. The usual stuff, Leopold’s marriage, the Resistance lads. When do you go back?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘Then if we had a talk tonight we could straighten out some points about policy. We’re very full of work at the moment, as I expect you are too.’
This was a rather different tone from the Duport of former days. We went to the recommended brasserie, as he had no better suggestion.
He seemed to have lost some of his old interest in material things. For a time we talked Belgian affairs. Dupont knew all about Kucherman, but had not met him.
‘He’s one of the ablest blokes they’ve got,’ he said. ‘However let’s give the subject a rest now. You were cremating your uncle when we last met.’
‘How did you come to join the army? At the Bellevue you were talking of sweating it out in South America, if war came.’
‘South America wasn’t on. As you know I was on my uppers at that moment. Then I got a chance of going to Egypt for a firm that wanted to wind up one of their branches there. Donners had an interest and managed to get me out. Getting back was another matter. The chance of a commission turned up. I took it. Wanted to get into one of the secret shows, but didn’t bring it off. I was in the Censorship for a time. Not much to be recommended. Then I had a bad go of Gyppy tummy – with complications. That was what ultimately brought me back to Europe and the mob I now belong to.’
‘You haven’t seen anything of Peter Templer, have you? Donners was helping to fix him up too – something in the cloak-and-dagger line – but I haven’t heard what came of it.’
Duport finished his glass.
‘Peter’s had it,’ he said.
‘Do you mean he’s been killed?’
‘Gone for a Burton.’
‘On a secret operation?’
‘Yes.’
‘I suppose nobody knows more than that?’
Duport hesitated.
‘It never struck me you wouldn’t have heard about Peter,’ he said. ‘There was a lot of talk about it all in Cairo – not the best security imaginable, but then Cairo is not a place for the best security. There was certainly a lot of talk.’
‘What happened?’
‘I daresay Peter’s still officially described as missing, but everyone in the know is aware he’s dead, even though the details vary. One story was he was murdered by his wireless operator for the money he had on him, but I happen to know that isn’t true. We’ll go to another place for the next round.’
We left the brasserie and found a café. It was less crowded.
The Military Philosophers Page 18
