The Military Philosophers

by Anthony Powell

  Olympia, London’s equivalent of colosseum or bull-ring, had been metamorphosed into a vast emporium for men’s wear. Here, how often as a child had one watched the Royal Tournament, horse and rider deftly clearing the posts-and-rails, sweating ratings dragging screw-guns over dummy fortifications, marines and airmen executing inconceivably elaborate configurations of drill. Here, in the tan, these shows had ended in a grand finale of historical conflict, Ancient Britons and Romans, Saxons and Normans, the Spanish Armada, Malplaquet, Minden, Waterloo, the Light Brigade. Now all memory of such stirring moments had been swept away. Rank on rank, as far as the eye could scan, hung flannel trousers and tweed coats, drab macintoshes and grey suits with a white line running through the material. If this were not a shop, what was it? Perhaps the last scene of the play in which one had been performing, set in an outfitter’s, where you ‘acted’ buying the clothes, put them on, then left the theatre to give up the Stage and find something else to do. Or were those weird unnerving shapes on the coat-hangers anonymous cohorts of that ‘exceeding great army’, who would need no demob suits, but had come to watch the lucky ones?

  ‘Ropey togs,’ said a quartermaster-captain.

  ‘The hats are a bit outré,’ agreed a Coldstreamer with a limp. ‘But one of those sports jackets, as I believe they’re called, will come in useful in the country.’

  Assistants round about were urbane and attentive. They too seemed to be acting the part with almost passionate dedication, recommending the garments available with the greatest enthusiasm. Was this promise of a better world? Perhaps one had reached that already and this was a celestial haberdasher’s. The place was not even at all crowded. Most of the customers, if that was what they ought to be called, looked about forty, demobilization groups taking precedence on points gained by age, length of service, period overseas and so on. We wandered round like men in a dream. As one moved from suits to shoes, shoes to socks, socks back again to suits, the face of a Gunner captain seemed familiar. In due course we found ourselves side by side examining ties.

  ‘This pink one with a criss-cross pattern might not look too bad for occasions,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘We used to meet sometimes, didn’t we?’

  ‘Aren’t you called Gilbert?’

  ‘At dances years ago.’

  Archie Gilbert had been the ‘spare man’ par excellence for every hostess in need, perfectly dressed, invariably punctual, prepared to deal with mothers or daughters without prejudice regarding looks or age, quietly conversational, unthinkable as taking a glass too much or making unwelcome advances in a taxi. His work had been believed to be in a firm concerned with non-ferrous metals, whatever they might be, though it had never been easy to imagine him in day clothes doing an ordinary job. However, in spite of that outward appearance, he had somehow or other taken on a world war. His fair moustache was a shade thicker, he himself had filled out, indeed become almost portly. Otherwise, more closely examined, he had not greatly changed. His appearance, always discreetly military, had, as it were, camouflaged him from instant recognition at first sight. His uniform – he wore very neat battledress, of normal cloth, otherwise cut rather like the Field-Marshal’s – was as spick and span as his evening clothes had always been. We talked of our respective war careers. He had been in an anti-aircraft battery stationed in one of the northern suburbs of London. One pictured a lot of hard, rather dreary work, sometimes fairly dangerous, sometimes demanding endurance in unexciting circumstances. Perhaps experience in the London ballrooms had stood him in good stead in the latter respect. It was impossible to remain incurious about the question of marriage; which of the scores of girls with whom he used to dance he had finally chosen. Perhaps his bachelor gifts were still too overwhelming to be extinguished in matrimony. I crudely asked the question. Archie Gilbert nodded, smiling gently.

  ‘Used I to meet your wife in those days?’

  He shook his head, smiling again.

  ‘We ran across each other when I was with the battery,’ he said. ‘Her family lived just over the road.’

  There the matter rested. He divulged no more. We talked of some of the girls we had known in the past.

  ‘Haven’t seen any of them for ages,’ he said. ‘One hears their names occasionally. Usen’t you to know Barbara Goring, who married Johnny Pardoe? He was rather odd for a time – melancholia or something – then he went back to the army and did well in Burma, I believe. Rosie Manasch had a lot of ups-and-downs, they say, with Jock Udall. Of course, he was shot by the Germans after that mass attempt to escape from a POW camp. Rosie was a great character. I used to like her a lot’

  He unfolded an evening paper.

  ‘If you were doing liaison work with the Poles, you may know the one who’s just married Margaret Budd. Do you remember her? What a beauty. I don’t know what happened to her husband, whether he was killed or whether it didn’t work. He was quite a bit older than her and distilled whisky.’

  He held out the paper. Margaret Budd’s bridegroom was Horaczko; the marriage celebrated at a registry office. The paragraph below recorded another wedding at the same place. It was that of Widmerpool and Pamela Flitton. Archie Gilbert pointed a finger towards this additional item.

  ‘That name always sticks in my mind,’ he said. ‘Barbara Goring once poured sugar over his head at a ball of the Huntercombes’. It was really too bad. Made an awful mess too. Have you decided what you’re going to take from the stuff here? It might be much worse. I think everything myself.’

  ‘Except the underclothes.’