Anthony Powell - The Military Philosophers

The rest of the tour of duty was quiet. I read The Golovlyov Family and thought what a pity Judushka had not lived at a more recent period and become a commissar. A month later the Allies entered Paris. George Tolland remained too ill to be moved from Cairo.

In due course V.1’s went out of fashion, and V.2’s, a form of rocket, became the mode. They were apt to come over in the middle of the morning. Finn was talking to me one day about the transference of Luxembourg personnel from the Belgian artillery (where they manned a battery) to the newly raised army of the Grand Duchy (envisaged with a ceiling of three battalions), when his voice was completely drowned. The dull roar blotting out his comments had been preceded by an agonized trembling of the surrounding atmosphere, the window seeming about to cave in, but recovering itself. I just managed not to jump. Finn appeared totally unimpressed by the sound, whether from strength of nerve or deafness was uncertain. He repeated what he had to say without the smallest modification of tone, signed the minute and put down his pen.

‘We’ve been ordered to take the Allied military attachés overseas,’ he said. ‘Show ’em a few things. Bound to cause trouble, but there it is. Dempster will be in charge while I’m away. David will probably take the Neutrals when their turn comes, so I shall want you to act as an additional Conducting Officer, Nicholas. Just cast your eye over these papers. It’s going to be rather a scramble at such short notice.’

He talked about arrangements. I picked up the instructions and was about to go. Finn drummed on the table with his pen.

‘By the way,’ he said, ‘I’ve made it up with Farebrother. He’s in Civil Affairs now and he came in yesterday about some matter he thought might concern us. Of course, he’s a fellow of great charm, whatever else one thinks. Told me he was going to get married — a general’s widow in MI5, “Won’t be able to conceal anything from her!” he said.’

Finn laughed, as if he thought retribution would now claim Farebrother for any sins committed against law and order in connexion with the Szymanski affair.

‘Not a Mrs Conyers?’

‘That’s her name. Very capable lady, I understand. Don’t know whether marriage is a good idea at the age Farebrother’s reached, but that’s his business. Get to work right away on the details of the tour.’

When the day came, the military attachés assembled outside the staff entrance. We did not move off precisely on time, because General Lebedev was a minute or two late. While we waited, another of those quaverings of the air round about took place, that series of intensely rapid atmospheric tremors, followed by a dull boom. This one seemed to have landed somewhere in the direction of the Strand. The military attachés exchanged polite smiles. Van der Voort made a popping sound with finger and mouth. At that very moment Lebedev appeared at the end of the short street, giving the impression that he had just been physically ejected from a rocket-base on to a pin-pointed target just round the corner from where we stood, a method of arrival deliberately chosen by his superiors to emphasize Soviet technical achievement. He was, in truth, less than a couple of minutes behind time, most of the rest having arrived much too early. Possibly the high-collared blue uniform, with breeches, black top-boots and spurs, had taken longer to adjust than the battledress adopted for the occasion by most of the others. Major Prasad, representative of an independent state in the Indian sub-continent, also wore boots, brown ones without spurs. They were better cut than Lebedev’s, as were also his breeches, but that was only noticeable later, as Lebedev wore an overcoat. He was greeted with a shower of salutes, the formality of Bobrowski’s courteously ironical.

Finn was suffering that morning from one of his visitations of administrative anxiety. He counted the party three times before we entered the cars. I opened one of the doors for General Philidor.

‘You accompany us to France, Jenkins — pour les vacances ?’

‘I do, sir.’

‘You will find a charming country. I lived there some years ago and was very satisfied.’

He was right about les vacances . Undoubtedly the buoyancy of a holiday outing was in the air. Only the V.2 had implied a call to order, a reminder that war was not yet done with. We took the Great West Road, passing the illuminated sign of the diving lady, where I had first kissed Jean Duport years before. I idly wondered what had happened to her, if she were involved in the war; what had happened to Duport, too, whether he had managed to ‘sweat it out’, the words he had used, in South America.

Although there might be a sense of exhilaration in our party, a crowd of officers unconnected by unit, brought together for some exceptional purpose, always tends to evoke a certain tension. The military attachés were no exception, even if on the whole more at ease than the average collection of British officers might prove in similar circumstances. This comparative serenity was, of course, largely due to the nature of the appointment, the fact that they were individuals handpicked for a job that required flexibility of manner. This was no doubt assisted by a tradition of Continental military etiquette in many respects at variance with our own. Officers of most other armies — so one got the impression — though they might be more formal with each other, were taught to be less verbally crisp, less surly, according to how you chose to assess the social bearing of our own officer corps. I had myself been more than once present at inter-Allied military conferences when the manners of our own people left much to be desired — been, in short, abominable by Continental standards — probably more on account of inexperience in dealing with foreign elements than from deliberate rudeness; still less any desire to appear unfriendly — as was apt to be supposed by the foreign officer concerned — for ‘political’ or ‘diplomatic’ reasons. However, if individual British officers could at times show themselves unpolished or ill-at-ease with their Allies, other sides of the picture were to be borne in mind. We put up with quite a lot from the Allies too, though usually in the official rather than the personal field.

By the time we entered the Dakota that was to ferry us across the Channel, heavy banter, some of it capable of giving offence among a lot of mixed nationalities, began to take the place of that earlier formality. This change from normal was probably due to nerves being on edge. There was reason for that. It was, indeed, an occasion to stir the least imaginative among those whose country had been involved in the war since the beginning, while he himself, all or most of the time, had been confined in an island awaiting invasion. Such badinage, in fluent but foreign English, was at that moment chiefly on the subject of the imaginary hazards of the flight, some of the party — especially those like Colonel Hlava, with years of flying experience and rows of decorations for bravery in the air — behaving as if they had never entered a plane before. Possibly a hulk like this was indeed a cause for disquiet, if you were used to piloting yourself through the clouds in an equipage of the first order of excellence and modernity. We went up the gangway. Colonel Ramos, the newly appointed Brazilian, swallowed a handful of pills as soon as he reached the top. This precaution was noticed by Van der Voort, whose round florid clean-shaven face looked more than ever as if it peered out of a Jan Steen canvas. Van der Voort was in his most boisterous form, seeming to belong to some anachronistic genre picture, Boors at an Airport or The Airfield Kermesse , executed by one of the lesser Netherlands masters. He clapped Ramos on the back.