Anthony Powell - The Military Philosophers

‘I was told you wouldn’t need me either after the first session, Kenneth,’ he said. ‘None of the stuff you’re moving on to will concern my people directly and we’ll get copies of the paper. There’s a particular matter back at the office I’d like to liquidate, if I could be excused — and Broadbent will be back tomorrow.’

‘It isn’t usual,’ said Widmerpool.

‘Couldn’t an exception be made?’

After a minute or two of sparring, Widmerpool assented ungraciously. I suggested to Templer we should walk a short way up the street together.

‘All right,’ said Templer indifferently.

This exchange between Templer and myself had the effect of making Widmerpool restive, even irritable. He looked up from the table, round which a further set of papers was being doled out by the chief clerk.

‘Do go away, Nicholas. I have some highly secret matters to deal with on the next agenda. I can’t begin on them with people like you hanging about the room.’

Templer and I retired. On the first landing of the stairs, the sneezing marine was drying his handkerchief on the air-conditioning plant. We reached the street before Templer spoke. He seemed deeply occupied with his own thoughts.

‘What’s working at MEW like?’

‘Just what you’d imagine.’

His manner was so unforthcoming, so far from recognizing we were old friends who had not met for a long time, that I began to regret suggesting we should have a word together after the meeting.

‘Are you often in contact with Sunny Farebrother?’

‘Naturally his people are in touch with the Ministry from time to time, though not as a rule with me personally.’

‘When I saw him at my former Div HQ he rather indicated his new job might have some bearing on your own career.’

‘That was poor security on Sunny’s part. Well, you never know. Perhaps it will. I admit I’ve been looking about for something different. These things take time. The trouble is one’s so frightfully old. Kenneth’s sitting pretty, isn’t he?’

‘He thought he’d never get that job. He was in fairly hot water when last seen.’

‘Kenneth can winkle his way out of anything,’ said Templer. ‘God save me from such a grind myself, but, if you like that sort of thing, it’s quite a powerful one, properly handled. You can bet Kenneth gets the last ounce out of it.’

‘You grade it pretty high?’

‘Of course, it’s nothing to find yourself working fourteen hours a day at a stretch, even longer than that, night after night into the small hours, and then back again at 9 a.m. If you can stand up to it physically — get the rest of the committee to agree with what you’ve written down of their discussion over a period of six or seven hours — you, as their secretary, word the papers that may go right up to the Chiefs of Staff — possibly to the PM himself. You’ve only seen the merest chicken feed, Nick. A Military Assistant Secretary, like Kenneth, can have quite an influence on policy — in a sense on the whole course of the war — if he plays his hand well.’

Templer had dropped his distant manner. The thought of Widmerpool’s potential powers evidently excited him.

‘It’s only a lieutenant-colonel’s appointment.’

‘They range from majors to brigadiers — there might even be a major-general. I’m not sure. You see there are quite a lot of them. In theory, they rank equal in their own particular work, but of course rank always carries its own prestige. I say, this possibility has just occurred to me. Do you ever come across Prince Theodoric in your racket?’

‘I believe my Colonel has seen him once or twice. I’ve never run across him myself — except for a brief moment years ago before the war.’

‘I just wondered,’ said Templer. ‘I used to have business dealings with his country. Theodoric’s position is a trifle delicate here, politically speaking, his brother, the King, not only in such bad health, but more or less in baulk.’

‘Musing upon the King his brother’s wreck?’

‘And the heir to the throne too young to do anything, and anyway in America. Theodoric himself has always been a hundred per cent anti-Nazi. I’m trying to get Kenneth to put up a paper on the subject. That’s all by the way. How’s your family?’

The abruptness of transition was clearly to mark a deliberate change of subject. I told him Isobel and our child were living near enough to London to be visited once a fortnight; in return enquiring about Betty Templer. Although curious to hear what had happened to her, I had not asked at first because any question about Templer’s women, even wives, risked the answer that they had been discarded or had left. His manner at that moment conveyed that revelation forced on him — if anything of the sort were indeed to be revealed — would be answered in a manner calculated to embarrass. There had been times when he liked to unload personal matters; this did not look like one of them. In any case, I hardly knew Betty, at least no more of her than her state of extreme nervous discomfort at Stourwater. However, enquiry was not to be avoided. Templer did not answer at once. Instead, he looked at me with an odd sardonic expression, preparation for news hardly likely to be good.

‘You hadn’t heard?’

‘Heard what?’

‘About Betty?’

‘Not ill, I hope.’

It occurred to me she might have been killed in a raid. That could happen to acquaintances and remain unknown to one for months.

‘She went off her rocker,’ he said.

‘You mean …’

‘Just what I say. She’s in the bin.’

He spoke roughly. The deliberate brutality of the statement was so complete, so designed to let no one, least of all myself, off any of its implications, that it could only be accepted as concealing an abyss of painful feeling. At least, correctly or not, such downright language had to be given the benefit of the doubt in that respect.

‘Rather a peach, isn’t she?’

That was what he had said of her, when I had first seen them together at Umfraville’s night-club, a stage in their relationship when Templer could not remember whether his future wife’s surname was Taylor or Porter. Now, he made no effort to help out the situation. There was nothing whatever to be said in return. I produced a few conventional phrases, none in the least adequate, at the same time feeling rather aggrieved that Templer himself should choose, first, to carry curtness of manner to the point of seeming positively unfriendly; then change to a tone that only long intimacy in the past could justify. Perhaps — thinking over Betty’s demeanour staying with Sir Magnus Dormers — this ultimate disaster was not altogether surprising. Having such cares on his mind could to some extent explain Templer’s earlier unaccommodating manner.

‘Just one of those things,’ he said.

He spoke this time as if a little to excuse himself for what might look like an earlier show of heartlessness.

‘To tell the truth, I’m feeling a shade fed up about marriage, women, my job, in fact the whole bag of tricks,’ he said. ‘Then this awful business of one’s age. You keep on getting back to that. If it isn’t one objection, it’s another. “You’re not young enough, old boy.” I’m always being told that nowadays. On top of it all, a bomb hit my flat the other night. I was on Fire Duty at the Ministry. Everybody said what a marvellous piece of luck. Not sure.’

‘Did it wreck the place completely?’

Templer shook his head, indicating not so much lack of damage at the flat, as that he could not bring himself to recapitulate further a subject so utterly tedious and unrewarding.

‘You haven’t any good idea where I might go temporarily? I’m living from hand to mouth at the moment with anyone who will put me up.’