Anthony Powell - Soldier's Art

“Something funny is going on there,” he said. “Diplock is at the bottom of it, I’m sure. I’ve told those Mess treasurers time and again to take the bottle from the cellar account and charge it to the bar account. They never seem to understand. In Diplock’s case, it looks to me as if he won’t understand.”

These doubts were not set at rest as the weeks passed. Not long after Widmerpool made this comment, several small sums of money disappeared from places where they had been deposited.

“I’ve recommended that cash-boxes be screwed to the floor,” said Widmerpool. “At least you know then where they’ve been left. Diplock put all sorts of difficulties in the way, but I insisted.”

“Have you mentioned these losses higher up?”

“I had a word with Pedlar, who didn’t at all agree with what I am beginning to wonder — I try to have as few direct dealings as possible now with Hogbourne-Johnson. I am well aware I should not receive a sympathetic hearing there. It will be a smack in the eye for him if my suspicions turn out to be correct.”

Then it appeared, in addition to the Sergeants’ Mess, something unsatisfactory was afoot in connection with the Commuted Ration Allowance.

“Mark my words,” said Widmerpool. “This is all going to link up. What I require is evidence. As a start, you will go out to the Supply Column tomorrow and make a few enquiries. I must have facts and figures. As you are to be travelling in that direction, it will be a good opportunity to explain those instructions I have here just issued to RA.S.C. sub-units. You can go on to the Ammunition Company and the Petrol Company, after you’ve gathered the other information. Take haversack rations, as they’re some distance apart, and the other thing will need some little time to extract. There may be lack of co-operation. C.R.A.S.C. has been difficult ever since the business of those trucks, which I was, in fact, putting to a perfectly legitimate use.”

At one time or another, Widmerpool had quarrelled with most of the officers at Divisional Headquarters. The row with C.R.A.S.C. — Commanding Royal Army Service Corps at H.Q., a lieutenant-colonel — had been about employment of government transport on some occasion when interpretation of regulations was in doubt. It had been a drawn battle, like that with Sunny Farebrother. Widmerpool’s taste for conflict seemed to put him less at a disadvantage than might be supposed. His undoubted reputation for efficiency had indeed been to some extent built up on being regarded as a difficult man to deal with; rather than on much more deserved respect for the plodding away at unspectacular work to which he used to devote himself every night in his own office. Personal popularity is an asset easy to exaggerate in the transaction of practical affairs. Possibly it can even be a handicap. The fact that Widmerpool was brusque with everyone he met, even actively disobliging to most, never seemed in the last resort to weaken his position. However the Diplock affair was rather a different matter.

Enquiries at the quarters of the Supply Column indicated that, as Widmerpool supposed, all was not well. His feud with C.R.A.S.C. had certainly penetrated there, if unwillingness to spare time to impart information was anything to judge by. I left the place with a clearer understanding of my father’s strictures, in the distant past, regarding Uncle Giles’s transference to the Army Service Corps. However, certain essential details were now to some extent available. There could be no doubt that, at best, existing arrangements, so far as the Sergeants’ Mess was concerned, were in disorder; at worst, something more serious was taking place in which Diplock might be involved. I brought back the material required by Widmerpool that evening.

“Just as I thought,” he said, “I’ll go and have a word with A. & Q. right away.”

Widmerpool stayed a long time with Colonel Pedlar. He had told me to wait until his return, in case further information collected during the day might be needed. When he came back to the room his expression immediately showed that he regarded the interview to have been unsatisfactory.

“Things will have to be looked into further,” he said. “Pedlar’s still unwilling to believe anything criminal is taking place. I don’t agree with him. Just run through what they told you again.”

It was nearly dinner time when I arrived back that night at F Mess. I went to the bedroom to change into service dress. When I came down the stairs, the rest of them were going into the room where we ate*

“Buck up, Jenkins,” said Biggs, “or you’ll miss all the lovely bits of gristle Sopey’s been collecting from the swill tubs all the afternoon for us to gnaw. Wonder he has the cheek to put the stuff he does in front of a man.”

He was in one of his noisy moods that night. When Biggs felt cheerful — which was not often — he liked to shout and indulge in horseplay. This usually took the form of ragging Soper, the Divisional Catering Officer. Soper, also a captain with ’14-’18 ribbons, was short and bandy-legged, which, with heavy eyebrows and deep-set shifty eyes, gave him a simian appearance that for some reason suggested a professional comedian. In civil life one of the managers, on the supply side, of a chain of provincial restaurants, he was immersed in his work as D.C.O., never in fact making a remark that in the least fitted in with his promisingly slapstick appearance, or even one to be classed as a joke. Off-duty he talked of scarcely any subject but army allowances. Biggs and Soper to some extent reproduced, at their lower level, the relationship of Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson and Colonel Pedlar in the General’s Mess; that is to say they grated on each other’s nerves, but, as twin veterans of the earlier war, maintained some sort of uneasy alliance. This bond was strengthened by a fellow feeling engendered by the relatively unexalted nature of their own appointments, both being much on their dignity where the “G” staff — ”operational” in duties — was concerned. There was, however, this important deviation in their reflection of the two colonels’ relationship, for, although Biggs, aggressive and strident, so to speak bullied Soper (like Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson oppressing Colonel Pedlar), it was Soper who, vis-à-vis Biggs, enjoyed the role of man of the world, pundit of a wider sophistication. For example, Soper’s knowingness about food — albeit army food — impressed Biggs, however unwillingly.

“How are the diet sheets, Sopey?” said Biggs, belching as he sat down. “When are you going to give us a decent bit of beefsteak for a change? Can you tell me that?”

Soper showed little or no interest in this enquiry, certainly predominantly rhetorical in character. He had picked up a fork, from which he was removing with his thumbnail a speck of dried vegetable matter that adhered to the handle.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” was all he replied, adding to the table in general, “Suppose if I complain about the washing up, we’ll just be told there’s not enough water.”

The raid that had taken place while we were on the Command exercise had damaged one of the local mains, so that F Mess was suffering from a water shortage; produced as excuse for every inadequacy in the kitchen.

“What do you say, Doc?” said Biggs, turning in the other direction. “Couldn’t you do with a nice cut of rump steak with a drop of blood on it? I know I could. Makes my mouth water, the thought. I’d just about gobble it up.”

Macfie, D.A.D.M.S., a regular Royal Army Medical Corps major, who had seen some pre-war service in India, gaunt, glum, ungenial, rarely spoke at meals or indeed at any other time. Now, glancing at Biggs with something like aversion, he made no answer beyond jerking his head slightly a couple of times before returning to the typewritten report he was thumbing over. No one among the two or three others at the table seemed any more disposed to comment.