Anthony Powell - Soldier's Art

“What’s been happening to you, Charles?”

“As you see, I’ve become a waiter in F Mess. I always used to wonder what it felt like to be a waiter. Now I know with immense precision.”

“But how did it all come about?”

“How does anything come about in the army?”

“When did you join, for instance?”

“Too long ago to remember — right at the beginning of the Hundred Years War. After enlisting in my first gallant and glorious corps, and serving at their depot, I managed to exchange into the infantry, and got posted to this melancholy spot. You know how — to use a picturesque army phrase — one gets arsed around. I don’t expect that happens any less as an officer. When the Royal Army Ordnance Corps took me to its stalwart bosom, I was not medically graded A.1. — which explains why in the past one’s so often woken up feeling like the wrath of God — so I got drafted to Div. H.Q., a typical example of the odds and sods who fetch up at a place like that. Hearing there was a job going as waiter in F Mess, I applied in triplicate. My candidature was graciously confirmed by Captain Soper. That’s the whole story.”

“But isn’t — can’t we find something better for you?”

“What sort of thing?”

That had been Widmerpool’s question too. Stringham asked it without showing the smallest wish for change, only curiosity at what might be put forward.

“I don’t know. I thought there might be something.”

“Don’t you feel I’m quite up to the mark as waiter?” he said. “Nick, you fill me with apprehension. Surely you are not on the side of Captain Biggs, who, I realise, does not care for my personality. I thought I was doing so well. I admit failure about the salt. I absolutely acknowledge the machine broke down at that point. All the same, such slips befall the most practised. I remember when the Duke of Conn aught lunched with my former in-laws, the Bridgnorths, the butler, a retainer of many years’ standing, no mere neophyte like myself, offered him macaroni cheese without having previously provided His Royal Highness with a plate to eat it off. I shall never forget my ex-father-in-law’s face, richly tinted at the best of times — my late brother-in-law, Harrison Wisebite, used to say Lord Bridgnorth’s complexion recalled Our Artist’s Impression of the Hudson in the Fall. On that occasion it was more like the Dutch bulb fields in bloom. No, forget about the salt, Nick. We all make mistakes. I shall improve with habit”

“I don’t mean —”

“Between you and me, Nick, I think I have it in me to make a first-class Mess waiter. The talent is there. It’s just a question of developing latent ability. I never dreamed I possessed such potentialities. It’s been marvellous to release them.”

“I know, but —”

“You don’t like my style? You feel I lack polish?”

“I wasn’t —”

“After all, you must agree it’s preferable to hand Captain Biggs his food, and retire to the kitchen with Lance-Corporal Gwither, rather than sit with the Captain throughout the meal, to have to watch him masticate, day in day out. Gwither, on the other hand, is a delightful companion. He was a plasterer’s mate before he joined the army, and, whatever Captain Biggs may say to the contrary, is rapidly learning to cook as an alternative. In addition to that, Nick, I understand you yourself work for our old schoolmate, Widmerpool. You’re not going to try and swop jobs, are you? If so, it isn’t on. How did your Widmerpool connection come about, anyway?”

I explained my transference from battalion to Div. H.Q. had been the result of Widmerpool applying for me by name as his assistant. Stringham listened, laughing from time to time.

“Look, Charles, let’s fix up dinner one night. A Saturday, preferably, when most of the stuff at the D.A.A.G.’s office has been cleared up after the week’s exercise. We’ve a mass of things to talk about.”

“My dear boy, are you forgetting our difference in rank?”

“No one bothers about that off duty. How could they? London restaurants are packed with officers and Other Ranks at the same table. Life would be impossible otherwise. My own brothers-in-law, for example, range from George, a major, to Hugo, a lance-bombardier. We needn’t dine at the big hotel, such as it is, if you prefer a quieter place.”

“I didn’t really mean that, Nick. I know perfectly well, in practice, we could dine together — even though you would probably have to pay, as I’m not particularly flush at the moment. It isn’t that. I just don’t feel like it. Dining with you would spoil the rhythm so far as I’m concerned. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m actively enjoying what I’m doing at the moment — but then how little of one’s life has ever been actively enjoyable. At the same time, what I’m doing is what I’ve chosen to do. Even what I want to do, if it comes to that. Up to a point it suits me. I’ve become awfully odd these days. Perhaps I always was odd. Anyway, that’s beside the point. How I drone on about myself. Talking of your relations, though, I heard your brother-in-law, Robert Tolland, was killed.”

“Poor Robert. In the fighting round the Channel ports.”

“Awfully chic to be killed.”

“I suppose so.”

“Oh, yes, of course. You can’t beat it. Smart as hell. Fell in action. I’m always struck by that phrase. Seems absolutely no chance of action here, unless Captain Biggs draws a gun on me for handing him the brussels sprouts the wrong side, or spilling gravy on diat bald head of his. You know Robert Tolland was running round with my sister, Flavia, before he went to France and his doom. You never met Flavia, did you?”

“Saw her and Robert together when I was on leave last year.

“Flavia never has any luck with husbands and lovers. Think of being married to Cosmo Flitton and Harrison Wisebite in quick succession. Why, I’d make a better husband myself. No doubt you heard at the same time that my mother’s parted company with Buster Foxe. She’s having money troubles at the moment. One of the reasons why Buster packed up. I’m feeling the draught myself. Decided shortage of ready cash. My father left what halfpence he had to that French wife of his, supposing, quite mistakenly, Mama would always be in a position to shell out.”

“Your mother’s at Glimber?”

“Good God, no. Glimber has some ministry evacuated there, so that’s one problem off her hands. She’s living in a labourer’s cottage near a camp in Essex to be near Norman — you remember, her little dancer. At one moment she was getting up at half-past five every morning to cook his breakfast. There’s devotion for you. Norman’s going to an O.CT.U. Won’t he look wonderful in a Sam Browne belt — that waist. Of course by the nature of things he can only be a son to her — a better son than her own, I fear — and in any case living with Norman in a cottage must be infinitely preferable to Buster in a castle, even allowing for the early rising. How sententious one gets. Just the sort of conclusion Tennyson was always coming to. You know, talking of the Victorians, I’ve taken to reading Browning.”

“Our General reads Trollope — the Victorians are obviously the fashion in this Division.”

“It was Tuffy who started me off on him. Rather a surprising taste for her in a way. You remember Tuffy? Nick, you make me talk of old times.”

“Miss Weedon — of course.”

‘Tuffy cured me of the booze. Then, having done that, she got bored with me. I see the point, there was nothing more to do. I mean I was going to prove absolutely impossible to set up as a serious member of civilised society. Stopping drinking alone was sufficient to ensure that. Even I myself grasped I’d become the most desperate of bores by being permanently sober. Then the war came along and I began to develop all sorts of martial ambitions. Tuffy didn’t really approve of them, although the fact they were even within the bounds of possibility so far as I was concerned was a considerable tribute to herself. She saw, all the same, one way or another, I was going to escape her clutches. The long and the short of it was, I entered the army, while Tuffy married an octogenarian — perhaps by now even nonagenarian — general. Just the age when you get into your stride as a soldier. They’ll probably appoint him C.I.G.S.”