Anthony Powell - Soldier's Art

“You’re out of touch. Generals are frightfully young nowadays. Widmerpool will be one at any moment. Anyway, they might do worse than employ General Conyers. I’ve known him for years.”

“My dear Nick, you know everybody. Not a social item escapes you. I myself can no longer keep up with births, marriages and deaths — well, deaths now and then perhaps, but not births and marriages. That’s why being in the ranks suits me. No strain in that particular respect. Nobody asks you if you read in this morning’s Times that so-and-so’s engaged or somebody else is getting a divorce. All that had begun to get me down for some reason. Make me tired. Anyway, to hark back to the long and wearisome story of my own life, the point was that Tuffy, like everyone else, had had enough of me. She wanted another sphere in which to exercise her tireless remedial activities. That was why I took the shilling:

I ’listed at home for a lancer,

Oh who would not sleep with the brave?

I am not, as your familiarity with military insignia will already have proclaimed, strictly speaking a lancer — just as well, for these days I couldn’t possibly take part in those musical rides lancers are always performing at the Military Tournament and places like that … haven’t sat on a horse for years …”

Stringham paused a moment, beginning now to hum a bar or two of a jerky tune, the sort to which riders at a Horse Show might canter round the paddock.

“So-let-each-cavalier-who-loves-honour-and-me

Come-follow-the-bonnets-of-Bonny-Dundee …”

He curled his wrists slightly, lifting them in the air as if holding reins. He seemed far away, to have forgotten completely that we were talking. I wondered how sane he remained. Then he came suddenly back to himself.

“… What was I saying? Oh, yes, A. E. Housman, of course … not my favourite poet, as a matter of fact, but that was just what happened … though I hasten to add I sleep with the brave only in the sense of dormitory accommodation. To tell the truth, Nick, I had the greatest difficulty in extracting the metaphorical shilling from an equally metaphorical Recruiting Sergeant. No magnificent figure with a bunch of ribbons in his cap, but several rather seedy characters in a stuffy office drinking cups of tea. Even so, they wouldn’t look at me when I first breezed in. Then the war took a turn for the worse, in Norway and elsewhere, and they saw they’d need Stringham after all. One of the reasons I left the R.A.O.C. is that they have a peculiarly trying warrant rank called Conductor — just as if you were on a bus — so I made the exchange I spoke of. What a fascinating place the army is. Before I joined, I thought all you had to do when you fired a rifle was to get your eye and the sights and the target all in one line and then blaze away. The army has produced a whole book about it, a fat little volume. But my egotism is insufferable, Nick. Tell me about yourself. What have you been doing? How are you reacting to it all? You look a trifle harassed, if I may say so. Not surprising, working with Widmerpool.”

Stringham himself looked ill, though not in the least harassed.

“On top of everything else,” he said, “one’s getting frightfully old. Do you think I shall qualify as a Chelsea pensioner after the war? I’d like one of those red frockcoats, though I’ve never cared for Chelsea as a neighbourhood. No leanings whatever towards bohemian life. However, one may come to both before one’s finished — residence in Chelsea and a bohemian to boot. You know I’ve been thinking a lot about myself lately, when scrubbing the floors and that sort of thing — an activity for some reason I often find myself quite enjoying — and I’ve come to the conclusion I’m narcissistic, mad about myself. That’s why my marriage went wrong. I really was awfully glad when it was over.”

“Do you do anything about girls now?”

“Seem to have lost all interest. Isn’t that strange? You know how it is. My great amusement now is trying to get things straight in my own mind. That takes me all my time, as you can imagine. The more I think, the less I know. Funny, isn’t it? Talking of girls, what happened to our old pal, Peter Templer? Do you remember how he used to go on about girls?”

“Peter’s said to have some government job to do with finance.”

“Not in the army?”

“Not as far as I know.”

“How like Peter. Always full of good sense, in his own way, though many people never guessed that at first. Married?”

“First wife ran away — second one, he appears to have driven mad.”

“Has he?” said Stringham. “Well, I daresay I might have driven Peggy mad, had we not gone our separate ways. Talking of separate ways, I’ll have to be getting back to my cosy barrack-room, or I’ll be on a charge. It’s late.”

“Won’t you really dine one night?”

“No, Nick, no. Better not, on the whole. I won’t salute, if you’ll forgive such informality, as no one seems to be about. Nice to have had a talk.”

He moved away before there was time even to say good night, walking quickly up the path leading to the main thoroughfare. I followed at less speed. By the time I reached the road at the top of the alley, Stringham was already out of sight in the gloom. I turned again in the direction of F Mess. This reunion with an old friend had been the reverse of enjoyable, indeed upsetting, painful to a degree. I tried to imagine what Stringham’s present existence must be like, but could reconstruct in the mind only superficial aspects, those which least disturbed, probably even stimulated him. I felt more than ever glad a week’s leave lay ahead of me, one of those curious escapes that in wartime punctuate army life, far more than a ‘holiday,” comparable rather with brief and magical entries into another incarnation.

Widmeroool did not like anyone going on leave, least of all his own subordinates. In justice to this attitude, he appeared to treat his own leaves chiefly as opportunities for extending freedom of contact with persons who might further his military career, working scarcely less industriously than when on duty. I should be in no position to criticise him in that respect, if General Liddament fulfilled his promise in relation to this particular leave, during which I too hoped to better my own condition. However, it was probable the General had forgotten about his remarks during the exercise. The tactical upheaval which immediately followed our talk would certainly have justified that. I had begun to wonder whether I ought to remind him, and, if so, how this should be effected. However, by the morning after the encounter with Stringham, I had still taken no step in that direction; nor had I mentioned the meeting to Widmerpool, who was, as it happened, in a peevish mood.

“When do you begin this leave of yours?” he asked.

“To-morrow.”

“I thought it was the day after.”

“To-morrow.”

“If you see your relations, the Jeavonses, it’s as well for you to know their sister-in-law staying as a paying guest in my mother’s cottage wasn’t a success. My mother decided she’d rather have evacuees.”

“Has she got evacuees?”

“She had some for a short time,” said Widmerpool, “then they went back to London. They were absolutely ungrateful.”

He talked of his mother less than formerly, even giving an impression from time to time that Mrs. Widmerpool’s problems had begun to irritate him, that he felt she was becoming a millstone round his neck. Widmerpool had been on edge for several days past owing to the Diplock affair turning out to be so much more complicated than appeared on first examination. Diplock had brought all his own notable powers of causing confusion to bear, darkening the waters round him like a cuttlefish, so that evidence was hard to collect. Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson, for his part, made no secret of regarding Widmerpool’s attempted impeachment of his chief clerk as nothing more nor less than a personal attack on himself. Indeed, Widmerpool could not have hit on a more wounding method of revenging himself on the Colonel, if his suspicions about Diplock were in due course to be substantiated. On the other hand, there was likely to be trouble if nothing more could be proved than that Diplock had been in the habit of keeping rather muddled accounts. Greening, the General’s A.D.C., came into the D.A.A.G.’s room at that moment. He handed me a small slip of paper.